LETTERS: CONSTITUTIONAL IGNORANCE

To the editor:

Many of our younger citizens don't have the faintest idea of what our Constitution is. This is understandable when one realizes that our government schools are not too anxious for the students to know. Many of them even go so far as to imply that the Constitution is outdates, that it was drawn up for use in the horse-and-buggy days.

I have shocking news for them. Our Constitution is not about horses and buggies. Nowhere are they even mentioned. Our Constitution is the basic law of the land. It was drawn up to guarantee that our basic rights as citizens of the United States would not be violated by our elected officials. That applies today or the year 3000 A.D. just the same as the day it was drawn up. Basic things such as honesty, responsibility, fairness and freedom never do change.

Our congressmen, president and Supreme Court justices are all required to take an oath of office which requires them to uphold the Constitution when they assume office. When they violate the Constitution, which most of them do repeatedly, they are not only breaking their oath, but there are breaking the law as well.

Our president and Congress are obsessed with passing laws for the citizens to obey, and most of these, by the way, are unconstitutional (also unneeded). When they pass these laws, they also add a big penalty for violating them. This assure almost 100 percent compliance.

The one fault I find with our Constitution is that it does not provide a penalty for breaking its laws. If there was a penalty of a mandatory 50 years in prison for violation of the Constitution, we would see a tremendous improvement in our country immediately.

Our founding fathers probably saw no need of a penalty, because they mistakenly believed that the people would automatically vote anyone out of office who violated the Constitution. But, of course, this doesn't happen, because if the majority of the citizens don't know what the Constitution is, how are they to know when it is violated?

RAY UMBDENSTOCK

Cape Girardeau