A Metaphor of the Wrong View that the Constitution is Supposedly “Trash”

Today the U.S. Constitution seems to be unappreciated by many in our culture, including in academia, in the media, in entertainment, even in our government.

A couple of months ago on a bike ride on the beautiful streets of South Florida, I came across something that seemed to me to be a metaphor for our current disrespect for the Constitution. Of course, I may be reading into the situation. But it captured my attention enough to stop and take photos of this picture.

Someone was throwing out in the trash (please see below), along with discarded foliage, a faded, sun-bleached, framed reprint of a classic painting of the founding fathers during the Constitutional convention.

I thought how fitting these days—just throwing out the U.S. Constitution with the morning trash. I have already written in the past about a commentator saying on “The View” that that document was “trash”—he used that very term.

Earlier this year I did a radio segment with Dr. Daniel Dreisbach of American University, in which we discussed that particular painting and how the Bible impacted the writing of the Constitution. Dreisbach wrote about this theme, noting the open Bible to be seen in the bottom right hand corner of the picture.

Below are the pictures I took. If they threw it away because the image was so bleached by the sun, one wonders if they had esteemed it more, perhaps they might have taken better care of it. My guess is that this was a generational thing. Perhaps the parents at one time held the Constitution in honor, while the children let its image fade. But I’m just speculating. Perhaps they threw it away out of respect for the image being so poor—the way we discard a frayed flag.

Whatever the case may be, the Constitution is worth keeping in high regard. It has brought liberty millions, and it continues to do so. 

Photos by Jerry Newcombe of the faded picture of the Constitutional Convention being thrown out in the trash.