The American Republic
We the people are placing entirely too much stock in the government. We seem to expect them to do everything or we hold them to a standard they cannot possibly achieve because, after all, they are only humans like the rest of us. They do not have a God given mandate to rule the world with unfailing attention and only the highest moral ground in mind. No, they are only hired workers with the instructions to do the best job they can. We the people like to gripe about the government not doing what we want but I think we have given too much of our responsibility over to them.
I heard a story on NPR yesterday which talked about the earthquake that struck South Carolina in 1803. This earthquake leveled much of the town but there were no FEMA's or national relief agencies. There was nothing set up in federal government to help out states to rebuild after something like that happened but you know what? The people of the Charleston area got up and the mayor got up with them and money started coming in to the city from around the country to help rebuild the city. It got to the point where the mayor had to put an appeal out in the nation's newspapers to stop sending funds because they had received more than enough to rebuild.
Those people did all of this without any help from any federal agency because they did not exist. They stood up and fixed their city themselves. I want to know how we have gone from a nation of people with that type of attitude to do things for themselves to one of a nation of people who think the government should do everything for us. It is really sad to see this nation of people who came from pioneers and others who had to face much more difficult situations than we do today turn into a nation that thinks we have to have the government do everything for us because we are helpless babies who need out diapers changed and our hands held.
As we have seen in recent years the government can't do this for us because they can't even get their own house in order, look at Walter Reed Medical Center where they had wounded service members living in a rat infested swamp of a building. It is a hell of a way to treat wounded combat veterans who have lost legs, arms and much of their blood to do what is asked of them.
I think we need to start taking the government out of the equation when it comes to doing the right thing for the people and the people need to start looking more to themselves and their families and communities to do for themselves. If we expect the government to to everything for us then we cannot complain when they start telling us how to run our personal lives because we let them in. We need to focus on the things we need to do for ourselves and we need to get the government to focus on what the constitution allows them to do. Which is a whole lot less than they are currently doing.
But until we start getting enough backbone to take back our personal responsibility from the government we can only expect it to keep growing more and more out of control.
So how about it America, are we going to stand together to fix what we need to fix, or are we going to continue to grovel at the feet of our caretakers because we can't or won't do for ourselves?
