What Type of Country Would You Design?

20score

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Fri Jun-10-11 09:10 PM
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What Type of Country Would You Design?

Edited on Fri Jun-10-11 10:01 PM by 20score

Ideally, in a Democratic – Republic that question should more than academic, it should actually matter what the citizens think. During the Bush years I heard more than a few people suggest a Constitutional Convention in order to redirect the country’s trajectory. It scared the hell out of me for two reasons. One, we already had a good constitution that should have sufficed and the spirit of that constitution was already being routinely ignored. And two, with the heavy-handed propaganda that people are subjected to each day, we may have ended up with an authoritarian, semi-theocratic government that enshrined a third world economy as its very foundation.

Any layman can read the Constitution and come away with some very clear, concrete ideas that the Founding Fathers put into the document. They did not set up a theocracy, Christian or otherwise. They did not want unlimited power in the hands of one person. They left room for improvements and social changes that would inevitably come. And they wanted to form a great country that took into account the needs, of what in their limited view constituted full-fledged citizens, - thankfully that has been expanded – as laid out in the preamble.

In order to make improvements to the country, we have to agree on what makes up the country. There are many definitions, but for this article, I hope this will suffice. The country has three basic components. One is the government and the Constitution on which it was formed. Two, the land within the country’s borders. And three, the people who make up the citizenry. To me, an attack on one segment weakens the whole. Just like a three legged stool, all three legs must be sturdy in order for the stool to remain upright.

I ask this question because it seems to me as if there are millions in the country who are indifferent to or in favor of attacks on the Constitution. Warrantless wiretapping, the government reading our mail, warrantless searches. A law so secret we aren’t even allowed to know what the law is. (The secret PATRIOT Act.) The list goes on and on. The infringements on our freedom have been going on for decades with the Cold War and the War on Drugs making a mockery of our freedoms. Now with the War on Terror, or whatever the latest incarnation is being called, the erosion of freedoms has expanded exponentially. And while individuals are losing their freedom, corporations have expanded theirs. The FISA Amendment Act of 2008 allows immunity for corporations that had already broken existing laws. And as anyone who has had a disagreement with a large corporation can attest to, an individual’s rights pale in comparison to a corporation’s.

The next segment is the land the within the country’s borders, or the environment. Some seem downright hostile to the idea of regulations that allow for clean air or water, or to the idea of keeping some land pristine for future generations. I can truly understand wanting simplification of many government regulations, but that simplification shouldn’t mean weakening. Past generations and millions of citizens now believe that it is our duty to hold some land for future generations to enjoy and that the land we do use should be kept as clean as possible. Those ideals should be part of what makes up a good citizen. Why would anyone, like Rush Limbaugh for instance, intimate that it is un-American to want clean air/water or to keep some land in its original condition. Teddy Roosevelt, who would stand against people like Limbaugh in their attack on the environment, once spoke for an hour and a half with a bullet in his chest – sans oxycontin. Nuf said.

Now for the third segment of the country, the people. I rarely if ever hear someone say, “Screw everyone but me, I got mine.” But actions speak much louder than words. If it is of paramount importance to you, as it has been to the republicans in congress, to keep tax cuts for those who don’t need them, and second in line on your priority list is to cut services to those who do need them, something is terribly wrong with your priority list. There are people who have worked hard all their lives with almost nothing to show for it. But, they were promised by the government that their medical and basic needs would be taken care of when they could no longer do it themselves. There are also people who are not capable of taking care of themselves because of illness, injury or other reasons that no decent society should let fend for him or herself. And now, there are also added to those who need help, people who want to work, but through no fault of their own cannot find a job. Never in history have millions of people who were working, decided en masse to stop working because they thought it would be easier. The jobs aren’t there and it’s our problem to help them. And by doing the right thing by these people now, we will all benefit by a better economy in the future.

I ask the question in all seriousness. If you could choose how your country was run and choose how it acted, would you choose an authoritarian government? Would you save any land for future generations and would you try and keep what we do use clean? Would you divide the country into us and them? Would you give as many people as possible a decent life? Or would you fight against all those things?