A Republic, If We Can Keep It

(For some reason, the YouTube at the top of this post only shows when you click on the "read more" to view the whole post. Sorry about that, but no amount of fiddling will make it appear. It's a glitch, not a feature...)



This is one of my favorite songs from 1776, the musical not the year.  I always laugh at Cool Cool Considerate Men.

And somehow, laughter at the song seems rather apt this morning as I survey the fate of my country on this, our Independence Day.

It is a mere 234 years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, and the words of Ben Franklin ring as true today -- perhaps truer -- than ever:  "A Republic, if you can keep it."


Worth reading today?  This editorial from the Baltimore Sun which flays a number of modern hypocracies, self-aggrandizements and marketing ploys among the self-styled "originalists" who are, to put it politely, full of bunk.

On the contrary, the genius of our founding documents stems from the fact that those who drafted them did not see the world the same way, did not agree with each other about everything, and in some cases, didn't like one another. The decision to declare independence took months of debate and was not unanimously supported among the members of the Continental Congress. And even after voting to support the resolution of independence, the congress debated the actual text of the declaration for two more days. If the declaration was, as Mr. Beck said in a commencement address this year at Liberty University, written by the finger of God, it was certainly edited by men; among the changes made to Jefferson's draft was the removal of passages critical to the slave trade.

The Constitution, written some 11 years later, was even more explicitly the product of fundamental disagreements about what kind of nation we would have, a loose confederation of states or a strong federal government. And that debate didn't end when the states ratified the Constitution but rather ran throughout the presidencies of founding fathers George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. If the meaning of the Constitution as envisioned by the founding fathers was fixed, clear and unchanging, it was unapparent to them.

If anyone ever tries to tell you that history's viewpoints were fixed and easily discerned, you can laugh loudly in their face and call them an uneducated snake oil salesman.  

Our strengths in this nation have always derived from our disagreements, from our ability and passion to battle out the arguments about the issues that matter to us the most, because those arguments test the mettle of the underlying philosophies and policies.

As citizens,  our duty is to make our own opinions heard, no matter how contrary they may be to the whims and wishes of the people at the top of the governmental power struggle.

And, just as importantly, to remind those people in Washington, D.C., and in state capitols and local seats of government and wherever else elected representation in this republic of ours brings the ego-driven, self-important, self-serving among us to grasp for power of one plain and simple truth:  they work for the rest of us.

And if they aren't?  Then they won't be elected people for long.

Citizens, it is time we all recalled our own power in this fetid stew in which we find ourselves at present.

FDR once told a supporter who was urging action on a cause that FDR believed in greatly:  "I agree with you, I want to do it, now make me do it."  Governmental leaders should not govern by fiat in this nation, nor should they simply be buffeted by every puff of trendy political whim and fancy that blows briefly by -- but they certainly should listen to the voices of the people they represent.

And the people have not only a duty to raise their voices, but to collectively try to press their point forward to seek "a more perfect union."

Sometimes, we really fall flat on that one, don't we? 

The beauty is that we keep getting up after every defeat or hiccup, dust ourselves off and try again.  At least, we have for years done so in this country.  These days?  I'm not so certain that in this media-driven divisive landscape of factions for profit and power that any group can break through the morass of fundraising and idiocy to make any real dent.  That's just my cynicism talking, but I do despair of real change at times.

But then, they probably said that about Martin Luther King, Jr., too, didn't they?

Who will be the next leader?  Who is to say, but it certainly won't be the person who never speaks up and never acts on his or her own political conscience.

So, on this Independence Day of 2010, I say this to one and all:  what are you waiting for, speak up.  Make a pain of yourself.  Find your voice on an issue that matters to you and use it.