weasel_airlift

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We the people may have been taking this great democratic republic too much for granted. Perhaps we've been too trusting, or cynical, or too lazy, or busy. Perhaps we've been behaving like consumers and not citizens. Perhaps we've been misled and it is not our fault.

But it is time to realize that democracy is a use-it-or-lose-it proposition, time to recognize that we can't claim to have a government of the people, by the people and for the people just because it's on T.V.

We need to vote. We need to know what is done in our name, and we have to remind the politicians that they work for us. We have to stand up and tell them that we will toss them out on their rear if they forsake their oath.

In that oath the one and only thing they swear to defend is the Constitution. That's not the musty old parchment in the cellar, nor is it a fairytale essay of utopian abstractions. It is the actual design and constitution of a fair and righteous government. It's a brilliant, enlightened design, and those famous framers thought it through very carefully. It still makes sense, because wisdom like that weathers well.

Yet some of the current crop of leaders presume they know better. Treading upon the Constitution, they defend themselves and their money, their friends, and their power, all the while proclaiming they do so for us.

Just to be clear, mine is a non-partisan position. A Democrat can believe in the republic, and a Republican can believe in democracy, but I believe that neither a conservative nor a liberal can claim to be happy with the 111th congress, unless that person is ill informed, or insincere.

This is about the principles and provisions of the U.S. Constitution, not the political parties per se. It is the scoundrel of any stripe that we must turn out of office.

The public political discourse is such a disgraceful mix of misinformation and poisoned rhetoric that I prefer to ignore it entirely and return to first principles. Parties, after all, come and go, but common sense, common decency, the golden rule, All men being created equal - such ideas, the ones we hold to be self evident - cut through the muck of politics. You don't need a politician to explain them, and you don't have to be a scholar to understand them, because they are already written on your soul. That is what "self evident" means.