Let's exercise some freedom of speech

I had all this figured out thirty minutes ago and now I sit down to write and have forgotten everything. Good morning everyone.

Well it is the Fourth of July and everyone is talking about the birth of our nation. I view the fourth more as the conception of our nation and it really wasn't born till the end of the labor pains of ratification of the Constitution by the original colonies now states.

And if you read my blog regularly you know I worry about the durability of our Constitution. Will it survive our lack of attention to it? I think the United States of America will survive in some shape form or fashion, but the Constitution as written and how it should perform that seems to be in trouble. The Constitution and the Country should be one and the same. I just see the Constitution being flushed down the Potomac.

And yet you see countries like Egypt. A so called fledgling democracy going through major upheaval. How do we compare to Egypt right now? As a country you can say we are better off. As a democracy it seems we are better off. Hard to say. I look around and I see no energy to grow the constitution,to enrich it, and to protect it. This is different than growing the United States. A country can survive with all types of governments, even flourish for awhile. The difference is once you take away the support of the people it will eventually fade away or go through a violent/radical change. Our Constitution gives us the ability to flourish as a people. And we,the people, seem to have forgotten what we have, or don't realize the value of what we have.

Yes some people will say they are supporters of the Constitution and our country. I was eating lunch downtown in a park this week and there was a Tea Party rally going on. American flags were flying, people listened to speakers, and everyone applauded enthusiastically. They seemed to be all attuned to preserving our country. Yet I get the feeling they really don't understand about preserving our Constitution. Were they exercising their right to freedom of speech? Yes. The difference being, it is only their version of our country that they want to preserve. That doesn't work. One of the great aspects of the Constitution is its ability to adapt to changing times. You have to realize the world changes and as a country you have to adapt to survive and grow. The key is to keep the foundation of the Constitution and let the people be in charge. If the people stay in charge then they will demand the leadership to make the changes necessary to adapt and grow. When small groups dictate policy, the support of the people will dissipate sooner or later.

Now the difference for the United States. The support of the people wanes not because of attacks, the Tea party or other groups, the super rich, etc, but because of apathy of the people. I tend to blame education or lack of a quality public education. People truly don't realize the value and the dynamics of the Constitution. Also I think it goes to my thoughts above that people don't realize you can have the USA and lose the Constitution. I think people aren't seeing this separation. As long as we wave the flag and support the good ole USA, we think we still have the constitution. If you look close you can see the fault lines developing between the Country and the Constitution.

Did Snowden show us this happening? Hard to say. Is he a hero or a traitor? Can't say till all the facts come in. Is this much to do about nothing? Maybe. What it shows us by what the press is reporting and how people are reacting is we don't know what we are losing. And again I blame lack of quality education as one of the reasons we don't know what we have. People cannot see value in protecting words on paper till they realize how much they benefit from them.

Congress is suppose to represent the people. Specifically stated in Constitution. Right now if anybody told you they represented the people you should punch them in the nose. They have completely lost track of what are their stated requirements. You can blame lobbyists, greed, apathy, and much more, but overall their actions do not support better policy for the people at large. Here is where one fault line becomes visible. The action of our government is counter to the requirements of the Constitution. We, as the people, even bitch and moan. Approval ratings for our Congress are at all time lows. Does anything change? No because we don't make it change. It is not because of the lobbyists or the Wall Street elite, it is because of us. Technically we still have the power, we just abdicate it by not acting upon it and making our Congress support us. Yes, Congress exists, the flag waves, but where is the Constitution. Locked up in a box for people to see. Nice. The Constitution needs to be alive and we need to bring it back to life before we lose it completely.

Okay the thoughts are a bit scattered, like I said up top, I had thought of all this while picking up this morning and by the time I sat down it was slipping out of my brain and rolling down the floor to be swept up with the rest of the dust.

I was going to end discussing we don't know how to deal with change. Oh yeah, this goes back to Snowden, people keep wanting answers from the NSA and all the spy agencies about how they are spying on us. You can't expect an organization trained to find and keep secrets to tell you the truth about what they do. Goes counter to their existence. My example is if your job for years is to press button A and all of a sudden one day someone comes in and says now you must press C and B, but never A again or you will lose your job. Most people are going to lose their job. The habit will be hard to break, even with the threat of losing something vital, change can't be done overnight. And this is where I feel we are, we have accepted the way things are for so long that we cannot change to bring back the Constitution and make it an integral part of life in our government.

And what is funny is that if you support what is best for the people, then most everything else works out well. You can still have capitalism, freedom, even be a bit self centered personally, etc.. You just need the overall actions of the people to force our government to follow the Constitution and put the people first then everything will go well.

This post has many themes I have mentioned before. I write them over and over so hopefully enough people can see the need to press buttons B and C, instead of pressing button A to bring back the power of the constitution to the people.

Well anyway, it is the Fourth I hope you have a safe and enjoyable one. Great day to be patriotic, please remember what we started so we can continue to grow to be the greatest nation in the world.