Represented? Repressed?

Well, what can I say about the current direction this country of ours is headed? Should I say anything? Does anyone care about the direction of this country?

(The answers for those of you playing at home: a lot; why not; YES!)

The greater sentiment of the American people today is that government is not working. Liberals, conservatives, libertarians, dogs, cats, not one thinks our representatives are working for us. We furnish half of our paychecks and we receive no adequate return on investment. -An NBC/Wall Street Journal opinion poll found the congressional approval rating at 18% in late ’07- Less than one in five of us are happy with their work! If four in five of your supervisors were unhappy with your performance, what would happen?

What does this mean? Our government, “Deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed” does not have the support of the governed, the people, you and me. How then, do we rationalize the passive indulgence of these disingenuous figures? We submit, acquiesce, and accept the whims of these people because [insert litany of lame excuses here].

Our representative republic is founded on the principle that the people have a dynamic and substantive role in the decision-making process. Okay, very roughly, in 1790 there were about 25,000 people represented by each member of the house. Today, there are about 345,000 people represented by each member of the house. This trend obviously correlates to constituent localities everywhere. An obstacle, yes, an excuse for the surrender of well over 200 years of hard work by those that came before us; an excuse to forget the men and women that went to war against the most powerful empire of their time, despite the lack of a unified army, NO.

Realize that this practice we call our government is very precious, a house of cards. This house of cards requires the glue of a unified body of constituents to stand firm. Unified not necessarily in idea, but unified in the desire to support the institution that, those great men so long ago, within pledged to one another, “our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.”

Many are willing to watch our republic be transformed, bloated, and mutilated. Through the careful usurpation of powers not lent to them by the Constitution, some politicians and judges even encourage it. I say it is time we fought for what is ours; no, not with arms, but with the questions, ideas, solutions, morality, justice, and above all, understanding of the essential and guiding principles set forth by the founders.

Remember, "Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigues of supporting it."

-- Thomas Paine, The American Crisis, No. 4, September 11, 1777

Will you support it?