By: Linda Case Gibbons
Downton Abbey has stirred the imaginations of American viewers, enthralling its audience with the mores, the beautiful costuming, the opulence and majesty of the Edwardian Era.
The castle, in real life Highclere Castle, rests on 5,000 acres and has been in the possession of the current Lord Carnarvon’s family since the time of Charles II in 1679.
The breathtaking profile of the house, spires starkly outlined against the English sky, was designed by Sir Charles Barry who also designed the Houses of Parliament and used their beauty as inspiration for Highclere Castle.
The lifestyle of the day featured games keepers to provide for m’lord and lady’s dinner, a multitude of servants and privileged people who dressed in white tie and tails for elaborate and exquisite dinners.
We can enjoy this delightful series because it is entertaining fantasy and because we are no longer under British rule.
We can watch Kate and William marry and genuinely wish them well and can celebrate Queen Elizabeth’s Diamond Jubilee, because we are happy spectators and because we are no longer under British rule.
Then it doesn’t matter to us that the castle and other great English estates rest on former church property, confiscated on a whim when King Henry VIII turned against the church in the 16th Century.
Then it doesn’t matter to us that the servants in those days earned $50 a year and had to be seen and not heard when performing their duties or suffer the consequences.And then it doesn’t matter to us that Britain’s history was one wherein the king could change the religion of the land at a moment’s notice, kill off or imprison for life an arch rival for the throne, appropriate anyone’s land at any given time and dissolve Parliament at will.
It won’t matter to us because we fought to get away from that sort of rulership.
The people who left England for America knew firsthand the hardships entailed in a life without safeguards on their personal liberty and they took steps to change that.
Remember the old days? I mean the really old days – back when the Revolutionary War was going on.
Do you remember why we even fought the war?
Don’t worry if you don’t. It’s easy to forget the whys over time when you already have all the rights and privileges.
It all started when King George III tried to take away everyone’s weapons in the colonies. He knew of the unrest that was fermenting because of abusive and burdensome laws and taxes levied upon the colonies by Parliament.
He felt threatened by John Hancock and Sam Adams, the leaders of the "rebel militia” and ordered that they be captured along with the confiscation of colonial weapons and gunpowder.
He wanted these leaders out of the way. And so that he might better control his subjects, he wanted them defenseless. It was so much better for the king when he had a gun and his subjects didn’t.
The colonists never "hated” Britain. They were by and large Englishmen. What they hated was being kicked around like fools by the king, being bled dry for gain and profit by the king and being taxed out of existence by the king.
So they carefully drafted a document which was designed to prevent a dictatorship. It was so carefully drawn that it made it tough to seize power from the people and become a king or a dictator and that was the point.
And this is exactly what those who hate the United States Constitution oppose.
These "scholars” sneer at our Constitution. They study and teach this document, not to understand it or support it, but to dismantle it.
These people want to unilaterally change what they think needs to be changed without interference from the people. They skirt the Constitution with fiats and use emotional issues such as the deaths of children or the attack on a Congresswoman as reasons why the Constitution should be ignored and why you should turn in your guns.
But Americans have grown used to their freedom. They like being able to state an opinion without fear of retribution from the crown, to be free from persecution in their homes without fear of being rousted and put in the tower, and to be able to bear arms just in case the "king” goes nuts and he and his government begin to persecute its citizens by taking away their rights, by taxing them out of existence, by deciding, unilaterally what’s "best” for the American people.
And so when we are told by the likes of Piers Morgan law-biding citizens should be ashamed to legally own guns, that Britain doesn’t have a constitution and that our Second Amendment should be retooled in view of recent gun violence, it makes Americans wonder.
According to the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty, the British Parliament in Morgan’s country may pass any legislation it wishes. Our Constitution prohibits passage of laws that contradict the Constitution and requires special procedures to amend the document.
We like that, but it makes those who would be king angry.
Georgetown Constitutional Law Prof. Louis Seidman believes our Constitution has caused us nothing but problems, that it is out of sync with today’s world and that we should scrap it.
"Imagine,” the professor says, "the president or one of the party leaders in Congress – reaches a considered judgment that a particular course of action is best for the country (emphasis added).
"Suddenly, someone bursts into the room with new information: a group of white, propertied men who have been dead for two centuries, knew nothing of our present situation, acted illegally under existing law and thought it was fine to own slaves might have disagreed with this course of action. Is it even remotely rational that the official should change his or her mind because of this divination?”
Answer: Yes. It is our Constitution.
Our founders made it difficult to amend its provisions because they knew firsthand what a king, acting out of "the best interest of the people” could do. Checks and balances. It works much to the dismay of those who want to seize power from the hands of the people.
If ever the Constitution had it wrong, it was fixed. If slavery existed, it was fixed. Seidman didn’t mention that, but that isn’t surprising.
We Americans knew it when the king was out of line and we haven’t lost our knack for smelling out trouble. We have had this fight before and we intend to keep the freedoms for which we have fought.
So when "they” try to politicize the deaths of children and parade injured Congresswoman Giffords before us;
When "they” tell us the way to fix this is to punish law-biding citizens by publishing the names of legal gun owners and by taking away their rights to own guns;
When New York Democrat Rep. Jose Serrano introduces the joint resolution H.J. Res. 15 on Jan. 2, 2013 to repeal the Twenty-Second Amendment to remove the limitation on the number of terms an individual may serve as president;
When the president says he will use the 14th Amendment to unilaterally raise the debt ceiling;
And when Joe says President Obama intends to employ some type of executive action to ban our guns, we see it for what it is.
We’ve seen it before. Just not in America in the last 200 years. But bring it on.
Piers Morgan may enjoy having a Queen, but we ain’t aiming to have another King.
Hold the line, America.