In the lunacy of modern politics, the baby was long ago thrown out with the bathwater. In fact, by now, several generations of babies have been so treated. It is not, however, a corrupt federal government, a New World Order, sleeper Marxist agents, Freemasons, the Illuminati, or members of either of the two major parties who are responsible for this treachery.

It is we, you and me, the American voters who claim to love the Constitution but show it no respect at all and who swear loyalty to the Founding Fathers' vision but consistently and completely ignore their legacy.

"Texans for Constitutional Government (TCG) believes, as our Founders' did, that our government draws its power from 'we the people,' citizens of this great nation. When an administration strays from our Founders' Original Intent and usurps powers not authorized in the Constitution, then we must hold that administration accountable at the next election. To do that, we must understand our republican (small r) form of government.

"One cannot truly understand our government without understanding the Founders' Original Intent. A good place to look for original intent is in the late 18th Century dueling arguments known as the Federalist and Anti-Federalist Papers. TCG believes that behind the Founders' Original Intent was a basic, common philosophy. The purpose of this series of STAR reports is to highlight the Founders' common basic beliefs – what we call the Founders' Philosophy.

"Although they came from widely divergent backgrounds, our Founders' had nearly identical fundamental beliefs. Almost all were well read in the thinking of Polybius, Cicero, Thomas Hooker, Coke, Montesquieu, William Blackstone, John Locke, and Adam Smith. They were also students of the Bible, particularly the Old Testament and the teachings of Jesus."

The quote above, from a conservative website, is clear evidence of everything that is wrong with so many Americans who "love" and "treasure" the Constitution. A wide range of hard-right-wing political movements insist that any understanding of the Constitution has to be based on the founders' "original intent." This is what that group quoted above does. But to claim a shared intent by all the founders in terms of religious beliefs, they have to pretzel-twist history, forcefully, into an absurd and unnatural shape. Their startling conclusion is that the founders' shared religious beliefs and depths of spiritual commitment were remarkably consistent.

There is a great ongoing debate about these very topics in regard to the Founding Fathers. The only "scholarly" groups in total agreement with one another are those that privilege their own partisan ideologies over history. They begin any study with the certainty that they are right and then set about finding evidence to confirm their views.

Hardcore proselytizing atheists, for example, have argued that most of the founders were either deist nonbelievers or had only the shallowest faith. Others, belonging to a range of religious fundamentalist groups, claim that since this is a Christian nation, the founders had to have been Christians. The above quote is an ideal example of Möbius strip reasoning.

Almost every person and/or group that insists we need to restore the Constitution actually does not want to restore it. Instead, they believe in the Constitution as they imagine it. Hating current politics, despising those who disagree with them, firmly convinced of the overwhelming tide of godless corruption, they want to return to those storied days of yesteryear when the Constitution was like the sun, shining its purifying light everywhere (but on them especially).

Online commenter Swells 22 (who regularly posts on the Chronicle's forum) wrote: "But I must agree that after studying its contents, context, and supporting papers, most people (including the Supreme Court) don't have a clue what was intended. My favorite line was from an innocent observer who wrote 'the Founding Fathers would be shocked and horrified at the idea that the Constitution was never edited and revised for clarity over the years.'"

The Constitution is actually quite specific, which seems to stop almost no one from insisting that the true document is the one they imagine: personalized, impressionistic, and cut to tightly fit their beliefs.

There is not a single document that applies equally to all Americans. Evidently, those who don't endlessly declare their patriotism are not patriots; those who don't damn others for not loving liberty and freedom enough obviously don't love either liberty or freedom at all. Many of those who disagree with others are certain of the others' sins because, being God-loving and God-loved Christians, they have clear access to the truth. They know exactly what God wants and what the founders intended – because they've heard it from the source.

Finally there is "original intent," the purest of all litmus tests. The founders were harmonious, so we just have to figure out what they were getting at.

The Constitutional Convention of 1787 began as an effort to rewrite the Articles of Confederation because so many problems had arisen that hadn't been addressed. Even though many in attendance vehemently opposed changing from a confederation, there were enough who believed that many of the problems could be solved only by establishing a federal government.

There were many different groups and concerns among the delegates. The Federalists favored a central government. The Anti-Federalists thought the Constitution gave too much power to the central government (as well as to the president and Congress) and not enough to the states. There were those concerned with the rights of small states and those who cared only about big states. There was a huge split between those comfortable with slave states and those who weren't. There were issues between the southern states and the northern ones. Delegates might agree on one issue and violently oppose one another on another. There were individuals who hated one another because of bitter disagreements. Overall, there was precious little harmony.

Consequently, there was one and only one organizing sensibility that all the Founding Fathers came to agree on. It was not religion nor was it small government or big government. It was that for a democratic republic to function, the absolute most important political tool was the ability to compromise.

More on that soon.