Wars overseas that last for years. Multibillion-dollar bailouts. A push for a trillion-dollar health care makeover.
Whether born on the left or the right side of the political aisle, the government's huge initiatives of recent years have left perhaps more ordinary citizens than ever wondering what influence they have over the forces that shape their lives.
Into this breach steps Michael Anthony Peroutka, a Pasadena attorney, former U.S. presidential candidate (he led the U.S. Constitution Party ticket in 2008, winning more than 150,000 votes) and co-founder of the Institute on the Constitution, an educational initiative that has offered seminar-style courses on the nation's founding documents since 2000.
Peroutka, 57, is no trained political scientist. A Czech-American and unabashed anti-abortion Presbyterian, he found himself getting frustrated so often at news reports of current events that he says had to do something.
"I got tired of throwing shoes at the TV," he says. "It was time to take real steps."
Peroutka and his brother and law partner, Stephen Peroutka, started the IOTC, an "educational outreach" arm of their law firm. About 500 people have taken the institute's courses on the U.S. and Maryland constitutions, and thousands more have attended lectures by guest speakers and studied the materials online. More than three dozen are enrolled in the current 12-week course on the U.S. Constitution, which Peroutka teaches.
In this, the institute's 10th year, there's more interest in the subject than ever, he says.
Perhaps the oddest part of Peroutka's mission has been realizing that even though most would call his views of life very conservative, he has learned to hew ever more closely to what he deems to be the attitudes of the founders, some of the most successful revolutionaries in history.
"That makes me a revolutionary, too, doesn't it?" he asks.
Those who have taken the course don't seem to mind. John and Marty Rogerson of West River decided to enroll a year ago out of a general sense of unease at the direction of government in recent years.
"I felt that, as a nation, we were just missing the mark as to where we should be headed," says Marty Rogerson, who heard of the class in a radio commercial. "I saw this as an opportunity to get back to the basics. What does our Constitution really say?"
She learned, among other things, that the founding documents encouraged a more self-reliant approach to life than is generally prevalent today, she says.
Marilyn Jacob of Baltimore, a self-described Christan, is attending the current course with a friend who is not. Both, she says, have found it "eye-opening" to see how deeply the founders' religious faith informed their views on government.
"Kids aren't taught that today," she says.
In a classroom dotted with signs reading "God, Family, Country," and posters depicting the founders, their teacher spoke of his 10-year mission.
Question: How did the IOTC get started?
Answer: The first meeting happened after Stephen and I had several conversations in which we realized that even though we had taken an oath to the Maryland and U.S. constitutions, as every [Maryland] attorney does, we were like many people: We knew very little that was in them.
We were also getting tired of feeling frustrated at what we saw happening on the news and not having a way to understand it. We decided to stop cursing the darkness and to light a candle.
We contacted some friends and business associates and said, "Let's get together and study the [U.S.] Constitution." We found some materials to do that. Later we found more, then developed our own curriculum. Ten years later, we're still at it.
Q: Are most citizens the way you were - unfamiliar with the Constitution?
A: I'll tell you a story. One of our instructors, the Rev. David Whitney, ran for state delegate and found himself onstage with some other candidates.
One of his opponents - he's a delegate now - said, "What's that book you're quoting from?" David said, "The Maryland Constitution." The man replied, "Where can I get a copy?"
Yes, we have elected officials who have taken an oath to defend the state constitution who have never read it or even seen it. Lots of them. And, of course, it's not just them. The problem is widespread.
Q: Why do Americans need to know these documents?
A: That puts me in mind of our founders and one of the things that impresses me most about them. When they stepped out against the most powerful army and navy in the world, they didn't just act like rabble in the streets. They learned what history's documents said. They went back to the Magna Carta, to the Mayflower Compact. They saw they needed not just to revolt against something, but to restore something positive.
I hope we all become concerned citizens who know what the Constitution says, what the rules are. I don't know what the future holds, but this way we can act intelligently.
Q: How did the early classes go?
A: It was a dynamic thing, with people interested and asking questions. Many seemed to be having what we call "aha" moments - "ah, if that's true, then it means this." That class swelled from 30 to 45 people - which has been our usual size range.
Q: Did you have your own "aha" moments?
A: Yes. The biggest was recognizing what the American style of government says about where law comes from.
Over the generations, we've swallowed an idea that is quite revolutionary, when you consider our original concept of law and government - that [legal authority] comes from the writings or the minds of human beings.
Our founders would have said something very different. Men like Patrick Henry and George Mason, to name just two attorneys, believed rights and law come from God, that the sole purpose of government is to secure and protect those God-given rights.
That's not the only view of government, of course. There are many others. But America was founded on that one.
Q: Did we depart from that in America? When?
A: I'm just a student of American history, trying to gauge what's going on around me. But in terms of the practice of law, I think it occurred in the late 1880s, when Harvard University, under the direction of [its president] Dr. Charles Eliot, and Christopher Columbus Langdell, his protege and dean of the law school [who originated the "case law" method], sparked a revolution in the way Americans look at law.
They had a Darwinian view: that the world evolves, so the law should evolve, too. This had the effect of removing authority from [divine sources] to something worldly - to what a series of judges may have ruled or said earlier. That flies in the face of the founders' views, but it's taught at virtually every U.S. law school today.
Q: What's wrong with that view?
A: Well, think of it this way: What was illegal yesterday might be legal today. Murder might be against "the law" now, but once the culture evolves to another place, it might be permissible in certain cases.
A succession of judges, not any universal moral law, decides what is acceptable.
The Nuremberg trials were all about this. The Nazi leaders on trial said, "We weren't breaking the law. We were following it." The judgment was, "No, there's a higher law, and you violated it."
To the framers, we could not be secure in our lives or persons without acknowledgment of some universal moral law.
Q: In your view, how does the U.S. Constitution enshrine such moral law?
A: It's in the very structure of the document. The founders believed in the fallen nature of man and so wanted to prevent any single power from becoming too great. It was Thomas Jefferson who said, "We need to bind the government down with the chains of the Constitution."
So they separated power horizontally, into the three branches. They separated it vertically, with local, state and federal governments. And they created a republic, not a democracy. In a democracy, if we had seven people in a room, and four said anybody who wore black pants should be [killed], that would be law. The framers spoke against the idea of democracy.
Q: One conservative pundit, Mark Levin, says the push for health care reform has left us at the brink of a constitutional crisis. Do you agree?
A: We're way past that. ... The dam gave way long ago. What we're seeing today, with the wars and bailouts and health care, are just the houses floating downstream.
Q: When did the dam break?
A: It has been gradual. We had a constitutional crisis when President [Abraham] Lincoln decided to march an army on American citizens. That accelerated the consolidation of federal power. It continued when [President Franklin D. Roosevelt] started a lot of the social programs.
Later, when President [Dwight D.] Eisenhower wanted to start the interstate highway system [in 1956], it was called the National Interstate and Defense Highways Act. Theoretically, I-95 wasn't build so you could drive up to Philly, but so that troops could move freely in case we needed to act in the national defense. They justified billions in central spending this way.
At the time, at least they still felt they had to at least tie those initiatives to constitutional authorization. Now there doesn't seem to be any effort at all to tie these things to the Constitution. It's seen as a dead letter.
Q: Is either party more culpable?
A: Left vs. right, liberal vs. conservative, Democrat vs. Republican - I don't see a big distinction. Back in 2004, from the standpoint of the things we're discussing, Mr. [ George W.] Bush and [his opponent] Mr. [ John] Kerry were the same person with the same plans. [ President Barack] Obama and [Republican opponent Sen. John] McCain are the same person.
I know it sounds like a striking statement, because in the news cycle, we're used to the contentious caterwauling between Democrats and Republicans, the left and the right. But from the standpoint of stepping away from American principles, they are in lock step with each other.
The question we should be asking isn't, "Is it liberal or conservative?" but "Is it constitutional?"
Q: If the drift is that powerfully away from the founders' vision, how can a small institute like yours help? Is there hope?
A: It's hard to talk in practical terms. When I was running for president, people asked me, "Why are you doing this if you don't have a chance?" I'd say, "I'm like our founders. I don't believe in chance."
When they faced tyranny from King George III of England, the founders said, "With a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence, we mutually pledge ... our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor." That's the last line of the Declaration of Independence.
We have a saying here at the law office: You've been given a row to plow. Plow your row. Do it the best you can. The harvest? That's [out of your] hands.