Veterans day.

Attorney Carl Maughan of the Maughan and Maughan LC law frim recently addressed the American Legion chapter in Peabody Kansas at their Veterans day celebration. Here is the text of the speech:

Thank you.

My name is Carl Maughan, I am attorney in Wichita who was lucky enough to marry a Peabody native, Faith Johnson. She has blessed me every day since I met her and, through her, this community has blessed me too.

Faith is a veteran and currently serving in the Army reserve. I am very proud of her. Her service is a constant reminder of the sacrifice of our servicemen and woman - and their families.

First, let me thank all of you who have served in our armed forces, and all those who waited at home while a beloved husband or wife, father or mother, Son or daughter, left their lives to answer the call to duty. Through your sacrifice and the sacrifice of those veterans who came before you, the threat to our country from foreign enemies has been kept a bay. Your efforts have allowed us the privilege of exercising our freedoms at home, and the luxury of feeling that those liberties will never be threatened.

The irony is that under your protection, Americans have become complacent and have come to see freedom as an entitlement. We have forgotten that the constitution may face enemies, both foreign, and domestic and, consequently, we have failed to protect the Constitution from the threat it faces from apathy, and from the avarice of those who would seek to expand government beyond its constitutional bounds in order to provide comfort and security at the expense of freedom and individual responsibility.

This notion that the government has escaped its constitutional limitations is not a political notion. It is a common refrain from all sectors of the political spectrum. I hear it echoed from liberals who fear that domestic spying justified by the war on terror has weakened the fourth amendment. I hear it from conservatives who question the constitutional basis for a law which uses the power of government to force us to buy a product like health insurance. And, I hear it from my libertarian friends who are concerned that the prohibition on drugs undermines our sovereignty over our own bodies and is used to justify ever increasing intrusions into our privacy.

On a daily basis, the legislature interferes with the authority of the executive, the courts impede the power of the legislature, the Federal government intrudes in the province of the states and all branches of government, both state and federal, encroach on the rights of the individual. Government’s continual straining at the constitutional leash is not merely a political problem. It threatens the very existence of the United States of America as we know it.

Traditionally nationhood is defined by the limits of language, borders, culture and ethnicity. But America is defined by something more. It is defined by an embrace of the principles of the constitution, an embrace of liberty, and of the corresponding responsibility. America is defined by an embrace of the notion that the people, and the law, are sovereign and that the government is limited and subservient.

For generations, people have come from all parts of the world, from every culture and every nation to become Americans. They have been driven by a longing for the opportunity to be left alone to exercise their God given right to life and liberty and to pursue happiness in their own way. And they have embraced the ideal of ordered liberty set forth in our founding documents. In so doing, they have become American. The Constitution and the ideals it contains have acted as a glue, binding us together as one nation. Binding us together as Americans. Without this cohesive understanding of who we are as a people, without this common thread of respect for liberty and limited government , what is there that we here in Peabody have in common with Americans living in New York City, in Los Angeles, in the deep south, in Miami Florida, or with the 20 year old college student in Seattle? This nation is so vast. It is made up of so many disparate cultures, belief systems and races. There is little in common between our lives, and those of millions of Americans throughout the country. Without a common belief system to bind us together, from where do we get a sense of common national identity and purpose. If we lose this glue, we lose our nation.

Think for a minute about the numerical differences between those living in New York and those living in the heartland of Kansas and think about how different our values, concerns and interests may be from someone who lives in New York City or Los Angeles. If government is not limited by the constitution, if it becomes merely an engine of majority rule or a means to cater to those with the most numbers, the most money or those who mostly loudly vocalize their demands, then those of us who quietly go about our lives in Peabody, or Newton, in Wichita or Hutchinson, will be dominated by the political interests and demands of those whose lives in large population centers with interests and values that may be very different from our own.
After the revolutionary war was over, George Washington had returned home to Mount Vernon, contented to return to the life of a Gentleman farmer. But the nation called one more time. When they approached him and asked him to serve as our first president. He wearily asked: “Have I not given enough for my country?”
Ladies and gentlemen, you who have served, and you who have supported those who serve, have every right to return to your private lives with the thanks of a grateful nation. But your country needs you. We need you because it is you, the veterans and the families of veterans that best know the meaning of honor, duty and country. And while you may ask “have we not given enough for our country? The answer, just as it was for George Washington, is: No.

There is one more mission, one more call to arms, and one more time to step into the breach. That mission is not a small task. It is not something to be left to others. It is something that each and every one of us must embrace. It is the restoration of the Republic and reinvigoration of the constitution.
This is a call to educate yourselves on the history of our country, and of the meaning of the constitution. Arm yourselves with a deep understanding of the constitutional framework in which our republic rests, and arm your fellow citizens by passing that information along.

Engage in conversation and debate about the role of government in a constitutional republic and the role of government in the lives of a free people. Insist that your government live within the constitutional framework that was built for it. Do battle with those who would have that framework ignored or circumvented. This is a call to action, a call to join with others who love liberty, to band together and to jointly, and individually, commit ourselves to the restoration of the Republic.
The Constitution is not merely a symbol, or a rallying point, it is not a substitute for the flag. It is the blue print for how to ensure that the republic, to which we pledge allegiance today, is the same nation for which our fathers and grandfathers fought and died.

November 11 is veterans day here in the United States. It is a day when we remember and honor those who have served in the armed forces. In many other places around the world it is remembered as Armistice day, the anniversary of the signing of the treaty which ended world war 1. For me, November 11 has an added significance. I grew up in Southern Africa, in a country now known as Zimbabwe, but formally known as Rhodesia. It had been a self governing British colony, but when the British tried to impose their will on the people of Rhodesia, we, like America, declared ourselves independent from Britain. We did this on November 11, 1965. So, for me, Veterans day is closely tied with thoughts of independence and freedom. This is altogether fitting as freedom cannot be enjoyed at home if there is a threat from a foreign power. In the United States the role of our armed services has been to repel foreign threats so that we can exercise freedom here at home. Similarly, individual freedom cannot be properly enjoyed or exercised if, in the halls of government, the constitution is not respected. So, on this Veterans day remembrance, let us renew our declaration of our individual independence and commit ourselves to fight the erosion of our constitution.

The stated purpose of the constitution is to secure the blessings of liberty: for us, and for those who come after us. But it is not a magic document. It does not, by its very existence, secure the blessings of liberty for anyone. It is merely a framework for doing so. In order to actually secure the blessings of liberty we need people to preserve the framework and to insist that government act only within that framework.

President Reagan said it best when he said “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.”
Each generation must work to preserve the constitutional framework and pass it on to the next generation - intact, so that they too can enjoy the blessings of liberty and secure them for the next generation and pass along the framework to their children and their children’s children. This is the legacy of Veterans day.
The Armictice which ended world war one, preserved peace for one generation but the next generation could not hold on to it and the world was once again plunged into war. And, in the country of my birth, the generation who declared independence from Great Britain and fought the war that followed preserved freedom and prosperity for one more generation. But, for a number of reasons, the next generation could not hold on to what they had been given. Freedom and prosperity has now been lost in that country for generations to come, if not for ever.

Here in the United States, each generation of American veterans has preserved the republic from foreign threat and allowed the next generation to continue to live within the framework of the constitution, free from external pressure.
However, if we do not heed this call to arms, if we do not step into the breach one more time, if we do not tend to the constitutional framework here at home, we place at risk all the hard work of the veterans who have come before us. For, the constitution face enemies both foreign, and domestic. The task of defending our freedoms from domestic threats falls to us.

Just as our veterans stand as a protective wall from foreign enemies, we must stand as a protective wall against the threats to freedom. Threats that come from apathy, from a lack of education about the constitution, and from the desire of the political class to step outside the constitutional framework to buy power by giving benefits to people who are more interested in comfort and security than liberty and the responsibility it implies.

Ladies and gentlemen, if we do not answer the call, if we do not educate ourselves, our children, and our fellow countrymen about the importance of the Constitution, If we simply give up our right to self governance and abdicate to the government our responsibility to chose for ourselves what type of car we drive, what we eat, how warm we keep our house, how much of our money we get to keep, or how, and where, we chose to pray, if we allow the Federal government to render our state government impotent by deciding what laws the States can pass and how those laws might be enforced, If we bow to government’s constant tendency to step outside the constitutional framework, then the blessings of liberty, and the peace and prosperity it provides, can be lost even here in America.

Despite the sacrifices of veterans from Valley forge, to Gettysburg, from nomandy to Korea and from vietnam to Iraq and Afgahnistan, if we do not restore the republic and reinvigorate the constitution, then government of the people, by the people, for the people may indeed perish from the earth.

The task before us will be challenging. Government will always strain at the leash. And For generations we have loosened the chains on government, ignored the constitutional framework and become accustomed to the government doing things that were not intended by the constitution. But we are broke. Both literally and figuratively, we can no longer afford to have the government continue to act outside of the constitution.

I have told you that my boyhood home country of Rhodesia declared independence from Great Britain on November 11. The national anthem that was adopted for that country included a prayer to God to “give us strength to face all danger and, where challenge is,…. to dare.” It is in the spirit of this song and the spirit of independence, that I ask you to dare to accept the challenge of restoring the Republic and reinvigorating the constitution.

There will be those who say we cannot do it, that the domestic enemies of the constitution, (apathy, ignorance and avarice) have grown too strong. But, just as the founders declared independence with a firm reliance on divine providence and established this great country against all odds, I believe that, with the help of our veterans and God, we will be able to restore the republic, and the constitution.

Thank you.