And the one our Founding Father presented to us, while not perfect, was at least well-thought-out and workable so long as all the parts of it worked as it should.
Not one of the three branches of the government is supposed to be stronger than the others. Our government works best when those three branches work together as a team, and when one gets out of control, the other two are supposed to slap it down.
That hasn’t happened. Our legislators decided to cater to special interest groups at the expense of hte very people who elected them, the people they were elected to represent.
Somewhere along the line, people began to think of hte president as some sort of super-smart royalty type person, and most recently as divinely appointed.
And our current president, based on his words and his actions, apparently believes God voted him into office and not the American citizens. All the power of our government has been placed in the hands of a position that was, at best, a coordinator’s position, and that person decided they controlled it all. To our extreme detriment.
I don’t have to recite the woes such thinking has inflicted upon our beloved country. We are experiencing them all too clearly every single day. Don’t think that what those elected employees are doing is meaningless to us in our daily lives. By their actions, our elected employees, over a period of years, has taken many of our freedoms from us. They’ve taken away some of dearest held Founding Rights, in particular the right to Life, Liberty, and Happiness. Ask any american, and they will tell you these are our most basic rights, ones whic cannot be taken from us.
And in the course of their day-to-day lives, it appears to be true.
But is it?
Criminals have more protections and rights than innocent citizens – even after they are convicted. Criminals get good food, a place to sleep, shelter, clothing, medical care. Innocent children go to bed hungry so criminals can eat well. Hard-working adults go to bed in cardboard boxes or the backseats of cars, unsure when their next meal will be so criminals can have beds and a roof over their heads. Struggling adults worry about being able to pay the legally required utilities of their homes (you do know that if your water is shut off, you must be evicted from your property, even if you own it. They won’t let you live on your property if you don’t pay for water and waste services, even if you are recyling, using grey water, and so forth) so criminals can have hot running water and lights and heating/cooling.
It’s wrong when we take good care of our criminals and deny our solid good citizens the help they need to succeed and survive. It’s wrong when our criminals are guaranteed freedom from abuse, but our innocent citizens have to suck it up when the police – whose salaries they pay via their taxes – beat them up, break into their homes, damage their property, or kill them. It’s wrong when victims of crimes are locked up until they inform on the criminal while the criminal walks free.
There’s so much wrong with our country right now that it’s hard to decide where to start and what to do.
But, yanno, our country has the advantage of being big. Small groups of people focusing on cleaning up one area, coordinating with people who are interested in several areas could get an amazing amount done.
We also need to start electing employees who will truly speak for the people who elected them, and not for special interest groups who pay them well and do them favors. Even if we don’t work together, but we all work towards fixing something that’s broken, eventually, we’ll get it all fixed.
It will take many years to clean up the mess our country has become, but I am still hopeful it can be done.
I am old, but I plan to do my part by working towards helping my area become self-sufficient in case of disaster – via locavore workshops, disaster preparedness classes, advocating sustainable homes, families, and cities, and presenting workshops on how to do these things, as well as surviva classes on what to do after a disaster. Not just the first 48 hours, but the weeks and months following.
We need govenment, we just don’t need the govenment we’ve allowed to develope.
