September 17, 2025 Constitution Day
Rogue River, Oregon
In the 1950’s, our fifth-grade civics class at McKinley Elementary, Tulsa Public Schools, studied America’s extraordinary form of governance and the leadership and public/citizens who created the United States of America from 1776 to our parents’ era of WWII.
In the early 2000’s, in law school, I studied our democratic Republic that had survived civil war and tetanic political shifts or global crisis and changes, to bring USA into the 21st century.
In 2010-13, in a Scotland post-graduate program, I studied the political, legal, and economic roots of our unique American constitutional rights of private property. Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations and Franklin’s commonsense wisdom, were prominent in the free capital enterprise and individual freedoms embedded into the Constitution. America’s “new order” established inalienable rights to life and liberty and property – and the social compact to give us rights to pursue our “happiness” within the law. We were not assigned rights or privileges by birth or conquest. We were guaranteed certain fundamental rights, and a natural rule of law to live in peace, under our constitutional governance of “We the People”.
Wanting to share the story of our unique country, since 2018 I have helped to distribute over 10,000 pocket Constitutions to students in Southern Oregon. Many heartfelt stories of tendering new love for America, have fueled that undertaking.
While preparing for 2025 Constitution Day, the news of Charlie Kirk’s violent death made the task of convincing public schools to accept free pocket Constitutions, challenging. Those who wanted to avoid conflict had new hesitation. Those who were open to the public discourse of ideas upon which our Constitution stood – and its adoption because of the first ten amendments – became hesitant too. That hesitation, a chilling effect on discussing what is constitutional and what is not and why, would have broken Charlie Kirk’s heart. He was all about the discourse of competing ideas in order to perfect our union.
My wish is that more of the college-age kids – who are now faced with engaging with the legitimate political processes that have served us well in the past – had studied the Constitution in a fifth-grade civics class. I wish they had discovered, as my generation did, that the founding principles and ensuing legitimate political processes, provide opportunities for each faction of the governed, to contribute to the making and enforcing of the rule of law. Committed civil public service has taken a backseat to either loud aggrandized agitation or sulking silence. Neither end well for individuals, or for their society. We have devolved into a ‘Hunger Games’ performative political arena. The ‘common good’ is a moving target among manipulative obtuse players and participants. We are all swept into the consequences and inconvenient outcomes.
Today, we do not avail ourselves of the power to change our country because we are afraid or ignorant and lazy. Maybe both. We throw rocks at our country and do not understand how it works. One of the most important balancing of powers, is that no single faction or authority/branch may subsume another without contest of the competing ideas. (For instance: Hamilton/Jefferson debate on locus and correct application for power of people or Presidents Jackson and FDR’s, and Presidents Obama and Trump’s, contests with the Supreme Court, which sought to redefine the definition of/interpretation of, the limits on constitutionality derived Presidential powers.)
The intricate balance and counterbalance to put into effect the principles of our social compact, is laid out in the “political processes” and rights that can be found in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the United States of America, and, one of my favorite recent civic lessons, in the youth video or graphics map of ‘How a Bill becomes a Law’. However, many of the dissatisfied today, seem to think they can only effect change by the notarity of violence or sensationalism. We are burning down the institutions and framework of self-governance with no realistic and viable replacement. I wish anarchists who now instigate angry dissident, had had Mrs. Elaine Scott in fifth grade and had been reared by parents like my Mother and Dad – who endured the Dust Bowl and Great Depression, crippling poverty and lack of opportunity, bias, Influenza, disease epidemics, lack of access to education or healthcare or courts/Justice, and WWII. My folks loved America and voted to change what they didn’t love about America.
Charlie was – and hopefully still is – a similar inspiration to many young people as Mrs. Scott and my Midwest family. He espoused changes that could be beneficial to the individual and to our country. He loved God. He loved family. He loved what is good in America. He was not afraid to debate his convictions or to respectfully hear/try to understand, dissenting opinions. It is sad that he paid for that, with his life.
Public discourse has given way to political or personal animosity of murderous intentions and mortal enemies only a few times in our country’s history. America has survived assassinations, attempts to murder or murderous intentions before. Significant incidents of politically-motivated violence is a part of our history: Dueling pistols to “settle things” was banned in the new country, but one match claimed Hamilton’s life in 1804 and his son’s before that; in 1856, Representative Preston Brooks nearly beat to death Sen. Charles Sumner on the floor of the Senate; in 1865 those opposing the victor in Civil War, assassinated duly elected President Lincoln; in 1881 a disgruntled political supporter shot duly elected President Garfield; in 1901 an anarchist who believed President McKinley was part of the elite oppression of the working people, shot him four months after the duly elected President took office; and there are at least thirteen recorded “attempted assassinations” of duly elected Presidents, Presidential Candidates or Past Presidents, from Andrew Jackson in 1835 to Donald J Trump (twice) in 2024.
One of the times when violence overwhelmed the debate in my lifetime, was the 1960s and 1970s – the triple assassinations of JFK, RFK, and MLK, Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement – and again in 2001 when on live TV, enemies of America caused almost 3,000 violent deaths on 9/11/ 2001. The entire world shifted. It feels like that again today. Words have failed. Political processes have failed. Making, interpreting, and enforcing the laws of our land has failed.
Each “side” of the contested issues has become an echo-chamber for its own entrenched ideology. We cannot manage the reconciliation of compromise or even just mounting a better argument for winning the authority’s next balancing. We are so investing in the glory of victory or the fear of defeat, that we fight to the death of both. We have abandoned the agreement to let the political process create, interpret, and execute the laws. Our passions rule out compromise, patience, or “winning over” as the natural order and seeks, instead, to annihilate the opposition.
That contest is not America’s best or our “better angels” where we would not need a government authority to live or to disagree. A democratic Republic, under our constitutional authority, is designed to not disintegrate into mob rule or this ‘might-is-right’ conqueror-ruler.
However. Benjamin Franklin’s reply, when asked upon leaving Constitutional Hall, what kind of government they had wrought, makes an important point. He is said to have cautioned: ‘A Republic, if you can keep it.’ He infers that “keeping” a Republic is difficult. It takes self-sacrifice and cooperation of individuals and a firm public service commitment to uphold principles and practices either enshrined in, or enacted in accordance with, the Constitution. Can we keep it?
In order for each generation to become the government (authors or enactors) or to be the governed, each generation must understand our extraordinary Constitution and the government it created. Otherwise, any action or reaction, becomes a shouting match of ill-tempered ideologists; making points for their followers at best – and at worst, setting up a victor/victim fight to the death. Each generation decides which.
Unfortunately, sometimes the outcome or manner of debate, is decided by default or lack of interest. In 1770’s, it is estimated that 40-47% of the colonial population were neutral or undecided, in the debate for supporting Independence from British Empire – the Revolutionaries or Patriots – or sending representatives to England to plead proportional representation/taxation. Support for the two opposing factions, the Loyalist and the Patriots, were nearly equal and static until England enacted taxations and burdens that caused the colonialists to abandon debate and diplomacy in the colonies and Parliament and convene for the Declaration of Independence and the beginning of the Revolutionary War.
In 1787-89, the Constitution was debated within the halls of the convention and debated in the public forum for many months after, with intense public discourse in the media and town squares of the time. The resulting document and ‘amendments’ caused the Constitution to be ratified and adopted, and put into effect for the new nation. It became a government by consent and control of the governed, under the authority of a written Constitution which provided the framework and methodology to adapt or change it with ballots not bullets.
Thank you Mrs. Scott. Your love for American History and for teaching about the good of America, was contagious. I am*, and our country is, the better for it.
jkew
A Republican from the “I Like Ike” era, through the Goldwater, Reagan and Silent Majority, to the Trump.2 Counter Revolution today, who has lived in rural Scotland and rural America in the mostly wooded hills and ridges of Missouri, Oklahoma, California, Utah, Washington, and Oregon – who loves America, who votes my convictions and conscience, and who encourages others to love America where I can.
4 comments
Rene McSherry
So glad I came across this site. The guy teaching does a great job of speaking Lainey and neither too fast or too slow. I’ll be watching all videos. I have both books too!
JKE Watson
Rather long-winded.
All I meant to say, was that every child should have their own copy of the Constitution by the time they reach High School and voting age – to learn for themselves, what an amazing country this is and will continue to be under their watch.
They are the Founders’ posterity and our future leaders. God Bless America.
JKE Watson
Rather long-winded.
All I meant to say, was that every child should have their own copy of the Constitution by the time they reach High School and voting age – to learn for themselves, what an amazing country this is and will continue to be under their watch.
They are the Founders’ posterity and our future leaders. God Bless America.
JKE Watson
September 17, 2025 Constitution Day
Rogue River, Oregon
In the 1950’s, our fifth-grade civics class at McKinley Elementary, Tulsa Public Schools, studied America’s extraordinary form of governance and the leadership and public/citizens who created the United States of America from 1776 to our parents’ era of WWII.
In the early 2000’s, in law school, I studied our democratic Republic that had survived civil war and tetanic political shifts or global crisis and changes, to bring USA into the 21st century.
In 2010-13, in a Scotland post-graduate program, I studied the political, legal, and economic roots of our unique American constitutional rights of private property. Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations and Franklin’s commonsense wisdom, were prominent in the free capital enterprise and individual freedoms embedded into the Constitution. America’s “new order” established inalienable rights to life and liberty and property – and the social compact to give us rights to pursue our “happiness” within the law. We were not assigned rights or privileges by birth or conquest. We were guaranteed certain fundamental rights, and a natural rule of law to live in peace, under our constitutional governance of “We the People”.
Wanting to share the story of our unique country, since 2018 I have helped to distribute over 10,000 pocket Constitutions to students in Southern Oregon. Many heartfelt stories of tendering new love for America, have fueled that undertaking.
While preparing for 2025 Constitution Day, the news of Charlie Kirk’s violent death made the task of convincing public schools to accept free pocket Constitutions, challenging. Those who wanted to avoid conflict had new hesitation. Those who were open to the public discourse of ideas upon which our Constitution stood – and its adoption because of the first ten amendments – became hesitant too. That hesitation, a chilling effect on discussing what is constitutional and what is not and why, would have broken Charlie Kirk’s heart. He was all about the discourse of competing ideas in order to perfect our union.
My wish is that more of the college-age kids – who are now faced with engaging with the legitimate political processes that have served us well in the past – had studied the Constitution in a fifth-grade civics class. I wish they had discovered, as my generation did, that the founding principles and ensuing legitimate political processes, provide opportunities for each faction of the governed, to contribute to the making and enforcing of the rule of law. Committed civil public service has taken a backseat to either loud aggrandized agitation or sulking silence. Neither end well for individuals, or for their society. We have devolved into a ‘Hunger Games’ performative political arena. The ‘common good’ is a moving target among manipulative obtuse players and participants. We are all swept into the consequences and inconvenient outcomes.
Today, we do not avail ourselves of the power to change our country because we are afraid or ignorant and lazy. Maybe both. We throw rocks at our country and do not understand how it works. One of the most important balancing of powers, is that no single faction or authority/branch may subsume another without contest of the competing ideas. (For instance: Hamilton/Jefferson debate on locus and correct application for power of people or Presidents Jackson and FDR’s, and Presidents Obama and Trump’s, contests with the Supreme Court, which sought to redefine the definition of/interpretation of, the limits on constitutionality derived Presidential powers.)
The intricate balance and counterbalance to put into effect the principles of our social compact, is laid out in the “political processes” and rights that can be found in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the United States of America, and, one of my favorite recent civic lessons, in the youth video or graphics map of ‘How a Bill becomes a Law’. However, many of the dissatisfied today, seem to think they can only effect change by the notarity of violence or sensationalism. We are burning down the institutions and framework of self-governance with no realistic and viable replacement. I wish anarchists who now instigate angry dissident, had had Mrs. Elaine Scott in fifth grade and had been reared by parents like my Mother and Dad – who endured the Dust Bowl and Great Depression, crippling poverty and lack of opportunity, bias, Influenza, disease epidemics, lack of access to education or healthcare or courts/Justice, and WWII. My folks loved America and voted to change what they didn’t love about America.
Charlie was – and hopefully still is – a similar inspiration to many young people as Mrs. Scott and my Midwest family. He espoused changes that could be beneficial to the individual and to our country. He loved God. He loved family. He loved what is good in America. He was not afraid to debate his convictions or to respectfully hear/try to understand, dissenting opinions. It is sad that he paid for that, with his life.
Public discourse has given way to political or personal animosity of murderous intentions and mortal enemies only a few times in our country’s history. America has survived assassinations, attempts to murder or murderous intentions before. Significant incidents of politically-motivated violence is a part of our history: Dueling pistols to “settle things” was banned in the new country, but one match claimed Hamilton’s life in 1804 and his son’s before that; in 1856, Representative Preston Brooks nearly beat to death Sen. Charles Sumner on the floor of the Senate; in 1865 those opposing the victor in Civil War, assassinated duly elected President Lincoln; in 1881 a disgruntled political supporter shot duly elected President Garfield; in 1901 an anarchist who believed President McKinley was part of the elite oppression of the working people, shot him four months after the duly elected President took office; and there are at least thirteen recorded “attempted assassinations” of duly elected Presidents, Presidential Candidates or Past Presidents, from Andrew Jackson in 1835 to Donald J Trump (twice) in 2024.
One of the times when violence overwhelmed the debate in my lifetime, was the 1960s and 1970s – the triple assassinations of JFK, RFK, and MLK, Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement – and again in 2001 when on live TV, enemies of America caused almost 3,000 violent deaths on 9/11/ 2001. The entire world shifted. It feels like that again today. Words have failed. Political processes have failed. Making, interpreting, and enforcing the laws of our land has failed.
Each “side” of the contested issues has become an echo-chamber for its own entrenched ideology. We cannot manage the reconciliation of compromise or even just mounting a better argument for winning the authority’s next balancing. We are so investing in the glory of victory or the fear of defeat, that we fight to the death of both. We have abandoned the agreement to let the political process create, interpret, and execute the laws. Our passions rule out compromise, patience, or “winning over” as the natural order and seeks, instead, to annihilate the opposition.
That contest is not America’s best or our “better angels” where we would not need a government authority to live or to disagree. A democratic Republic, under our constitutional authority, is designed to not disintegrate into mob rule or this ‘might-is-right’ conqueror-ruler.
However. Benjamin Franklin’s reply, when asked upon leaving Constitutional Hall, what kind of government they had wrought, makes an important point. He is said to have cautioned: ‘A Republic, if you can keep it.’ He infers that “keeping” a Republic is difficult. It takes self-sacrifice and cooperation of individuals and a firm public service commitment to uphold principles and practices either enshrined in, or enacted in accordance with, the Constitution. Can we keep it?
In order for each generation to become the government (authors or enactors) or to be the governed, each generation must understand our extraordinary Constitution and the government it created. Otherwise, any action or reaction, becomes a shouting match of ill-tempered ideologists; making points for their followers at best – and at worst, setting up a victor/victim fight to the death. Each generation decides which.
Unfortunately, sometimes the outcome or manner of debate, is decided by default or lack of interest. In 1770’s, it is estimated that 40-47% of the colonial population were neutral or undecided, in the debate for supporting Independence from British Empire – the Revolutionaries or Patriots – or sending representatives to England to plead proportional representation/taxation. Support for the two opposing factions, the Loyalist and the Patriots, were nearly equal and static until England enacted taxations and burdens that caused the colonialists to abandon debate and diplomacy in the colonies and Parliament and convene for the Declaration of Independence and the beginning of the Revolutionary War.
In 1787-89, the Constitution was debated within the halls of the convention and debated in the public forum for many months after, with intense public discourse in the media and town squares of the time. The resulting document and ‘amendments’ caused the Constitution to be ratified and adopted, and put into effect for the new nation. It became a government by consent and control of the governed, under the authority of a written Constitution which provided the framework and methodology to adapt or change it with ballots not bullets.
Thank you Mrs. Scott. Your love for American History and for teaching about the good of America, was contagious. I am*, and our country is, the better for it.
jkew
A Republican from the “I Like Ike” era, through the Goldwater, Reagan and Silent Majority, to the Trump.2 Counter Revolution today, who has lived in rural Scotland and rural America in the mostly wooded hills and ridges of Missouri, Oklahoma, California, Utah, Washington, and Oregon – who loves America, who votes my convictions and conscience, and who encourages others to love America where I can.