we the people

We the people…

We the people of the United States of America are a people on welfare. We are no longer able to sustain our selves, our families, our communities, and our businesses without the guiding hand of government. Wasn’t the United States of America a nation based on democracy and laissez-faire? We have become reliant on other person or institutions to provide solutions, and implement change. The founding fathers and revolutionaries that fought for freedom were strongly rooted in the principle of self reliance, a principle that has guided this nation successfully for over two-hundred years. Doesn’t reason and logic stand that this principle is a truth and needs no refining, encouragement, or guidance? Wasn’t this country settled by men and women with nothing but the clothes on their backs, the skills they possessed and the spirit of self-reliance and determination? Wasn’t the west won by those who understood that opportunity knocks but doesn’t have the hands to open the door? Wasn’t the industrial revolution guided not by a government seeking change but by individuals that saw a need and simple took the initiative to make a change?

We no longer acknowledge the role that we play in our own lives. We have forgotten that work is the basis of industry and wealth. Wasn’t this nation built by simple peasants and outcasts who believed that a man could change his status? What was it that brought people flocking to our borders from the beginning? Even those in the rush of The Great Land Race didn’t get anything for free. They still had to travel, fight for, and claim that land, it wasn’t for the faint of heart. Even after that they had to survive on it and cause it to flourish before it was even of any value. We as a people can’t even subsist on the numerous organizations, charities, and institutions designed to make the American dream a reality. Is there another definition of the American dream or have we as a nation decided that it’s an obligation? The Declaration of Independence doesn’t have that as a God given right. It’s a privilege, hard earned and well deserved by those who work for it. Gaining the American Dream without earning or working for it renders it as valueless as the land the Sooners died for.

We have rewritten the law of cause and effect to the law of choice and consent. If we didn’t choose the outcome then we no longer have to consent to the effect. One can jump off a bridge choosing to believe that gravity doesn’t exist but that won’t change the fact that you are going in a downward direction at an increasing rate of velocity, and that science has proven that the ground will exert the same amount of force on you that you exert on the ground. SPLAT! How are we as a nation meant to be a leader in the world when our citizens can’t lead our own families, leaving children fatherless and mothers struggling, or vice versa? How are we to maintain an economical superior status when our CEO’s and advisors can’t even accept the responsibility of running a corporation, let alone doing so unsuccessfully? How can we share the values of democracy when we as people have neglected the basic values that have been the cause of prosperity in every successful culture and nation since the beginning of time? How can we look to the future when we are aborting said future in order to avoid the responsibility of our reckless actions? How can we climb out of this pit that we’ve dug, if we insist we are still at the top of the world? SPLAT!

We have forgotten that responsibility and accountability is essential to freedom and its maintenance. We have forgotten that a right is only a right until it takes away the right of another individual after that it’s a violation. We have distorted the essential rights that our constitution was designed to protect, to the point that we are racing toward eliminating them. What stimulated this distortion? Selfishness! We as a people have forgotten to be aware of the rights of others and have become hyper focused on the rights of ourselves. The right to worship as one desires has become the right to worship as WE please. The right of free speech has become the right to speak louder than others because we fear we are not the majority and will not be heard. Isn’t democracy described as majority rules? The right to bear arms has become might is right. Fast approaches the day when anyone left bearing arms will be outlaws, when we should be preventing outlaws from carrying guns. The right to a fair trial has become the right for a trial of a loophole or pocketbook. The right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is now only a right as long as everyone shares it equally, and it doesn’t interfere with someone’s personal agenda. Life has been defined as a right to all except the infant who impasses on the health or lifestyle of the mother. Liberty is defined as a right as long as it doesn’t offend or encourage something contrary to a specific individual’s opinion(s). The pursuit of happiness is defined as anything that allows one to gain and maintain wealth, power, and/or prestige at any cost. After all hasn’t happiness has been defined as wealth, power, and prestige.

We have habitually passed individual responsibility down the line, and have now reached the end of that line. Each American as an individual is at the head of that line; we have passed to friends, family, neighbors, businesses, organizations, institutions, stereotypes, and lastly the government. What happened when Katrina hit? We blamed the neighbors that left without us, the family that didn’t force us to listen and leave, or the city for not dragging us onto a bus or protecting us because they had used their forces to assist those who heeded the warnings. Finally we landed on the government for not a having a plan, the funds, the foresight, and the ability to do what we wouldn’t do for ourselves or for our neighbors. After all the hurricane was tracked, monitored, forewarned, time-lined, documented, and seen, but just not by those who blamed someone else because they didn’t track, monitor, time-line, document or see it, until it came and then it was too late.
We can’t blame government for being corrupt when we ourselves have become corrupted morally and intellectually. We can’t blame the government and secular institutions for incorrect teaching and indoctrination when we opened our mouths to be spoon feed these falsehoods. We can’t blame the government for our socioeconomic state when we rely solely on them for sustenance and education. We can’t blame government for the lack of change when we ourselves refuse to change our habits, lifestyles, and ethics. We can’t blame government for generations of oppression, when history, society, and evolution prove that survival is for the fittest and that means getting up to work for what you want. We blamed everyone around us, around them, and around those they blamed. Now we have an economy in ruins, an immoral country trying to deny the effects of their actions and choices, a disillusioned populace, and a government that is under funded, and under staffed (not just physically) and solutions that contribute to the problems and cause more. How can that be? We can’t blame everything for global warming; after all we are already blaming the government for its commencement and continuation.

We as a people have forgotten how to create solutions to problems that we are placing ourselves into every day. We wonder why our educational system is declining, when we have neglected to teach them how to learn and only what to learn. We wonder why our communities have violence, and teenage pregnancy rates that are rocketing, when we haven’t taught them how to bridle their passions and healthy interpersonal skills. We wonder why abortion rates are rising, when we encourage living with guilt rather then the consequences. We wonder why our families are falling apart when we neglect that parenthood and marriage is more than just providing physically but also mentally, spiritually, and emotionally. We wonder why our country is in a recession economically, spiritually, politically, and intellectually and is unable to meet our expectations, when don’t even know how to set and meet our own expectations.

It is time for a new declaration of independence. A time to declare that I am responsible for the actions and choices that I make and their corresponding consequences and the influences they have on others. Time to declare responsibility regardless of whether I consented previously to that outcome, was aware of the consequences, or the ripple effect that I have on the people around me. Time to declare that government can’t fix a problem I refuse to accept as a problem. Now is the time to declare and accept the reality of the natural laws of cause and effect, justice, and procreation. Time to declare a return to the values that we deemed old fashioned and inapplicable, but logic and history prove are timeless and essential. It is time to declare that I am responsible for what I make of my life, and how I get there, rather than being a spectator of my own life. Now is the time to acknowledge that I am a leader of myself before I am a leader of a business, a family, an organization, or a community. A time to declare independence from the downward spiral of our nation and make a change where we are now rather than waiting for someone else to initiate, fund, acknowledge, and reward us. It is time to take personal responsibility in the little things – our tempers, our passions, our tongues, and our education. Time to take the future into our own hands through allowing life to grow, overlooking ourselves and our desires, serving others unrewarded and undeserved, and providing for those that look to us. It is a time to acknowledge the rights of others before our own, the rights that are really privileges that are earned and withdrawn, and a time to acknowledge our own deficiencies and the strengths of others. Now is the time to accept democracy as the rule of the people rather then the rule of the popular. Today we need to declare that we have become our own stumbling block then have the strength to climb over it rather than wait for someone else to remove it. Today it is essential to open the door and embrace responsibility, values, and reliance. Only then can we have the life, liberty and happiness, which our founding fathers deemed a divine right.