“SOME writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness POSITIVELY by uniting our affections, the latter NEGATIVELY by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher.”

-Thomas Paine, Common Sense

Reclaim and Reshape

In speaking with my always insightful and excitable wife I came to a realization that had not yet dawned upon me: our democracy has its trials and tribulations.  Perhaps my fatalist railing against our government has blinded my only human, fallible vision.  This may not be the fall of Rome as I sometimes am fond of pronouncing.  In the scope of world history we are yet babes.  We are but toddlers in the face of empires that are yet still burning and smoldering in our texts of historical recollection and reflection.  Understanding that the very essence of democracy allows for such growing pains is tantamount to comprehending that democracy is a government of elected representatives of the people and by the people.  Democracy is the clay of the people and there comes a time when the clay begins to slide off of our potter’s wheel.  This is when the skilled hands of the democratic artisan need to interpose in the process and lend its hand into reshaping the clay.  My friends, we must intrude and take back our clay.

The wrongdoings perpetrated in our names by our government in recent history must be rectified and rendered null.  America has been relegated to a nation to be feared: a rogue nation, if you will.  We no longer are looked to for leadership for our leaders have lost the trust of the world.  Our leaders have thumbed their very noses at the world as a sign of our apparent abhorrence of selflessness and peaceful discourse.  We are a nation at war and all who stand in the way of the behemoth will be trounced, including its own people.  Where have our representatives retreated?

In the wake of the terror of September 2001 I, like most others, felt solidarity in light of our tragedy.  We were frightened, rightfully so, for our very own lives and livelihood.  Little did we know our livelihood was soon to be held as hostage by the very same heads of state that promised our freedoms to buy goods and be prosperous once more.  Prosperity appears to belong only to those who pilfer the monies, rights, and benefits of the common worker.  Fear descended upon us all much like the bleak, foreboding skies of a summer storm without the benefit of shelter to protect us from the rain.  Only under this umbrella of apprehension can our government dominate as it spirals out of control into the fallacies and imperfections of utter dictatorship.  This must and will not be allowed to transpire.

My friends, we have had opportunities aplenty to rescue ourselves from our own doldrums.  Now is the time to again raise the call for democracy and ring aloud the bells of liberty.  As a people we must take to the streets and move democracy back into the seat of power where the people once again rule.  The public must move to bring the ears of our congressmen and senators down to listen to our words in our houses, businesses, schools, and churches.  We heirs of the democratic process have a responsibility in voting into the executive position someone who represents not only our own selves, but also our friends, our neighbors, and indeed, our adversaries.  Democracy ceases to exist when it becomes selective.

The time has now come to make our voices ring clear through the dense mud and static noise of the media.  It is time to have faith once more and claim God as our own and to understand that government is our public instrument and that God is our personal shrine and that the two shall never mix.  Take your families, friends, and children and show them how the people truly rule this nation and will again reclaim its glory and status in the world.  Let us bring democracy back into focus and allow it to allow us to prosper as a people.  Join with others to wring our spirits of our self-doubt and trepidation that make up the very feed the swine eat of from their troughs.  Retrieve your souls and rediscover the roots of our national pride.

In closing, a question:  How can democracy be imposed abroad when it has been eroded at home by our government’s very own bloodstained hands?

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