Do The Right Thing

Do The Right Thing: Election 2012
January 6, 2012

Winston Churchill said of The United States, after all possibilities and options are exhausted, you can count on the Americans to do the right thing.  What shining good it can do a country when the world respects its leadership.  America’s is affirmed each time the world looks to her during a crisis, or international challenge.  Affirmed by immigrants knocking on her doors, or sneaking over her boarders.  The world looks to America not to be patronized or dominated.  It looks for the best possibilities. The world wants to know that America’s greatness still springs forth from its debating and acting upon right and wrong. America is still the world’s symbol of what a dream could be.

America…the purveyor of things practical…she acquiesced ownership of property to individuals so they can know the benefits of their labor. With Congress’ passing of the Patent Act in 1790, America became the quintessential designer of an economy in which inventors and innovators flourish.  Thus codifying a self-evident principal into human history…that individuals are given the right to flourish by their own accord, unhindered or subject to, lords and rulers.

To the people of many nations, a world without America is a world without the means to be inspired and the inability to participate in a liberating system of innovation.  The dream of becoming something greater than your self is made possible by America’s history and laws, sprung forth from the basic principals of The Constitution.  To do the right thing is to once again return to them so we can be our best selves not only for us but for the world.  The founding principals are still available to keep this kind of America maturing.  To loose them is to loose ourselves and the purpose of who we are as a people.

What Churchill saw in America 70 years ago was true leadership…the fortitude, conviction and constitutional values to dare to define a vision, and dare to see that vision to its fruition.  He saw in America The Framers who dared to pledge their “wealth, lives and sacred honor” to do the right thing, even when the odds did not favor their just cause.  Some historians estimate that only 23% of the colonial people were in support of the revolution.  Our Framers endured that challenge and changed the world.

Plato wrote: “The measure of a man is what he does with power.” The President of The United States arguably holds the world’s seat of power. Thomas Jefferson warned that if individuals are granted unchecked power, then they will have absolute power.  Thus the checks and balance system of our government’s branches.  Sadly, in the past decades, that system has degraded.  Judicial decisions often are absolute.  Regulatory agencies with unelected “czars” legislate via “rulings”.  Congress is Constitutional when convenient.  The Executive Branch is no different. We don’t think about right and wrong enough. When voting in those to be given power we banter over dirty laundry, mistakes in youth, personal lives and gaffs. The lesser given to the prevailing crisis.  We are swayed by negative ads we claim not to like.  Churchill, Plato and Jefferson might encourage us to do better.  To be our best again.

One of history’s greatest documents, The Declaration of Independence, asserts:  “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…”   This means the true power is that each of us is personally sovereign.  We The People loan power to the government.  The government is never to loan power to us.  We the citizens are not subjects of government. We are independent and the absolute authority. When did this begin to wane?

Unfortunately, we are now a generation that forgot what it is that defines America.  Our schools have failed us.  Our media does not help. Each of us must have the courage and conviction to dare to use our sacred honor to ensure the self-evident truths are past on. Forgetting our history is to loose our identity. And with no identity there is no purpose and our civilization will wither.  Is there leadership today that will gently lift us from this withering?  Leaders who when addressing the nation’s challenges, after all possibilities and options are exhausted, hold out the compass set in place by the Framers, so that the world sees the Americans do the right thing…and know the dream will continue.