Saturday, June 27, 2015

We are missing the Big Picture!

So the federal government has gotten back in business of defining whose rights take precedent over others. So be it, I am just God fearing man speaking what I consider common sense. I don't really care one way or the other about gay folks or whether they marry but think about this. How long before Churches are forced to perform gay marriages even though that very concept may go against their religious beliefs? How does the esteemed Supreme Court rule then? Is a gay couple’s right to marry under the 14th Amendment greater than the church's member’s rights under the 1st Amendment? At what point is the line drawn? Whose rights are greater than another’s? This is question to consider.
As far as the government picking a winner in that battle, the last time they did we ended up with a civil war and hundreds of thousands dead. And before you say that was over slavery, you better read some history. The civil war was over state's rights, i.e. the right of a state to make its own laws and not have an overreaching federal government strike them down. Slavery was a horrible symptom of states exercising their rights under the Constitution. Now the federal government, Supreme Court in this case, has done the same thing with this ruling on gay marriage. Many states had passed laws voted on by their citizens that defined marriage as a union between one man and one woman. Now the federal government has by this decision disenfranchised all of those voters in those states and basically said that their collective will to govern their state is not valid. Look, we could debate the merits of same sex marriage for the next 100 years, that is not the important point of this latest government subversion of States rights. The important point that we all need to consider is are we willing to continue to allow this federal government to overstep its authority and reach down into our states, cities, even homes and dictate to us our behavior and in some cases even how we think.
I am not saying that this issue of gay marriage is the one that breaks the camels back but when is enough going to be enough?  These folks in the government who have proven time and time again that they don’t care about the citizens they claim to represent and will do whatever they want to advance their own agenda? Both sides of the aisle are guilty, perhaps the Republicans more because they will outright lie to our faces to get elected. At least the Democrats will be honest about their treachery and not hide it. They openly court of the destruction of our most venerated institutions and beliefs while the current crop of Republicans works in the shadows and make back room deals then smile for the cameras and pretend there was nothing they could have done to change the outcome.
Someone recently said to me that the government is just trying to “make everyone happy”.  Hmmm, I must have missed that in the Bill of Rights and Constitution.  I am not aware of any clause in either of the founding documents that outlines the government’s responsibility to make everyone happy.  In my humble opinion that is a symptom of the root cause.  The purpose of the government as outlined by our Founding Fathers was outlined in the very first sentence of the Constitution, “establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity”.  Think on those words for a moment.  I am certainly not a Constitutional lawyer like our current President claims to be but that sentence strikes me as laying the foundation for a pretty limited form of governance over the states by a Federal authority.  If we are to remain true to the ideals that our country was born from then we must shed ourselves of the premise that government is the tit that we must all suckle from.
This country used to reward and praise hard work and success, welfare was only for those that actually needed it and now it has become a way of life for an ever-growing segment of our population.  We used to strive to emulate those captains of industry that drove the America engine forward with their innovation, not castigate them and actively work to place barriers in their way.  We need to recognize that only we will celebrate the best of us and hold them as examples to strive towards will we are achieve greater success and wealth.  Our ridicule and scorn should be saved for those members of society that do not aim to contribute but rather live off the hard work of the many.  Success must be celebrated when and wherever found, from the single Mom putting two kids through college, the small business owner who creates jobs and provides for his employees as he would his own family, the large corporation that continues to innovate and drive America to the forefront in yet another field of industry.
I recently saw a clip of a speech that Bono gave at Georgetown University almost three years ago.  You can view it here.  In it, he summarizes perfectly what America is and what it means to the rest of the world.  This is how far we have fallen from the path that we started out on back in 1776.  The rest of the world holds our ideals in higher regard than most of our citizens and sadly even our current President.  Let government provide the basics, security and stability, and we will do the rest.  This very attitude is what America is such a great country and why we have generally succeeded for the past 238 years.  Sure we have had stumbles and challenges but we have always risen to them.  Today however I fear that we are close to a tipping point where the majority of America’s citizens have forgotten what made it so great and the envy of the world.  Immigrates who come to this country know this in their very bones as we once did.  They come for the promise of the shining city on the hill with little or nothing and they succeed in building a life.  That optimism that they have is sorely lacking from many of our natural born citizens.
This post started as a rant against the overreaching of federal government but I chose to end it with the optimism that is the American dream.  We are a great people, living in a great country and we must wake up and remember that if we wish to return to it.  If we don’t then I weep for the future of my children and all the children in this country.  If we fail to act and rein in this out of control federal government, all branches, then we will be the ones who sacrificed their freedoms because we could not find the strength to act. 
We need to recognize that those who would tear down our great country do not always live in caves in some foreign land but right here, sometimes right next door.  They range from those who live off the charity of our taxes yet complain they are downtrodden in this land of opportunity, those who claim to work for us in the schools and all levels of government yet only advance their agenda of destroying American ideals, even to the White House where our President can’t willingly acknowledge the existence of American exceptionalism.
You might ask, what are we to do?  We must keep the faith with the ideals put forth by our Founders.  We celebrate the uniqueness of America and her place in the world.  We vote with every dollar we spend, spend your hard earned money with those who share your view of what America is.  Vote for those who still believe in America and will work to bring balance to the role of government.  Speak out when you see others tearing down what this country stands from.  It is a long road ahead of us but if we keep the faith then we will be rewarded with the America that we deserve not one perverted by those who don’t believe any longer in the greatness of this country.  God Bless American and all of her citizens.