Sleeping with the Enemy

Under a blood-red sky
A crowd has gathered in black and white.
Arms entwined, the chosen few
Newspapers say, it says its true.
--U2

Although some feel that the gradual loss of liberty experienced in the U.S. is due to movement away from the Constitution, a cogent argument can be made that it was precisely our Constitution, as written and ratified, that would inevitably lead to loss of liberty.

In fact, a group of individuals argued passionately in that regard during the framing process in the late 1700s. The so called 'Anti-Federalists' were suspicious of centralized governments and their proclivity to separate people from their natural rights.

Parenthetically, I find it interesting that most U.S. citizens (including yours truly) endure a dozen+ years of organized history and civics classes with little or no exposure to the other side of the Constitutional debate.

I'm currently engrossed in some summer reading to obtain a better flavor of the Federalist and Anti-Federalist arguments surrounding the Constitution and its subsequent ratification. One concept captured by University of Chicago scholar Herbert Storing's (1981) work was the Anti-Federalist belief that, over time, citizen attention drifts away from government workings and, when this inevitably occurs, bureaucrats usurp power and resources. A couple of quotes from Storing (1981) p. 52.

"'The aristocracy,' said a [Maryland] farmer, 'who move by system and design, and always under the colourable pretext of securing property, act as has been frequently said like the screw in mechanics, always gaining, holding fast what it gains, and never losing; and in the event has ever proved an overmatch for the multitude, who never act but from their feelings, and are never permitted to feel until it is too late...' Were the people always attentive, they could call unfaithful lawmakers home and send others; but they are not always attentive."

Or put more bluntly by the outspoken Anti-Fed Patrick Henry on the same page, "Virtue will slumber. The wicked will be continuously watching: Consequently, you will be undone."

As our forefathers worried, we seemingly lay asleep at the switch.

References

Storing, H.J. (1981). What the Anti-Federalists were for. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.