Sunday, April 22, 2012

Doing the Work of the People

It has been a while since my last post.  That may be because of my leeriness of being received as too biased toward one candidate, possibly due to my shared faith with Romney, or it may be due to my increasing frustration over the media's willingness to toe the administrations line in broadcasting (as it can not be called reporting), or not reporting as it serves the need of the current administration.  Regardless of the reason, I have found myself in the mode of observation during these past few months rather than writing and for that I apologize.

In my last post I indicated that my next would be a look at the candidates qualifications or that that would disqualify them for the job of President under the oath of office and the charge to uphold the constitution. Since we are now apparently down to two credible candidates, yes I know there are still two others in the GOP primary race but really people, if you are still pinning your hopes on either of the remaining second and third place followers, I have to ask you to do a check on reality before you continue to read this.  Not that I have an extreme distaste for either Mr. Paul or Mr Gingrich, okay maybe a slight anti-bias toward the later based on his absolute void of individual integrity, and self stated platform of what I say is more important than what I do which has been his mode of operation since the days he was my congressman.  But reality is that, neither of these individuals, regardless of their positions, ever had a chance for the GOP nomination, for various reasons, so come back to reality and let's focus on the options at hand.  From here forward I will dedicate my efforts to the distinguishing of differences, and qualifying or disqualifying of our current President Mr. Obama and Mr. Romney.

As the title to this  post indicates, and what many fail to qualify from the out set, is that the election process is not to choose a ruler, one who will implement his will.  But quite the converse, it is to choose a servant leader who will first, as the oath of office states, uphold the constitution and next seek to know and do the will of the people.  Here in, we have our first and most important qualification for candidates that meet the constitutional criteria for candidacy.  It doesn't matter really what your party affiliation, inclination or even aversion is.  We all are, or at least all who should have the ability to participate in our national election process, should be, Americans.

As American's we share some of the most amazing freedoms on the earth. Unfortunately, many of the freedoms that were established under our constitutional republic have been weakened due to our willingness to cede liberty for perceived security.  Let's start there, with a perspective of what government, our type of Constitutional Republic as a form of government is, under what premise it was formed, and why as representatives of the people, our elected officials were and must become again, servants of the people.

Hopefully, regardless of age and type of education, each of us were given a basis for understanding the beginnings of our country and why we separated from the power of the British Monarchy to form our constitutional republic.  What was the reason?  What was the cause for which our founders took up arms against their "ruling monarchy"?  The issue was Taxation!  Our forefathers came to this land to escape the heavy hand of serfdom that was laid on them by a monarchy.  They wanted freedom to progress without the regulatory forces and enslaving control of their former monarchical government.  It was when there was a realization that even though they has gone half a world away, that the monarchy intended to exert control over their lives from a far through taxation that our founders took up arms to preserve the one thing they had, Freedom.

It was from this perspective of removing oppression and tyranny that our constitutional republic form of government was developed.  This was and is unique.  It was not a concession of absolute power that was the guiding influence of our constitution as is the case in most governments around the world throughout  history who have sought to placate their subject by defining the extent of power that will be used to control them. Our republic was formed with the idea that we, as individuals, are free and maintain absolute power of that freedom, only sharing or ceding the basic elements of our own right of power for the good of society, first to our state, then to the national government for safety as a people and for the general welfare (meaning orderly conduct among ourselves, not what many have tried to distort the concept into today that the government is to take care of our needs) of the people. It really is that simple.  The national government, under our constitution, was never meant to exert power over individual citizens or effect our freedom as individuals, only to protect our ability to act as free people from foreign interests (ie. securing our borders) and to establish order that we as a free people would not infringe upon the liberties of our fellow citizens.  The states, under their own charter of constitution maintained rights of taxation and order, that for their citizenry, states rights were to take precedent over national governance to ensure that the abuse of power of the national government could not grow beyond it's intended purpose and to ensure that those who represented states at a national level were servants of the people who reside geographically among the states.  Okay, enough historical perspective.  What has happened?

Why are we in the condition of servitude to a federal government and foreign interests today, and what can, no, what must our potential elected representatives, be it local, state, federal or the president do to serve as their oath requires?  That is, and must be, the basis for our evaluation of candidates, otherwise we are lost as a free people.

While you have probably not heard about it because of a complicit media, in the last week (April 2012) America's credit rating was once again down graded.  Only the second time in the history of our union, both under the watch of the current administration, has the financial strength, the basis of our monetary system which establishes the relevant influence of our nation in the world economy been downgraded. Why?  Cited was the ever increasing debt, and poor outlook as the spending policies of the current administration are weighed.  What relevance does this have to you and I as free people?  It is directly related to the role of our national government in protecting our citizenry from foreign influence, preserving our freedoms, yes it is related to the original issue that spawned our constitutional republic, governmental taxation and the preservation of our freedom as individuals.  When we are bound by debt, we are not free, but under bondage to government, and now even to foreign influences.  Regardless of your position on social issues, your inclination on fiscal policy, first and foremost recognise that, the reason for constraint on government and its ability to assume power via spending is the very issue that our founders fought to avoid, taxation without representation.  Taxing to meet the spending habits of a out of control government is the reason there was a revolution in the first place.  When we cede the power of fiscal constraint, we have lost our freedom. We are no longer a free people, we are merely subjects to elected officials that seek to establish and grow their power and influence in a out of control system that is resulting in oppression rather than the preservation of liberty.

Think on that for a while, my next post will begin to contrast. The vision and paths of Mr Romney and President Obama.