SageSuggestions : 2012-04-29

Thursday, May 3, 2012

What Is Your Part In Government?

The founders looked at the House of Representatives as the "house of the people" and determined it's members should be elected every two years in order that the representatives be directly answerable to the people. The two year term would insure that a member could easily be recalled if he was found negligent in his actions in representing the wishes of the people who elected him. This was self-government in it's most basic form. It was the responsibility of each citizen to make sure those sent to the seat of government was truly acting in accordance to the wishes of those who sent him there; if not he was to be recalled in the next election. This is government with the consent of the governed. James Madison discusses the election of congressmen in Federalist No. 57.

In June of 1858 Abraham Lincoln delivered a speech at his nomination as the Republican candidate for Senator from Illinois which would after be referred to as "The House Divided" speech. If you google it you can read the complete speech, but, as we mentioned before it is given in the context of the country's division over slavery. Lincoln did not think the country would fail, he felt it would become either all slavery or no slavery and deemed it the people's responsibility (self government) to choose.

Today, we are once again divided and you must accept your responsibility and choose which way your country will go. The choice today is not about slavery, but about the kind of government we will have as we go forward. What are the choices you have? The trend today, by those in power, is swiftly taking us toward a system where the decisions are being made by un-elected bureaucrats who don't answer to you the people. Obviously, this is not the direction the Founders envisioned when writing the Constitution. In fact, it might be the courts would determine much of what is being done today unconstitutional if only someone would bring forward a challenge. The talking heads, depending on the political side they are paid to support, would have you believe the other side is the bad guy. Don't believe it! The parties often trade positions of control. The Republicans ran things until 2006, then the Democrats took over yet things just continue to get worse.

If it's not Democrats, Republicans, Conservatives, or Liberals then what is the problem. In my view, one of the major problems is the media itself. Each side points to the bias of the other, but we can not forget their primary responsibility is to sell something. No matter what they tell you if they don't sell erectile dis-function cures, shampoo, cars, or the latest electronic gadget they won't be around very long. No, I think, if you choose to take back your country and move back to government by consent of the governed. If you choose to protect the God given liberties you still have and get back the ones you've already lost there is a much more serious problem you must address.

Our forefathers fought and died to free us from a ruling class. Yet we are allowing the same type of class system to infiltrate our government. The best example I can give is:
John Dingle, 85 is announcing he will run for his 29th full term as a congressman from Michigan! Mr Dingell first entered Congress in 1955, to complete the term of his father. This means, if elected, he will be starting his 58th year in Congress. There is no way the Founders intended anyone would stay in Congress this long and this is the crux of our problem. The only experience Dingell brings to the table is running for office 29 times. We have made elective office, at all levels, far too lucrative. Politicians are in constant election mode, abdicating their responsibilities to appointed bureaucrats who do not answer to us. Sound familiar? It could be said there is little difference between 1776 and 2012 except the decisions are made for us in Washington or in your state capital instead of the English Parliament. Either way, we have little say in our government.

November is coming and the choices are clear, our future is in your hands!

The Declaration of Independence

When in the course of human Events, it becomes necessary for one People to dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal Station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the Separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their CREATOR with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness - That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Format of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying it's Foundations on such Principles, and organizing it's Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate the time Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient Causes, and accordingly all Experiences hath shewn, that Mankind more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinced a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security. Such has been the patient Sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the Necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The History of the present King of Great Britain is a History of repeated Injuries and Usurpations, all having in direct Object the Establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid World.

(The specific grievances are listed as is the Declaration of breaking the connections with Great Britain.

56 patriots (YOUR FOREFATHERS) signed the Declaration of Independence knowing they would be accused of Treason against the Crown and condemned to Death if caught!

YOU CAN READ THE REST OF THE DECLARATION ON LINE at: www.archives.gov>exhibits>charters

Gettysburg Address

"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place--for those who have given their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But in a larger sense we cannot dedicate--we cannot concecrate--we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who have struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember, what we say here but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated to the unfinished work which they who fought have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion--that we highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain--that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom--and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from this earth.
Abraham Lincoln

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Thursday, May 3, 2012

What Is Your Part In Government?

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