Why aren't we celebrating today?

Today is Constitution Day, the 220th anniversary of the completion of work on our nation's founding document, without which there would be no United States of America -- at least not as we know it.

So where are the parades? Why isn't this a national holiday? Why do so many Americans have little or no knowledge of what's in the Constitution, how it got there and what it means?

Eric Lane and Michael Oreskes have some interesting observations on this subject.

Another example of how stupid Americans are

A new survey shows that less than one-third of the American populace is aware that rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court cannot be appealed to another court.

Such ignorance reminds me of an episode of 12 or 15 years ago when I was in a newsroom and overheard one side of a phone conversation between a young reporter and an attorney in the local prosecutor's office.

The attorney apparently had called with news that a defendant in a criminal trial had been acquitted of the charge against him. The reporter asked if prosecutors planned to appeal the acquittal to a higher court. There was a pause before the reporter asked the attorney to explain something he apparently had just mentioned, something about a legal doctrine known as "double jeopardy."

It's fun to feel superior

I suppose I should be alarmed at the fact that most Americans, according to a poll released today, believe that the nation's Founding Fathers wrote Christianity into the U.S. Constitution.

But I'm not alarmed. Instead, I take great pleasure -- smug pleasure, to be sure -- in knowing that most of my fellow citizens are so stupid. It gives me a feeling of superiority to have actually read the Constitution and to have noticed that it makes no mention whatever of God, or Jesus, or the Creator or any such thing.

Hey, world, look at me! I'm fully aware that the Constitution is entirely a secular document. Most Americans can't say that. They're not aware. Most Americans are stupid. I'm so proud of myself!

There was a time when such widespread ignorance worried me. What's going to become of us, I asked myself, with so many of our people so unaware of even the most basic of America's founding principles? But I learned to chill. There isn't much I can do about it, anyway.

Most Americans also say they don't believe in evolution, despite the overwhelming scientific evidence supporting it. Not much I can do about that, either. All I can do is feel intellectually superior, which, as I say, is not without its pleasures.

The three (or four) branches of the federal government are not co-equal

The hubub of late over Vice President Dick Cheney's notion that he's a separate branch of government unto himself has given rise to lots of talk about the "co-equal" status of the executive, legislative and judicial branches.

You'll hear no such nonsense from The Rascal. No, I'm not taking Cheney's side in this matter. I, too, consider his posturing ridiculous. My disagreement, however, doesn't rest on any of this fiction about "co-equal" branches of government.

Four months ago, I noted here that the Founding Fathers did not create a system of co-equal branches of government. Rather, they intended for the legislative branch to be dominant, as is evidenced in the Federalist Papers and even in some of the arguments against ratification of the Constitution from people who would have preferred co-equal branches.

You'd think that my admonition in this regard would have settled the matter among all concerned. But, alas, too many people have not paid sufficient attention to me, which is not only personally galling but also deleterious to the cause of domestic tranquility in our great nation.