7/3/17

In a PBS NEWSHOUR, MPR, Marist poll taken about who we won independence from, only 77% correctly said Great Britain, 15% were unsure, and 8% mentioned other countries including Russia and Afghanistan.  Only 77% knew we as colonies declared independence in 1776.

An Excerpt From The Declaration Of Independence:

 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 form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are 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, evinces 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.

Thomas Jefferson

How absurdly disparate and incongruous this most enlightened document is to its creator!

Thomas Jefferson was a slave owner, and years after his wife’s death was the father of the six children with Sally Hemings, a Monticello slave mentioned in Jefferson's records, including their children, Beverly, Harriet, Madison, and Eston Hemings. The other two had died in infancy. These children were raised as slaves and trained as artisans, but were subsequently granted their freedom by Jefferson. Sally remained a slave in the household until Jefferson’s death. The last nine years of her life, she lived freely in a house her sons owned in Charlottesville and was witness to the birth of a grandchild.

It is quite apparent, as obtuse as this Declaration is to the lifestyle of its author, who composed it for his fellow white male landowners, none-the-less, it proved an intellectual exercise created by a genius, who took the ephemeral idea of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness, and turned it into law. 

The Preamble To The Constitution:

 We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

James Madison

Madison proposed the Three-Fifths Compromise, which counted slaves as three fifths of a person for the purposes of taxation and legislative representation.

At his death,

He still owned around

100 slaves.

He freed none of them,

not even

Paul Jennings,

his life-long valet.

Obviously, this Preamble to our Constitution, this Declaration were created by extraordinary minds, so finely hone above their unquestionable incongruous lifestyles, which clearly demonstrated the antithesis  to the intellectual exercise that created a legal document that addends itself… that through these two hundred plus years of precedent, demonstrated how much more concrete this law out of the ephemeral: Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness, is.

It doesn’t matter, their deplorable insensitivity, racism and sexism, we are two hundred years plus later and can’t help them. They created their legacy, which we now view.

But, beyond them, what will be said about us?

Will We the People changed this Nation for the better upon the strength of precedent through these documents, and have the power to improve it ever the more?

What is important here is that we never forget that We are the government, and as such can be as diligent, or naively self-destructive as we choose.

Flawed men of extreme literacy were able to entertain something so far beyond their own human shortcomings and turn it into law with the malleability to improve upon it.

How evolved are we, beyond our own short-comings, to demonstrate the intellectual where-with-all to improve and finally end what so offends us as individuals, finally unite us into the Human Race, accountable for all life and its sustainability, humble before nature, grateful for our inclusion, and able to perpetuate regeneration?

Democracy is not a spectator sport

You have to participate

Governance is messy

Dialogue must be fluid and open

Not parochial and self-righteous

We constantly hear cries of too large government by those who themselves choose to force their respective opinions onto others. It seems the escalation of individual opinions is the collective voice of the people, which is the government. If you don’t want large governance, then have fewer people. You can’t have it both ways!

It isn’t too large government that is broken, and thus, what disturbs us. It’s that we are unwilling to compromise and civilly engage with each other, which IS the process of governance.

If anything, we need an amendment to create eight super governors within the executive branch to deal with domestic policy below the President: north and south Eastern, Central, Mountain and Pacific. Considering the disparate opinions that seem more regional, what better way to get things done within our country, which prides its strength on this diversity, while these differences also prove to be its Achilles heel when trying to govern all.