Ownage – we gots it!
Okay, EVERYONE please find the time to go back and read the Constitution of the United States of America.
There will be a quiz – every day.
Please REMEMBER that one of the greatest things about the Constitution is that it is based on the concept of government by consent. That means that we all agree to this government, that it’s OUR government, that we OWN it and it only exists by our continued consent.
When we complain about “them” in the government we are either complaining about ourselves or falling into the fallacy that says that we don’t OWN this government. Both are wrong.
If you choose not to exercise your right of ownership, that’s one thing.
You do NOT have the right to complain about the government you OWN unless you are actively exercising your right of ownership.
I am.
Every day.
My congresspeople and president are probably sick of hearing from me but I don’t care. THEY work for ME (and you).
Please remember that. It’s OUR government. Because we all collectively don’t agree on things, it’s a government of consensus.
But this government, this nation WE OWN, only works if we continue to exercise our rights and our responsibilities as mutual owners and inheritors of own of the greatest experiments in government ever to have been tried.
If you want to read a good refresher on how we got this particular Constitution and why, I highly recommend reading Decision in Philadelphia by Christopher Collier and James Lincoln Collier.
3 Replies to “Ownage – we gots it!”
For someone who grew up (partially) in Ireland, I’m surprised that you have addressed this blog as if only people who live in the United States read it!
It’s not my Constitution, I don’t (and can’t) vote on anyone in power in the USA and sometimes it worries me that the USA Government pretty much rules the Western World, and there’s not a thing I can do about it.
Absolutely right. Going green is the future in every sense. Because if we don’t go green, then there might not be a future at all.
Jen in Oz,
As a student in Ireland, I learned a lot about other countries than Ireland – because Ireland was one of the battlegrounds of choice for much of post-Middle Age history. So I’ve learned to develop a great deal of respect for the histories of other countries.
For all that the US isn’t Oz, the US Constitution and its origins are both very intriguing.
One of the principles of the Constitution is the concept that government is derived by consent of the governed.
More interestingly, some of the compromises required to get the Constitution ratified have led to major problems in our country (for example, the Civil War).
The United States is far from perfect and I think it’s vital for us all, going forward, not only to understand why but to consider possible solutions.
As for “ruling the Western World,” that was the mantle that Great Britain held for a very long time (from the fall of Napoleon up until about the middle of WWII) and it’s a mantle that the US is losing, with China seeming on the way to becoming the next world ruler.
As for “there’s not a thing I can do about it” – that’s the point. I think it’s foolish to believe that the concentrated criticism of every Aussie in Oz wouldn’t have *some* impact on thinking in the US.
Cheers,
Todd