Today, I finished reading “The 5000 Year Leap” by W. Cleon Skousen. While I knew a lot of that information on an instinctive level, it was great to have it all put out on paper for me to digest. What emerged from the pages of the book was the amazing insight the Founding Fathers had on human failings. They understood what would work in the long run and what would not. They told us what to guard against and how to manage this new invention. It was not a perfect invention, but it was real close.

When I have heard liberals talk about a living Constitution, I have always instinctively known that the statement was wrong. I knew the Constitution worked for any day. I knew that the only reason that liberals wanted the Constitution to be “living” is so they could change it without following the guidelines put in place to change it. The book gives me ammunition in discussions on why the Constitution is not a “living” document, but one that can stand the change in time and technology. It was written to manage human behavior. That has not changed in at least 5000 years.

I see the need to return to the use of the Constitution as our guiding light through these stormy seas. We have wandered away from the Constitution and need to get back on board. One suggestion made in the book that I had disagreed with in the past was to have Senators elected by State Legislatures again. I had always been a bit of a populist and thought that direct election of Senators gave the people the best way to have their say on what goes on in Washington. I had missed the connection between the states and the Senators that existed before the passage of the amendment electing Senators by direct vote. That essentially made the Senate the same as the House of Representatives. The different election pattern gave it a different feel, but since the people directly elected both, the Senators were not looking out for the States. This has led to an erosion of States Rights.

If Senators were elected by the legislatures of the states, they would be acting quite differently in this Obamacare debate. They would see it for what it is, a power grab by the federal government. Since the Senators would be looking out for the states, they would defeat it in a second. They are only considering it now, because they consider themselves to be federal agents instead of state agents. The Founding Fathers set the Senate up as agents of the State Governments. That way the people and the States each had representation in the legislative branch of government. Only things that were in the best interests of both parties would normally pass the House and Senate. Now, the state is ignored in this process. That makes the federal government take too much power.

Electing the Senators by the legislatures would eliminate the worst of the Senators. A bad Senator would not last. If they were not looking out for their state, the state would remove them from office. Senators also would not have to accumulate large war chests to run for office. This would remove large amounts of money from politics. That is always a goal of the left. Senators could be the true statesmen that the Founding Fathers envisioned. They would not have to spend most of their time raising funds and running for office.

Getting back to the original intent of the Founding Fathers would be great for the country. Getting out of debt and staying there would give us financial stability. Knowing what the laws are from time to time would enable investment and innovation. There are lots of positives and almost no negatives to go back to the original intent of the Founders. We obviously could not do that overnight. It would take time to change what we have into what we should have. The change would be like starting a car from a slow start. As we approached the goal of the Founders vision, the faster our society would go.

Right now, we are in danger of becoming the former United States of America. With the debt that our country has and the speed that Obama is printing new money, we are in danger of losing control of the dollar. That would mean hyperinflation. Zimbabwe had hyperinflation a while back. It basically destroyed the country. The money was worthless. There were no investments. Everyone was poor. The Weimar Republic in Germany had hyperinflation and Adolf Hitler emerged from the ruin. We have to stop hyperinflation before it starts, if it is still possible. If we cannot stop it, America as we knew it will cease to exist because our money will be worthless. Something different would emerge after the hyperinflation. An economist on the Glenn Beck show said that hyperinflation is friendly to governments as it allows it to wipe out debt with worthless money. The hyperinflation is horrible for the people, but the government is stronger than ever. We do not want that scenario.