Posted on 10/01/2014 6:25:39 AM PDT by Kaslin
Many recent surveys indicate that the vast majority of Americans feel our country is moving in the wrong direction.
This country was intentionally designed to be different from others in which a monarch or strong central government controlled almost every aspect of the lives of its citizens. In most other nations, the lives of the populace conform to the will of the government. In America, the government is supposed to conform to the will of the people. Also in most other countries, it was declared that the rights of the people were conferred by the government; whereas, our founding documents indicate a belief that our rights derive from our Creator, a.k.a. God.
It is critical that the people of our country understand that we the people are at the pinnacle of power in a nation created of, by and for the people. In order to exercise that power in a responsible manner, the people must be informed voters. To cast votes for people or issues about which one knows little or nothing is akin to taking unlabeled medicine from an unknown source simply because someone told you to do so.
It is also unfortunate that many schools no longer offer civics courses and that students are not taught the fundamentals of how our government works. This partly explains the incredibly uninformed answers to basic questions on some televised "man on the street" interviews. The founders of our nation were huge advocates of education and felt that our freedoms and system of government would be jeopardized by an uninformed populace that could be easily manipulated by dishonest politicians or a biased press.
I hate to complain without offering solutions. Thus, my wife and I have just released a new e-book (soon to be a paperback) titled, "One Vote: Make Your Voice Heard." Thousands of free copies are being distributed, and the purchase price is less than that of a simple sandwich. It is completely nonpartisan and was written for people who, for whatever reason, missed out on important information with respect to becoming an informed voter. There are electronic links to websites that not only identify your representatives, but also tell you how they voted, as opposed to how they said they voted, on a variety of issues. It provides access to links that help you clearly identify your own beliefs and compare them with those of political figures and parties. This kind of information will make it easier for people to think for themselves, rather than being herded and manipulated by those in various political organizations who hunger for power, not liberty and fairness.
In 2012, 93 million Americans who could have voted failed to do so. That's more votes than either presidential candidate received. We must all realize that we have no right to complain about the direction of our nation if we are unwilling to grasp the importance of our civic duty to vote intelligently.
There are those who are much more interested in having blind followers than informed voters. They will not embrace this publication. I also fully realize that detractors will say Ben Carson is just engaging in self-promotion and trying to make more money. Some people ascribe to others what their motives would be and are incapable of thinking otherwise. In the meantime, we the people must, through our collective wisdom and power, alter the course of our beloved nation through the wise use of our votes.
“In 2012, 93 million Americans who could have voted failed to do so. That’s more votes than either presidential candidate received.”
Wow. Lots of Republicans stayed home, for sure.
Unfortunately they did, and those are to blame for the reelection of that arrogant, lazy, lying pos occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. I will never forgive them, nor those idiots who voted to reelect him
Unfortunately half of the voters will vote for a DemcoRat.
I voted for friggin Romney in 2012. But I can understand being dusgusted enough with the candidate that was crammed down our throats by the GOPe and the MSM, and staying home.
I votes for da candidate dat gives me cheese and a obamaphone.
I have a very hard time remaining friends with someone who would inflict this disaster on the country.
Hahahahaha.....
This is a joke, right?
Americans, by and large, don’t do ANYTHING intelligently.
So, the Dem's should stay home?
So you recommend I get a divorce ? The spouse of 30+ years still votes pro Union thug as she learned on her fathers knee.
She knows enough not to have a political conversation with me. We don’t discuss politics. Though she is not happy with the POSOTUS and I believe she abstained from any ore in 2012.
Politics isn’t rocket science. In fact, it is really quite simple.
The guy who always says, “I vote for the man, not the party” is in fact the real idiot. A statement like that suggests he is very intelligent, makes careful decisions, and reviews all of the facts. Truth is it is utterly clueless.
I have been voting since 1982. I have never missed a single election since. I have always voted the straight GOP ticket in the general election. I have never had a single regret. Not every candidate I have voted for was perfect, far from it in fact. But....
1) There was never one single instance where the Dem candidate was superior to the Republican candidate.
2) There was never one single instance where a third party candidate had any chance to impact an election other than to siphon off votes from the major party candidate.
3) There was never one single instance when it would have been better to stay at home and not vote.
In American politics your choices are very simple and easy. You can:
1) Vote Republican
2) Vote Democrat
3) Vote third party
4) Not vote.
I live in CA. All Democrats here are Marxists. Period. So number #2 is never an option for me. Number #3 and #4 are effectively voting Democrat.
It is very simple. It isn’t complicated. The worst Republican is always better than ANY Democrat, at least here in CA. The only chance I have to realistically advance the conservative cause is in the GOP primary and I do. But I have always voted the straight GOP ticket in the general and have never had a single regret about it.
I think voting for the candidate that says “it’s not your fault” instead of “get off your ass”
is a lot stronger motivation than the “gibsmedats”.
Haven’t read the book yet.
But I wonder? Is greater voter participation the cure for America’s current political morass?
If corruption in government is one issue, does a majority vote somehow lead to greater ethics or improved values? What about a greater majority of more voters?
If fiscal responsibility is an issue, does inclusion of a broader class of voters somehow imbue the necessary wisdom and discipline? Are these new voters possessed of such virtues themselves?
What about foreign policy? Welfare & Federal benefits? Energy policy? Racial issues? The LGBT/Femanist sexual revolution? Religious freedom?
And is EDUCATING voters the solution? Does intelligent voting somehow cause virtue to triumph over vice? Was Hitler intelligent? Mao or Stalin? Chavez? Sayyed Ali Khamenei or Osama Bin Laden? I always thought Bill Clinton was a SMART guy...
Anyway, I like Ben Carson, and appreciate what he’s trying to do, (this is a lot better than ‘Dreams from my Father’).
But I suspect the American problem is one of values, rather than participation. With a government and press united in opposing Christian values, and many new immigrant voters from anti-Christian societies, its hard to see how America can find her moral compass again. Short of a miracle of God, and a great Christian revival that is.
Unfortunately, more than 50% of Americans don’t even know what the words ‘civic’ and ‘duties’ mean.
Very well put. I vote the same way and for the very same reasons. The purists in our party are killing us. Nothing in life is perfect. You just have to keep chipping away at the rock.
IF the blue blood gop elite RINOS put up another RINO like ROMNEY they will make it that much easier for more Conservatives to sit home AGAIN!
I held my nose and vote for RINO McNasty and RINO Romney, NO MORE!
Give me Alan West and Ted Cruz types. NO PRO AMNESTY, NO ANTI- 2nd Amendment, lets get along candidates need apply.
And the national gop orgs can kiss my rear end, I only donate to the candidate of my choice direct. They use my $ to prop up RINOS like lamar alexander, thad chochran who are over 74 and need to retire. alexander promised 2 terms and out, now he is running for a 3rd. Did to Joe Carr what was done to McDaniel’s.
In contemplating the causes which may disturb our Union, it occurs as matter of serious concern that any ground should have been furnished for characterizing parties by geographical discriminations, Northern and Southern, Atlantic and Western; whence designing men may endeavor to excite a belief that there is a real difference of local interests and views. One of the expedients of party to acquire influence within particular districts is to misrepresent the opinions and aims of other districts. You cannot shield yourselves too much against the jealousies and heartburnings which spring from these misrepresentations; they tend to render alien to each other those who ought to be bound together by fraternal affection. The inhabitants of our Western country have lately had a useful lesson on this head; they have seen, in the negotiation by the Executive, and in the unanimous ratification by the Senate, of the treaty with Spain, and in the universal satisfaction at that event, throughout the United States, a decisive proof how unfounded were the suspicions propagated among them of a policy in the General Government and in the Atlantic States unfriendly to their interests in regard to the Mississippi; they have been witnesses to the formation of two treaties, that with Great Britain, and that with Spain, which secure to them everything they could desire, in respect to our foreign relations, towards confirming their prosperity. Will it not be their wisdom to rely for the preservation of these advantages on the Union by which they were procured ? Will they not henceforth be deaf to those advisers, if such there are, who would sever them from their brethren and connect them with aliens?
To the efficacy and permanency of your Union, a government for the whole is indispensable. No alliance, however strict, between the parts can be an adequate substitute; they must inevitably experience the infractions and interruptions which all alliances in all times have experienced. Sensible of this momentous truth, you have improved upon your first essay, by the adoption of a constitution of government better calculated than your former for an intimate union, and for the efficacious management of your common concerns. This government, the offspring of our own choice, uninfluenced and unawed, adopted upon full investigation and mature deliberation, completely free in its principles, in the distribution of its powers, uniting security with energy, and containing within itself a provision for its own amendment, has a just claim to your confidence and your support. Respect for its authority, compliance with its laws, acquiescence in its measures, are duties enjoined by the fundamental maxims of true liberty. The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of government. But the Constitution which at any time exists, till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole people, is sacredly obligatory upon all. The very idea of the power and the right of the people to establish government presupposes the duty of every individual to obey the established government.
All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all combinations and associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle, and of fatal tendency. They serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common counsels and modified by mutual interests.
However combinations or associations of the above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.
Towards the preservation of your government, and the permanency of your present happy state, it is requisite, not only that you steadily discountenance irregular oppositions to its acknowledged authority, but also that you resist with care the spirit of innovation upon its principles, however specious the pretexts. One method of assault may be to effect, in the forms of the Constitution, alterations which will impair the energy of the system, and thus to undermine what cannot be directly overthrown. In all the changes to which you may be invited, remember that time and habit are at least as necessary to fix the true character of governments as of other human institutions; that experience is the surest standard by which to test the real tendency of the existing constitution of a country; that facility in changes, upon the credit of mere hypothesis and opinion, exposes to perpetual change, from the endless variety of hypothesis and opinion; and remember, especially, that for the efficient management of your common interests, in a country so extensive as ours, a government of as much vigor as is consistent with the perfect security of liberty is indispensable. Liberty itself will find in such a government, with powers properly distributed and adjusted, its surest guardian. It is, indeed, little else than a name, where the government is too feeble to withstand the enterprises of faction, to confine each member of the society within the limits prescribed by the laws, and to maintain all in the secure and tranquil enjoyment of the rights of person and property.
I have already intimated to you the danger of parties in the State, with particular reference to the founding of them on geographical discriminations. Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party generally.
This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the human mind. It exists under different shapes in all governments, more or less stifled, controlled, or repressed; but, in those of the popular form, it is seen in its greatest rankness, and is truly their worst enemy.
The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.
Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind (which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out of sight), the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it.
It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which finds a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another.
There is an opinion that parties in free countries are useful checks upon the administration of the government and serve to keep alive the spirit of liberty. This within certain limits is probably true; and in governments of a monarchical cast, patriotism may look with indulgence, if not with favor, upon the spirit of party. But in those of the popular character, in governments purely elective, it is a spirit not to be encouraged. From their natural tendency, it is certain there will always be enough of that spirit for every salutary purpose. And there being constant danger of excess, the effort ought to be by force of public opinion, to mitigate and assuage it. A fire not to be quenched, it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into a flame, lest, instead of warming, it should consume.
It is important, likewise, that the habits of thinking in a free country should inspire caution in those entrusted with its administration, to confine themselves within their respective constitutional spheres, avoiding in the exercise of the powers of one department to encroach upon another. The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to create, whatever the form of government, a real despotism. A just estimate of that love of power, and proneness to abuse it, which predominates in the human heart, is sufficient to satisfy us of the truth of this position. The necessity of reciprocal checks in the exercise of political power, by dividing and distributing it into different depositaries, and constituting each the guardian of the public weal against invasions by the others, has been evinced by experiments ancient and modern; some of them in our country and under our own eyes. To preserve them must be as necessary as to institute them. If, in the opinion of the people, the distribution or modification of the constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the Constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation; for though this, in one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed. The precedent must always greatly overbalance in permanent evil any partial or transient benefit, which the use can at any time yield.
Thank you for that. But keep in mind George Washington said that a time when only male property owners were permitted to vote in federal elections.
I now see the wisdom of that logic.
Duty?
47 percent of working Americans know they have no duty to pay individual tax.
Tens of millions of illegal immigrant trespassers have no duty to become legal.
Elected representitives have no duty to our constitution or their promises.
A majority of Christians ignore their duty to The Great Commision.
Duty? It died in America in the 1960’s, with so much else.
Romney did not present a clear vision explaining to wavering dem voters in a personal level how their lives would be better with a Romney presidency. For a 'pub to win there have to be "I have a dream" type powerful speeches.
Kinda like Cruz was able to do for 21 consecutive hours.
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