"The federal government has run amok, far beyond the limits set for it by the framers of the Constitution of the United States, according to a group of Granite Staters who advocate a strict reading of the document.
The National Heritage Center for Constitutional Studies, a nonprofit incorporated 11 years ago as the New Hampshire Center for Constitutional Studies, says its purpose is "to teach the principles of liberty and union in the tradition of the Founding Fathers."
NHCCS will host a seminar on June 21 at Southern New Hampshire University on the Constitution as conceived by the framers, titled "A Walk Through the United States Constitution."
At the seminar, "We will take the Constitution word for word and clause by clause. We will have a classroom setting and it will be an interactive kind of session," said group chairman Dianne Gilbert, an Epping selectmen and long-time advocate of limited government.
"The main idea here is not to make everyone a constitutional attorney," Gilbert said, "but to plant enough information so that when they see something that happens to be contrary to what is in that document, they will begin to question it."
"We need to get people to start thinking like a founding father, and realize that if it ain't in the Constitution, you (the government) can't do it," Gilbert said.
Tickets for the seminar are $45 and will cover student material, rental of the facility and lunch, said Gilbert.
Those interested can register online at nhccs.org or by calling 679-2444.
Besides Gilbert, NHCCS's board includes a group of long-time New Hampshire conservative activists, including the Rev. Lee Button of Wolfeboro, a leader in the home-schooling movement and former chairman of Christian Home Educators of New Hampshire; Romelle Winters and Republican Rep. Dan Itse, both of Fremont. Honorary board members include former Rep. Harriet Cady of Deerfield and Pastor Garrett Lear of Wakefield.
"There aren't as many people familiar with the Constitution as there should be," Button told the New Hampshire Union Leader. "So, any introduction is important. It is also important to be able to take the next step and explain it in its historical context."
Gilbert said the seminar will explain that when the framers finished writing the Constitution in 1787, it had only seven articles, and "The bill of rights came later, as a condition of ratification for some states.
"We will focus on the seven original main articles, and so much time has gone by and water has gone under the bridge, that now you have to ping-pong back and forth as to where certain principles have gone over time," Gilbert said.
If the framers' Constitution had remained unchanged, "there would be a lot less government, certainly on the national level," said Button. "There would be a lot less imposition on personal freedoms, lower taxes and a lot more of people being able to set their lifestyles as they choose.
"Our goal is to create activism in regard to more conversation, more correspondence with legislators and more speaking out at the local level," Button said. "We want to encourage people to get more involved in the process, beyond just the learning of facts."
Itse called John Adams "the principal framer, who said that you have to interpret the Constitution according to the meaning of the words at the time it was adopted.
"Today," said Itse, "the Constitution is often misapplied because we try to put our own contemporary meaning to it."
He said the Second Amendment is misapplied today by restrictions on the right-to-bear arms.
"It is clear that in the minds of those ratifying the Constitution, they clearly understood the right-to-bear arms applied to citizens," not solely the military, Itse said.
Itse said the separation of church and state also been misunderstood.
The First Amendment's mandate, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion," takes on a clear meaning when the framers' intent is studied, he said.
"There were specific dominant religions in the various states," Itse said, "and what the framers were concerned with was that the national government should not institute a national religion to conflict with each state's commonly practiced religions.
"You can't interpret that to say that you can't have any hint of religion in government or politics," Itse said.
Gilbert said, "We believe that the text of the Constitution speaks for itself and that for any conclusion on what any section means, you must go back to the era in which it was founded, to what the people of that era believed we were getting. That holds today."
First they attacked religion, then the right to keep and bear arms, and if Obo gets his way with a pliant Congress, look for Blogs to be tampered with and Conservative talk radio to go the way of the Dodo.
Why, you ask?
THEY DESPISE FREE PEOPLE who can think and act all by themselves.
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