New TV Series, Paradise Poses Questions a Dystopian America Must Answer
Would America be the Same Nation if the U.S. Constitution Were Altered Without the Proper Process--For Any Reason?
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Paradise is a new TV show set in a dystopian America. Without giving away more than plot info, the world has ostensibly been destroyed (it’s in the early episodes, so we don’t know how, yet). And we learn the U.S. government has constructed a massive virtual United States, in the form of a small idyllic city, under a mountain.
Government officials selected 25,000 people to be residents of this “new America.” Advanced technology recreated the effect of living in a quaint, suburban city in the “old America.” The main characters are mostly politicians, political officials, and U.S. Secret Service agents. The show begins with the agents carrying out their routine duties protecting the U.S. President at the “White House.”
It’s an interesting premise that explores issues such as how to choose which 25,000 people to save while the rest perish. There are also other existential issues regarding life in this fabricated facsimile. But human nature doesn’t change, so we enjoy the traditional struggle between good and evil while trying to figure out which is which and to what degree.
While watching, a notion struck me but not about the issues mentioned above. It came when someone commented about how easy it is to protect the President in a society without guns.
The people had to surrender their firearms before they were allowed to enter the new virtual world. But wait, they’ve preserved the President, so this is still supposed to be America, right? All ten Bill of Rights of it.
It appears these officials weren’t attempting to maintain the Founders’ vision of the United States of America, but some skewed doppelganger version.
If the government rescinds, ignores, infringes on the Second Amendment (or any Amendment), the U.S. Constitution has effectively been nullified regardless of which other rights remain. Anything added to or removed from the Constitution outside the proper amendment process renders the entire document invalid because any other right could suffer a similar summary execution.
Can America be the same country if officials summarily alter the Constitution even if under extraordinary circumstances? The United States of America has changed over the centuries, yet the form of government remains largely unchanged, but for a handful of amendments (and FJB’s presidency), because the Constitution still guides us (in the real world).
But America is not just a place, it’s an idea. The Founders conceived and then nurtured this idea of liberty and self-government, and then fought, bled, and died that idea into reality: a fledgling republic run by the People, not a few “elites.”
Instead of 330 million, with only 25,000 people (about the population of Lexington, Mass.), gun control would be easier to facilitate, but would it be right? Does even this extreme situation change the God-given, natural rights Americans possess, for which their Founders created a government specifically to protect and preserve?
I’m looking forward to seeing how the writers handle this nullifying the Second Amendment which they haven’t yet addressed overtly. Will they pretend the “country” is still America as founded but without the right to self-defense?
Obviously, there is no self-defense without the most efficient means, and there is no right to life without the right to self-defense. There is only the death of liberty and, thus, the idea and reality of America.
