Appropros the most recent Michael Newdow Attempt To Be An Important Person-In-The-Spotlight...

When everyday people like you are told something is "Unconstitutional" what do we think that means? In my naivete, I tend to think it means if you would read the Constitution that you would find some section of it saying "Do not do so and so..." and thus banning whatever it is being called "unconstitutional".

Likewise, when we hear the word "un-American", we tend to think of the long history of the US, of the Founding Fathers, and the principles under which they formed this nation, particularly as expressed in early documents and practices.

So when we hear representatives of the ACLU, the American Atheists, People for the American Way, or whoever, on some talk show, saying Bush's inauguration pledge is "un-American" or "Unconstitutional", we tend to think they mean it is prohibited by the Constitution, or conflicts with the usual way things have been done here in the USA for the past 200+ years.

We would be wrong.

Because these people you are listening to -- and most leftists in general -- do not use these words the way we do.

Remember: liberals believe in a "living, breathing" Constitution whose meaning changes with the time. Instead of reading it to find out what's in it, we ask a certain person called an "activist judge" to tell us what it says today. Further, remember that these "activist judges" tend to lean left -- as the person speaking does.

Therefore "unconstitional" simply means "not favored by leftists." It is an appeal not to the actual Constitution, but to what leftists would like it to be today, and what, they are hoping it will become once their judicial allies get the chance to rule on this issue.

You and I think of "unconstituional" as a backward-looking term, referring to a written document. Lefitst think of it as a forward-looking term, meaning what they want it to be in the future, as determined by a person.

In short, when they say "unconstitutional", they simply mean "not favored by leftists."

And the same applies to "unamerican".

When leftists say government-sponsored prayer is "un-American", they do not mean, as you I and I hear it, that throughout our nation's history we officially frowned on the idea praying at government functions. Indeed, even the most casual study of our 200 years of history shows there have been many government-endorsed prayers, feasts, and days dedicated to God (such as Thanksgiving). Congress even hires a chaplain for such functions.

Instead, liberals mean it is not part of their corner of America, and of America as they would like it to be in the future. Not the past America, the one we can learn about through official documents and history, but a present, and hopefully future American, a totally secular America, which has never been, one modelled more closely on the Humanist Manifesto than the Constitution.

And I won't even go into how funny it is hearing the left freely call people "un-American", considering their history of denigrating people for using such terms. But again, consisitency isn't their strong suit.

One final disjoined observation: Isn't it amusing how we only 'discover' the Presidential inaguration cermony is "Unconstitutional" when we're swearing in a second-term Republican president? I mean, wasn't it equally unconstitutional when Bill Clinton did it? Or Lyndon Johnson? Why didn't we notice the how terribly unconstitutional and un-American the practice was back then?

Ah yes, because there's a double standard. Or perhaps because they think Bush actually means it when he affirms the vow and says "Amen."