Miss Constitution sincerely tries to decipher fact from opinion from fiction but has to admit that it is getting more difficult every day. Narratives are formed and disseminated as facts that do not match what she sees happening. She has decided to take the lens back a good way so that perhaps some sense can be made of the now. If we were in space and looking at earth, this is the distance she is pulling the lens back. What don’t we know? What have we assumed as true? What do we need to do to re-calibrate ourselves on the axis of reason and neutral fact that may help us come to effective decision-making as citizens of a Constitutional Republic?

The United States Constitution has been irrelevant for some time now, Miss Constitution. You are way behind the times. Its provisions are “relative” or “living” for whomever has power. Not real rules.

Well, Miss Constitution may well be behind the times, but she thinks the elements that make the Constitution a stable and lasting governance document that all can respect are that it is based on a reasonable assessment of human nature and what boundaries are needed to keep the ship of state secure and what boundaries are needed to bring out the best in each citizen. A true development of the person, not the state, as Henry David Thoreau would say.

Somewhere along the line we lost faith in that concept.  

History can help us. Honest history. Neutral facts. History begetting ideations, not ideations begetting history. We are a civilization of the West. Greek philosophy, Jewish moral teachings, Christian additions, and the great minds and doctors of the Catholic Church, forge the boundaries of what is Law and what is Lawful. Science and learning flourished in the West, aided by the Church. Libraries of precious thought preserved in writing, exploration encouraged, and new thought added to the great repositories of learning as contributions from other civilizations. The Protestant Reformation of 1517 rocked this Western world. The Protestant Reformation is still rocking the Western world. The rivets were loosened a bit on Western Civilization’s hull as religious wars raged in Europe.

Not a history lesson, please. Stay with me.

Exploration of the “new” world from Europe was a natural part of the human curiosity that science encourages just as we explore Mars and other planets today. It was governed by the International Law of Discovery. The early Protestant colonists that came to America were financed by companies in Europe. The idea was to find commodities that might be returned in the ships that brought them to pay for the passage and supplies. These colonists, often, were seeking a type of religious Utopia, an idealized society, as they saw it, to worship God as they pleased. What they found was starvation, disease, want, and death. Ships to re-supply them were often but hoped-for mirages. The key, though, was that if they survived somehow they could have land. They could own their own land. Feudalism, a great aspect of European life, was never part of the American story. This is revolutionary in and of itself. There was no slavery at this time, the 1619 Project notwithstanding. The slaves offloaded that year for emergency food and water were made indentured servants like everyone else.

After almost 200 years of agricultural development and experience in self-government the Constitution of 1787 and its Amendments represented a reasoned and fact-based framework for governing the nation. Moral Law was the enduring and ageless tenets of Judaism and Christianity. Positive Law was the will of the people as expressed in legislatures and township councils. Natural Law, as an endowment of existence, allowed humans the Liberty to find their own way within the Rules. Unwritten Law, as courtesy and goodwill, oiled the whole machine. Human nature was seen as feckless, even ruthless, but manageable within our four bundles of Law. The system was not perfect, but it encouraged the development of the individual person. Could innately flawed persons rise above their natures to improve their lives and the lives of others? Perhaps. Then came the Industrial Revolution and what felt like the diminishment of people to machines. The revolutions spawned in South America and Europe by ours, coupled with the effects of mass migration to industrial cities, produced great social unrest. Karl Marx came up with the answer. Workers of the World Unite. Class conflict. The rise of the State and the diminishment of the person. Marx threw down the gauntlet right at America’s doorstep. A different Utopia than America’s religious colonists, but Utopia, nevertheless. By 1913 seven heads of state had been assassinated by anarchists. By 1929 Russia had become Marxist (Communist) and America had sunk into the Great Depression. The US. Constitution’s promise seemed inadequate by comparison to the new Reformation of societies, sans God, sans Liberty, sans the Rule of Law. Many prominent Americans moved in its direction. Franklin Delano Roosevelt moved in its direction. He recognized the Soviet Union in 1933, without conditions he was prepared to enforce. The Golden Age of Soviet espionage began inside his administration. Millions died as a result. Millions.

But we have been told forever by some historians that FDR was our greatest President. Well, we have been conditioned to think he was and also that we won WWII. Neither is true. What it has taken, via disinformation and cover-up, to continue these myths is part of the reason we cannot get a handle on what is happening to us today. We need to know honestly what took place. Here is part of the war story:

President Roosevelt hoped America and the Soviet Union would converge. What really happened is that the United States implemented Soviet territorial aims as the junior partner and piggy bank. FDR refused to consider an early German peace so we destroyed an important German check on Soviet ambition.

1. Lend-lease represented a national looting of American materiel. Priority was given by FDR to the Soviet Union over American troop needs, including in the Philippines. 500,000+ trucks and jeeps were provided to Stalin that were used to enslave Eastern Europe. Uranium, heavy water, and other materials were sent by lend-lease through Great Falls, Montana to Moscow to create an atomic bomb under the secret direction of Harry Hopkins, Roosevelt’s closest advisor. Stalin detonated the bomb in 1949.
2. Stalin insisted that a second front be opened against Germany through France instead of Italy and the Balkans. This assured the take-over of Eastern Europe by the Soviets. American troops were halted to allow the Red Army to take part of Germany and half of Berlin. Operation Keelhaul forced the repatriation of European allied troops back to the Soviet Union. American troops beat and bayoneted those who resisted. The Katyn Forest massacre of Polish officers in 1940 by Stalin was kept secret.
3. At the end of the war it became clear that many American soldiers who escaped German prisoner of war camps were now in Soviet territory. FDR asked Stalin to let rescue teams pick them up. Stalin said, “NO”. Thousands and thousands of American soldiers were abandoned by their country. 20,000 + from WWII. The cover-up began. The cover-up continues. We find it hard to distinguish fact from fiction.

(To Be Continued.) For more information, see American Betrayal by Diana West, among other books.