SNOOP DOGGY DOG AND JAMES MADISON: AN EQUALITY OF SUPREME IGNORANCE VERSUS CONSTITUTIONAL LIBERTY

RAPPER SNOOP DOGGY DOG

After a long road trip, I recently took our Dodge Dakota to a local car wash for a good cleaning.  Unfortunately, in an adjoining bay, the savage, pulsating rhythms from a mobile sound amplification  system were blaring forth at a high rate of decibels.  Fortunately, though, I had a set of firing-range ear-muffs in the truck, which I immediately donned in an effort to blunt the noise.  Seeing me all muffed out, the young owner of the sound system sent an extremely dirty look my way.

The experience reminded me that I had come across a poll of recent college graduates that indicated that 96% of those finishing higher education in the U.S. could readily identify the rapper Snoop Doggy Dog, but only 48% could successfully place James Madison as "Father of the Constitution."  It would seem, then, that a comparison of these two personages who loom so large in the American cultural experience would be in order.

Born in 1971, Snoopy Doggy Dog grew up in the Los Angeles area.  From an early age, he had run-ins with law enforcement and was at one time affiliated with the gang known as the "Crips" (not to be confused, of course, with the "Bloods").  In 1993, after being indicted on a charge of murder, he was acquitted by a jury of his peers.  During his adult years, Snoop has continued to have problems with the law, most notably problems having to do with firearms violations.  He has openly claimed that he is the reincarnation of Bob Marley, and has expressed his admiration for Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam.  As an aside, Snoop's favorite hobby seems to be the raising of pit-bulls.

From "Doggy Dog World," Snoop Doggy Dog has regaled his audience with these sensitive, soul-searching lyrics:

Well, if you give me ten bitches, then I'll fuck all ten

See my homey Snoop Doggy sippin juice and gin

Don't slip, I'm fo' to set trip, to get papers

Styles vary, packin flavor like Life Savors

Ain't that somethin, talk shit and I'm dumpin

I had your whole fuckin block bumpin

Don't sweat, but check the tecnique , I'm unique like China

Ya never find the bomb-a-rama then this Nigga behind ya,

So, peek-a-boo, I'm comin through

Indeed, there is much more; but, no doubt, you will get the major thrust of the "artistry" that has sent Snoop to the top of the charts and has accounted for CD sales that have exceeded 30 million.

PRESIDENT JAMES MADISON

For recent grads who might have dozed off during American History 101, James Madison served the Republic as president from 1809 - 1817.  Of, course, bearing the moniker of "Father of the Constitution," Madison was a prime force in the drafting of the Constitution. In deliberations preceding the final drafting of the document, Madison addressed the constitutional assemblage more than 200 times.  Collaborating with Alexander Hamilton and John Jay, Madison presented cogent arguments in the Federalist Papers for the Constitution as being a solid basis for limited government and the preservation of states' rights.

Fearing that the newly ratified Constitution did not adequately protect both the rights of the central government and those of the states, Madison favored a series of amendments that would enable both constituencies to amiably coexist.  From an ample slate of proposed amendments that was originally considered by the Senate, a paring down eventually resulted by 1791 in the 10 amendments that make up this Republic's Bill of Rights. Thus, these amendments became the statement that anchored the American Constitution in such a way as to enable it to become the longest-lived written constitution in the history of the world.

Madison's political philosophy was originally closely aligned with that of Thomas Jefferson, who had early on favored a limited central government.  However, Madison, from experience gained as president during the War of 1812, eventually saw that there were exigencies that would call for more federal authority.

In No. 51 of The Federalist Papers, Madison, perhaps anticipating the dangers of an all-powerful and ill-tutored majority such as we see in 2013, wrote:

"It is of great importance in a republic not only to guard the society against the oppression of its rulers, but to guard one part of the society from the injustice of the other part....In a society under the forms of which the stronger faction can readily unite and oppress the weaker, anarchy as truly be said to reign as in a state of nature, where the weaker individual is not secured against the violence of the stronger."

It is without exaggeration that one can say that it is the Constitution which has sustained this Republic and its citizens.  Truly, the Constitution has weathered many storms, but now it is under assault from the highest echelons, in a massive effort to curtail individual liberty in favor of  a dumbed-down equality that would turn an exceptional nation into a drab caricature of its former self.  But, is this surprising in a country that is now led by a chief executive who believes Charleston, South Carolina, is located on the Gulf of Mexico, that there is an Austrian language and that he has visited 57 states of the Union?

Yes, dear readers, we are indeed at a crossroads.  Will the Snoop Doggy Dogs of this world continue to lower standards and expectations, or will Americans stand for the liberty and freedom that make up their heritage?  Shall we surrender our God-given rights based on natural law to the socialist world view of an equality of poverty?  Thus, I issue to you a clarion call to man the barricades of liberty and to summon forth all of your determination to reverse the present tide of cultural abasement that currently afflicts our land!