YESTERDAY was the Constitution’s 225th anniversary… 

I feel privileged to have lived 1/4th the time our nation has existed under its banner.

Yet today I heard only one local radio commentator refer to it, and can search the Internet news and television sites in vain to see “Special Reports” to celebrate the Constitution’s birthday, as the world burns with hatred toward our land, people, and system of government.

It is not the people of the world who hate us which concerns me, but the people of America who know little of the contents of the document which has guided lawmakers and defenders of freedom for these two centuries past.

For them to forget or not care about what establishes their liberty is to give license to those political wolves who would change the charter for one of licentiousness; rewarding  dependents who offer their vote in exchange for a loss of personal and civic freedoms.

Even though a revival of interest exists among many, the people of the United States in general do not, in my opinion, know much about the document which protects their rights.

Said Daniel Webster: “Hold on to the constitution. For if the American Constitution should fail, there will be anarchy throughout the world.”

But the number of Americans who call themselves “patriots” and who “hold on to,” and respect the Constitution are not a majority.

They are frequently made fun of and ridiculed by the mainstream media and overpaid late night entertainment talkers from shows frequented by liberal politicians including a President who has called the Constitution “a charter of negative liberties.”

They are called “dangerous” by the politically left of center; even leaders of Congress who dispise their recent exercise of fundamental 1st Amendment rights calling them “racists” and “haters” and “teabaggers” — a perverse sexual perjorative issued forth from the  mouth of the President himself – for daring to disagree on policy matters which affect their lives.

This cynical political/media cabal have been encouraged further by the Department of Homeland Security and its sponsored studies to see those citizens who use certain terms like “liberty, founding fathers, US Constitution, and patriot,” as possible terrorist threats.

Who of the framers of the Constitution, or even one generation of Americans past, could have foreseen a US governmental agency pointing the finger of accusation at those citizens who embrace and who love the very Constitution they, in the agency, are sworn to protect? How did we come to this?

Could it be that we just don’t care? Not even on an anniversary such as today is?

Two hundred and twenty-five years ago the framers labored in the heat of a Philadelphia summer to find the exact and appropriate language to confer upon the people a guiding document which Patrick Henry so eloquently defined for them:

“The constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government, lest it come to dominate our lives and interests.”

When Benjamin Franklin left the signing convocation a woman stopped and asked the professional printer and publisher this question: ”Mr. Franklin, what kind of country have you given us?”

He replied, “A Republic, madam, if you can keep it.”

How many Americans could today tell an O’Rielly Factor, “Man on the Street” interviewer what a “republic” is?

Out of ten asked, what is your best guess?

The sad truth about the matter of having a Constitution which has so altered the state of affairs for the good of mankind worldwide for these 225 years is that it is disrespected not only by the majority of countrymen it protects but by both major political parties in ways the framers never could have imagined.

But the point is this:

Where is the celebration, the devotion, the reverence? 

I do have a partial answer and it is this–

It is in the few people here and there who sympathize with the conservative sentiments which built America. They may be called many things by media elites, by the liberals and progressives in general who scoff and ridicule,  but they simply call themselves, “Americans.”

These celebrate everyday, even upon the battlefields, the civic squares of discourse, the writers who keep the fires of freedom lit, the ministers, teachers, commentators who keep the focus upon the cause which so movingly was made public for their enemy to read when they declared independence in 1776:

“AND for the Support of this Declaration, with a firm Reliance on the Protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honour.”

WE THE PEOPLE, indeed do “ordain” and “establish” the Constitution of the United States of America everyday as we mutually pledge to each other to understand it, defend it, and protect it by the exercise of the “unalienable rights” which guided its framers and authors.

James Michael Pratt is a New York Times bestselling author of inspirational fiction and non-fiction, editor and owner of Jerusalem Reports, and frequent contributor to Red State and other conservative sites. His personal website includes biographical and other information regarding his work. He can also be found on FACEBOOK and Twitter.