Before they set out to establish the rules under which they would be governed, America's founding fathers laid out some broad principles and goals for their new nation, and while they have sometimes been overlooked or simply bypassed during a brief moment of expediency, they have remained the overriding tenets of our democratic experiment.

Briefly stated, the constitutional authors wanted citizens of the new nation, and their succeeding generations, to strive for a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty. It was quite an agenda, and it's important to recall that no nation in the 18th century had even contemplated such a long list of goals, much less come close to realizing them.

Early Americans did not find goal-realization easy, and for good reason. From the beginning, America was a polyglot assemblage of aristocrats, farmers, religious zealots, exiled criminals and a strange assortment of socio-economic failures. Asking many of the early colonists to establish justice was like asking a Mafioso to confess. Promoting the general welfare was the last thought in the minds of those who had arrived in the colonies to accumulate wealth and riches. And as far as providing for the common defense, it would be more than 70 years after the adoption of the Constitution that the young nation would turn to a civil war to resolve its political and economic differences.

As for insuring domestic tranquility, the attainment of such a goal stands unresolved to this day, and many would attest that the realization has grown more elusive in the country's modern era. A cursory glance at 1995's crime statistics, its divorce rates, its homeless population, our alcohol and drug addiction patterns and our lowered expectations for the future are all manifestations of a lessening tranquility, despite an unrivaled economic base that is the envy of every other nation in the world.

As America grew and prospered from the late 18th century to today, certain goals were easier to reach than others. After 1864 it was easier to provide for the common defense. As civilization progressed, it seemed proper to establish justice and the systems that provide and promote it. As America's economy grew and prospered, caring for those in need seemed both appropriate and wise. After enduring great wars and tests of strength with opposing ideologies, a more perfect union was less difficult, and even relatively easy in times of mutual stress and defense.

But, ah, that one elusive goal, the ensuring of domestic tranquility in order to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, this was still before us, keeping us at arm's length from the millennium the founding fathers envisioned for us. Recognizing that tranquility was all but impossible in times of crisis, we waited over and over for a quieter, more tranquil era. It seemed so close after World War II, but as we waited for peace we chanced upon an emerging ideological threat that seemed as dangerous as armies and navies. We discovered a communist totalitarianism that had as its goal the destruction of our free state. Just as we had postponed our national tranquility for two world wars, we pushed it further from our agenda as we prepared for the awfulness of what was called the world's last war. That it never came was a tribute not only to our nation's willingness to oppose the communist threat but, more importantly, the self-destruction of the system itself. Its goals were so evil and its premise so false that its destruction was inevitable, even if we failed to recognize it at the time.

Communism couldn't succeed because it was based on goals that were the diametric opposites of those outlined by America's founding fathers. There was no search for justice, welfare or liberty, and certainly no appreciation of the need for domestic tranquility. Communism failed not because it lacked the resources to emerge victorious but because its principles were lacking and totally false.

The goal of domestic tranquility seemed within grasp in 1989 when the last monument of communism, the Berlin Wall, collapsed, signaling the end of a terrifying era. Now was the moment, it seemed, to reach the founders' elusive goal.

No sooner did the moment to insure domestic tranquility arrive then we seemed to forget it. Bolstered by the death of communism, we began to believe our goals had all been realized and that nothing remained except the luxury of enjoyment and our own contemplation of nirvana. Working to achieve harmony and peace among ourselves was seen as something unattainable, even beyond our capability to solve.

Lacking both incentive and perspective, America willingly turned its streets over to armed thugs, its schools into neglected structures, its governmental programs into career opportunities for the undeserving, our arts into instruments of vulgarity and animal instincts, our communications systems into profit ventures, and even our pastimes into commercial enterprises. Instead of domestic tranquility, we have achieved nothing short of collective narcissism.

Nothing better illustrates the narcissistic mood of America, only a bare 200 years away from the most magnificent outline of goals ever created for a nation, than two events that occurred the other day in a city in our own state.

The first event was an announcement that 73,000 persons had applied for the privilege of buying 46,000 available tickets to watch a pro football team perform five or six times a year. The license applications could total as much as $50 million.

The second event was an announcement of the closing of a children's center in the same city because- of inadequate public support and assistance. It was unable to raise $15,000.

~Jack Stapleton is a Kennett columnist who keeps tabs on government.