Four Things Bjerke Got Wrong

About the Founding Fathers

 I attended the recent return of Usama Dakdok before a full house (about 500 people) at the Empire Theater.

He was here to let us know that the Koran gives all Muslims the right to lie and to kill non-believers; basically he was here to give us reasons to fear non-white or non-Christian newcomers.

But before Dakdok could give incomprehensible interpretations of incomprehensible excerpts from the Koran, Terry Bjerke came on stage to try to convince us that he and the Founding Fathers were on the same page.

But to my mind, Bjerke misunderstood the authors of the Declaration of Independence and the U. S. Constitution in at least four ways:

1."Your rights come from God, he declared, referring to the section in the

Declaration of Independence which says that men "are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights."

But the Deist Founders' Creator has very little in common with Bjerke's Bible-based, church-centered God.

2. Like many who mistakenly identify themselves with the Founding Fathers, Bjerke loves to disrespect government and to express fear and hatred of most government.

He is out of step with the Founding Fathers. Except for the first ten amendments, the Constitution is all about government--how to form one, what its rules are, how it works, what its powers are. The Founders were totally in favor of government. The whole point of the Constitution was to make a government which could last.

Why were they so passionately interested in building a sturdy government? The answer lies in a phrase in the Declaration of Independence. After asserting that we have unalienable rights, the Declaration goes on to say: "to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men."

The point is that the Founders believed that it was only government which could secure our natural rights. Those who disrespect government are disrespecting Jefferson, Franklin, Hamilton and Adams.

3. At one point I thought I heard Bjerke refer to "property" as one of the unalienable rights, but after life and liberty, the third unalienable right is the "pursuit of happiness." Property rights are not mentioned in the Declaration. Property is not a basic right; it is created by human law.

4. But the most discouraging betrayal of everything the Founders worked for was exhibited by Bjerke at the end of the program. Holding up the Constitution and the Declaration (and the Bible), and with venom in his voice, Bjerke dramatically declared that his rights could only be ripped "from my cold, dead hands."

This exaggerated rhetoric which suggests storm troopers are outside your door would be funny if it weren't so sad. No one is coming to take away two or three hundred million guns. No one--except perhaps the Koch brothers--is coming to steal your elections. No one--except perhaps gerrymandering committees of state legislatures--is going to take away your right to vote for a representative.

This obsession with seeing your government as the enemy is absurd. Obama is not King George. He was elected--twice--and he will be out of office in one year. The notion that your duly elected government is about to take away your rights but will have to rip your rights from your cold, dead hands, implies a gun battle to overthrow the government so carefully established by the founding fathers.  It shows contempt for the Constitution.