(Aug. 26) I’ve been a big fan of South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem for years, but tonight, she cemented my admiration for her. She rooted her Republican National Convention speech in the example and principles of my personal hero, the “Father of the Constitution,” James Madison.
Not only was Noem’s substance important (more on that momentarily), but her citation of Madison and the founding principles also was somewhat courageous. We suddenly live in an age when this great nation’s philosophical provenance and its founders are under attack, not just from street radicals and statue destroyers, and not just from benighted high school history books, but also from an almost viciously dishonest project of the nation’s most traditionally powerful newspaper.
To cite a founder not named Hamilton, especially a southern plantation owner, is a well- and rightly-aimed thumb in the eye of the wokesters and cancel-culture avatars who portray the United States as intrinsically evil. They are wrong. The United States’s founding was the greatest single advance for human liberty in the history of mankind. Men like Madison, especially Madison, used astonishing genius, a phenomenal work ethic, tremendous goodwill, and high principle to create an empire of liberty.
It was neither easy nor simple. …
Said Noem: “Our Constitution gave only a few, narrowly defined powers to the federal government. Most powers were left to the states so that those closest to the people could decide the laws that would govern their activities.”…
And: “America is unique in the world. Government’s power at all levels is limited to the confines of our Constitution, which protects our God-given liberties and civil rights.”
At its heart, these are the principles at issue between conservatives and today’s “progressives.” The latter do not agree in limiting the size of government in general, in decentralizing the limited governments that are required….
[The full column is here.]
