We the People...

We'll be hearing a lot about "We the People...." in the next 20 months leading up to the November 2012 elections.  It is a catchy phrase designed to imply that all the people are behind the words that follow.  And why shouldn't we be since the words that follow in the discussions we will hear about constitute the Constitution of the most powerful country in the history of the world.  It is a constitution that has weathered almost 225 years of attacks from the inside and the outside, both brutal and subtle. One of the greatest features of the Constitution is that it provided for its own modification and was passed with 10 modifications, the Bill of Rights, as immediate examples.  It also left a lot unsaid.  Like the Ten Commandments, shorter is sometimes better.

But we have among us today people who want to "take back the country", "take back the government" according to their speeches.  But they really mean they want to "take the country back", "take the government back", back, that is, to an earlier time, a simpler time, when the country was smaller, the government was smaller, and the budget was smaller. It reminds me of people who still think of the 50's as the "golden years".

Yes, the government and the budget were smaller in 1787 but a lot of other things were different as well.  Slavery was alive and well and even many of the Founding Fathers owned slaves.  Slaves didn't vote, nor did women.  In fact voting was mainly by white, property-owning males.  And the Constitution was all right with that.    Some states had religious tests for public office-holders or discriminated against people who did not worship according to the state religion.  And the Constitution was all right with that. There were no "economic safety nets", national educational standards, environmental protection statutes or agencies, federal transportation support, national safety standards, minimum wages, child labor laws.  I could go and on, of course.  The list is long and the Constitution was all right with all of it.  And so are the people who would take our country back!

America is great because America is good.  When we stop being good, we will stop being great.  In the past 225 years we have found areas where people on their own don't act for the common good.  They lie, cheat, steal, monopolize, oppress, persecute, kill, etc.  And if they don't do these things they ignore or encourage those that do.  We have learned through sad experience a host of evils that men do and we have empowered the government to minimize those evils and their effects.  It hasn't always worked but for the most part it has.

Now, do we want to forget what we've learned, forget what we've had to do to correct problems?  The government is too big, they say, but how big is too big?  Should we go back to 1970?  1950? 1929?  1787? What standard of living are we prepared to accept?  And remember, we don't get to choose where on the ladder of success we will stand when it all comes down.  Natural or man-made disasters can wipe out the worldly assets of the richest and there is nothing in the Constitution to prevent it.  How would you like to be transported back to 1930 with nothing in your pockets or bank account except "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness"?

We the People... better watch out who is pretending to speak for us during the next 20 months.