The Emerald Rose

        It may be a little “after the horse has left the barn time” to be thinking of closing the door, but my mind is still as curious as ever, so I continue to learn. My latest subject for devouring, digesting, and “mind fodder” has been our “Founding Fathers”, here in the United States, and the condition of our Constitution today.

       First of all I was surprised to learn that perhaps only Ben Franklin oout of the lot was a politician. The rest were “landed gentry” shopkeepers, farmers, and businessmen. (Shows how much politicians are really good for, heh?)

       Secondly, and I’m still trying to get my mind around this, every single one of them was “well read”, or what we would probably define as high end experts on everything. They read incessantly! Now I can see the “landed gentry” having time for that, but merchants and farmers? But they did.

        Essentially they put their lives on the line literally in founding this country and establishing the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, and a great number of the original signers of the Constitution died broke and penniless because of “retribution” during that period, on both them and their families. They did not all become Jefferson’s or Washington’s, or Franklin’s.

        Things that I am learning, the second amendment to the constitution speaks to the right of every citizen to own and “bear” arms. Thomas Jefferson, when asked what could even justify letting the general public both own and be able to use arms simply said, “The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.” To which I say,….”Well put!”

        While our country was conceived on the “natural laws” which attribute all to a “Creator”, and we have always been a Christian nation, the Constitution goes to advocate the “universal concepts” of religion, and mandate we teach it in our schools. It further goes on to say that both “morality” and “virtue” along with religion, form our strongest hope of survival, as a country and as a people.

        All that being said,….where did we go wrong?

        I could rage on,…but I won’t. I could blame this, or that, or the other,…but I won’t. All I will say is “We the people” gave it up! First a little bit, a couple of  seemingly innocuous little “who cares” points, until today when we are now virtually totally conditioned to roll over and wave the white flag of surrender.

         Out leadership is functionally corrupt, hence our government is also corrupt. How so, you ask. Let’s take the recent few years financial crisis, (which by the way is far from over, mark my words on that. It will be another five to ten years before we get by it if we are lucky,….or a short two or three until it has devoured us whole.), when greed, avarice, personal vanity, and all the other signs converge, then corruption is complete,….so why are we “bailing out” anyone? To save the people who work there? To prevent the economy from spiralling even further down, to “protect the country” (now that one I get a big laugh over!).

        If you make mistakes, and make no bones about it, greed, avarice etc. are major mistakes, you must pay the consequences. Take it from one who was in that position and lost a home, a business and had my “ego balloon” popped big time, those were my personal “hells” to go through and take most of my family on the trip with me, through no fault of theirs. No “bailouts” were offered, no assistance (save one, my friend sims who threw a lifeline to me, for which I will be forever grateful). I learned to work from the ground up again, from cleaning about a hundred toilets a night, to washing windows. And I mean at night, from 7 pm until 5 or 6 am. I learned a lot from failing, yet we did not let the Lehman Brothers learn, we did not let General Motors learn, we did not let AIG learn,…..and I can’t think of a reason why not. In everything else in life it is a survival of the fittest, with the fittest rising and a) being thankful to God for their good fortunes, b) being morally ethical with all those around them, employees as well, and c) respecting justice as both a “restraint” against excesses, and a result of a betrayal of trust and natural law.

        Bernie Madoff got 150 years, I hope he lives to serve every day of them. AIG executives got bonuses for their individual performances, God only knows what GM executives are getting, but I really don;t think any of them are writing letters of resignation from the Country Clubs, and Yacht Clubs they belonged to before this all blew up.

         All of this is a direct result of “We the people” not holding our government both accountable and responsible for this quagmire we have been going through.

        I am very fast becoming a strict “Constitutionalist” in my thinking, and even at my age contemplating  a much more active personal role in trying to drag this country, my country, back to the principles it originally stood for.

         Greed, avarice, mismanagement, sorry ethics, no consideration of justice, and plain old ignorance of common sense are running amok in this country. Health care is out of control. But the British model that disallows heart surgery for anyone over 59 years old would have done me in for sure by now. And the Canadian model is equally as ludicrous. There is no “magic bullet” for the problems, and certainly not socialism, and socialistic health care and other programs.

         I understand R&D costs as an investment, and I concur with a protective period for a firm to recover those R&D costs where they should reap the benefits alone. But today I see my country hanging over a cliff, looking down at the warm white sands and gentle palm trees blowing, and the aquamarine waters gently lapping the beach of socialism. I picture this over-bloated country, and a few people trying to hold it back from crashing headlong off the cliff with the lack of understanding that a drop of 1000 feet to the nice warm sands will probably be the last thing they ever remember.

        Well enough for a Sunday, but let me ask you a simple question, when was the last time YOU read the Constitution of the United States of America, and it’s Bill of Rights?

        Could it be we no longer teach it in school, not mention it, but teach our children the underlying aspects and thought that went into it and it’s viability for century’s to come,…if,…and it’s a big if education, morality, and justice cease to become just words, but in fact ingrained on every child as they grow up into the adult life we have allowed to get to this point for them.

       So where do you “come down” on this? Let me know.

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