For the Left, There Are No Sacred Texts: Op-ed by Dennis Prager
Photo of the Constitution of the United States of America. A feather quill is included in the photo.The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America and is the oldest codified written national constitution still in force. It was completed on September 17, 1787.
A number of well-known spokesmen on the left have voiced reservations not only about the Republican decision to have members of Congress — both Republicans and Democrats — read the Constitution aloud at the opening of the latest session of Congress. They have also voiced reservations about the American veneration of the Constitution.
Three examples:
In a recent appearance on MSNBC, Washington Post staff writer Ezra Klein said: “The issue with the Constitution is that the text is confusing because it was written more than a hundred years ago and what people believe it says differs from person to person.”
Joy Behar asked her guests on CNN’s Headline News, “Do you think this Constitution-loving is getting out of hand?”
Congressman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., complained that “They are reading it (the Constitution) like a sacred text.”
What troubles Klein, Behar and Nadler?
The answer is that for leftism — though not necessarily for every individual who considers himself a leftist — there are no sacred texts. The two major examples are the Constitution and the Bible.
One cannot understand the left without understanding this. The demotion of the sacred in general and of sacred texts specifically is at the center of leftist thinking.
The reason is that elevating any standard, any religion, any text to the level of the sacred means that that it is above any individual. Therefore, what any one individual or even society believes is of secondary importance to that which is deemed sacred. If, to cite the most obvious example, the Bible is sacred, then I have to revere it more than I revere my own feelings in assessing what is right and wrong.
But for the left, what is right and wrong is determined by every individual’s feelings, not by anything above the individual.
This is a major reason why the left, since Karl Marx, has been so opposed to Judeo-Christian religion. For Judaism and Christianity, God and the Bible are above the self. Indeed, Western civilization was built on the idea that the individual and society are morally accountable to God and to the moral demands of that book. That was the view, incidentally, of every one of the Founders including deists such as Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin.
This is entirely unacceptable to the left. As Marx and Engels said, “Man is God, and God is man.” Therefore, society must rid itself of the sacred, i.e., God and the Bible. Then each of us (or the society, party or judiciary) takes the place of God and the Bible.
Morality is then no longer a God-given objective fact; it becomes a human-created subjective opinion. And one no longer needs to consult an external source to know right and wrong, only one’s heart. We are then no longer accountable to God for transgressions, only to ourselves.
That is why when there is God-talk on the left, it is usually about “the God that is within each of us,” not a God external to, let alone above, us, as Judaism and Christianity have always taught.
This explains the belief that is universally held on the left that the Constitution is an “evolving text,” meaning that it says what anyone (on the left) wants it to say.
Conservatives, on the other hand, do not share this view. They do not believe the Constitution has something to say about everything they believe in. While the left sees the right to abortion in the Constitution (because the left believes in the right to abortion), those who oppose abortion do not believe that the Constitution prohibits abortion. They believe that the Constitution is silent on the issue. Precisely because the right does believe the Constitution is to be treated as sacred, it does not claim that whatever it supports is in the Constitution or that whatever it opposes is unconstitutional.
There are humble individuals and arrogant individuals on the right and on the left. But there is no arrogance like leftist arrogance. If you hold a Leftist position, you know that you are smarter, wiser and more moral not only than conservatives, but more so than the Bible, more so than the Constitution, indeed often more so than everyone who lived before you.
Same-sex marriage is a perfect example. The fact that neither Moses nor the Hebrew prophets, nor Jesus nor the Buddha nor any great secular humanist thinker ever advocated defining marriage as between members of the same sex does not cause the left to rethink its advocacy of same-sex marriage; it only proves to them how morally superior they are to Moses, Jesus, the prophets and everyone else who lived before them.
That is why we must to treat the Constitution as sacred text. Because the bottom line is this: If it is not regarded as sacred, it is nothing more than what anyone believes about any social issue. Which is precisely what the left wants it to be — providing, of course, that the “anyone” is a liberal.
For the left, there are no sacred texts. There are only sacred (liberal) feelings.
http://www.dennisprager.com/columns.aspx?g=4ceb2148-9b70-4813-bdf4-205691d59091&url=for_the_left,_there_are_no_sacred_texts
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If only the founders had put that in the U.S. Constitution, we wouldn’t have to watch all these states pass legislation banning Obamacare while ignoring more important issues.
“WAAAAAAHHHHH they wanna cut our s***ty programs WAAAAAAAHHHHH”
Haha… Partly I believe the Tea Party members have a Kindergarten level knowledge of the Constitution
I am not sure they are kindergarten level of understanding, because I felt like I learned a fairly accurate depiction of history when I was young… except maybe Thanksgiving.
The Tea Party seems to pine for a Utopian, Stepford wives style version of history that has the founding fathers and constitution as perfect. They seem to want to forget about mistreatment of minorities and the basic extermination of Native Americans among many other mistakes.
I don’t think Americans should be ashamed about it, Americans just need to learn, remember and realize why things have changed and how the Constitution allows us to change things for the better (well at least most of the time).
John: “Encouraging people to stop farming unhealthy children is the least of my concerns” – just an example
To Nolan: Higher power?
Judges are just as polarized to right and left. For the last 100 years ideology has infiltrated the system corrupting the checks and balances.
Obamacare is simply unconstitutional by REQUIRING you to have insurance. I …love the Rep. that was proposing a bill requiring every American to buy a gun – perfect illustration of the point.
Theres alot of things the govts doing that they shouldnt be. Encouraging people to stop farming unhealthy children is the least of my concerns.
Re: The Constitution, the only “higher power” that counts is the Supreme Court. The Right bristles at that because they legalized abortion. However, they are also likely to take down Obamacare, which should make everyone happy.
“What if those people were wrong?” – thats why we had 3 branches of gov’t who were supposed to oversee one another and protect US from THEM.
that’s is the core of what is now failing in America as it has faultered more and more over the las…t 100 years.
I don’t think Prager is saying they are evil, there are some who are saying that – I don’t believe that. Evil has nothing to do with right or left.
I didn’t mean they want to “destroy the world” but they want to transform America and the world into a system based on their rules and ideology and not FREEDOM for all.
For example, Michelle Obama is leading the campaign to change what we eat. She’s lobbying the restaurant industry to change what is served, how much – is that what the government should be doing?
Yeah but creating even the minimum boundaries means that somebody in a higher position of power knows what is best for the rest of us…What if those people were wrong?
Again…Your idea of freedom differs from that of others…So what if we… are wrong? Thats my point…People like Prager (or for the heck of it throw in the leftist flavor of the month) are creating a culture where one group is right and one group is evil…You just did it yourself by telling me that the current left wants to basically destroy the world…
I think the framers wrote the Constitution to create the minimum boundries to prevent anarchy. There has to be a few rules to keep away anarchists and fascists.
The moral fabric of society, the Higher Power, is the backbone of these minimum …standards – that is all.
Absolute right and wrongs builds the framework of accountablility – again at bare minimum. Being right or left is irrelevant to the bigger picture EXCEPT that the current LEFT desires to undo the backbone, the fabric that holds it all together.
I agree that the right speaks to loosely to regulate certain individual rights, but so does the left. The left that Prager is referencing DOES NOT like the Constituion because it is limiting. Remember Pelosi’s response to the Constitutional challenge of Obamacare -”Are you serious?”
Great ideas blossom where there is freedom! it has little to do with left or right.
IDK…To me most of societies ills arent really ills at all…But thats a matter of my own personal opinion…I dont want anybody to tell me I hate god or America because of them…
The whole idea of this country is that anybody at any given… time can change their situation and the world at any given time…Having absolute right and wrongs kills off that entire beautiful way of thinking…
It’s like…If you completely disregard an idea because of it being right or left you might as well disregard people because they are short/tall, black/white, rich/poor and live in a world where people are just born with no room to grow beyond what they are…
The grey area is where great ideas blossom…Renegades change the world not people who think within the box
Why is the concept of absolute truth, right and wrong “Disturbing”, creating fear and hatred. If anything, the “gray area” created by moral relativism perpetuates most of society’s ills.
After stepping back for a few months and not watching tv or reading papers, etc, etc I can now see why nothing ever gets done in this country…
We live in such a constant climate of fear and hatred that it’s almost impossible to get anythin…g moving without the likes of Prager or any other pundits riling up angry mobs of people into believing that the “otherside” is out to destroy the world…Why would anybody ever want to live in a world of Lefts and Rights where everything is an absolute truth…
That whole article is insane to the 20th degree and disturbing…