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Of The People, By The People, For The People
For as long as any of us can remember, our government has operated under the assumption that it is representative of the people. Every famous speech, our Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and everything else that we hold dear, talks about the people. But lately, even though our nation's historic documents seemed to know who the "people" were, it just does not seem so clear any more.
The people, who apparently are supposed to be a cross section of our citizenry, seem to have set up separate camps across our nation. These special interests are far more important than those issues that address the overall needs of our nation. Recent polls prove just how polarized we have become concerning our upcoming elections. Some of these polls show almost a 50-50 split when it comes to who people will support in the upcoming Presidential election. None of us will forget what a fiasco the 2000 election was and just how divided our nation seemed after that election. Control over our Senate and House of Representatives seems to teeter with just a few votes each election cycle.
We now have politicians who have made careers simply being an advocate for one specific cause. Whether they are pro-life or for the right to choose, whether they believe that nothing is more important than the environment or maybe their feelings about firearm possession is their claim to their political fame many seem to rally around just one cause. We have Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, the Green Party, Independents, and a host of other political affiliations who claim that they are all independent as to their political doctrine. We seem to have a party or a cause that addresses every individual issue that we may face in our country today.
Other issues such as immigration, religion, homeland security, and the economy all offer extensive political affiliations, and ramifications in some way. It is truly confusing to have an opinion about which one of our nation's "people" deserve to be heard first. We have the African American-Caucus, the Gay-Lesbian Caucus, The Christian Coalition, and many other groups, in the form of political action committees, who truly do wonderful work for their respective cause.
But whatever happened to the political office holder who was put into office and represented "all of the people"? Whether it is our President, our Governor, Congressman, Senators, or the Mayor of your local town; when do you remember someone saying...."Now he (or she) really represents all of us." We have created a political system where those with the most money win; and the way you get money is by siding with a cause. Once you side with a specific cause, you are forced to give that cause more attention than you might give other causes that perhaps could not or did not write the check during the campaign season. We have magnified the old saying that "the squeaky wheel gets all the oil" and have changed that mantra to the "cause with the biggest check gets all of the attention." I am sure that this is a slope that if not slippery will at a minimum cause our office holders to be unsteady on their feet. Unsteady about being what our history has always told us our elected officials should be; a voice of the people. Special interest voices are at a level so loud that ordinary people can no longer be heard. A single voice crying in the woods will never be louder than a pack of wolves who howl for a common theme.
However, elected officials should never forget the power of people. Polls, political predictions, and guarantees from special interest block voting is all well and good; but when one voice becomes two, and two becomes three, the sound that they can make is piercing. And the piercing usually takes place in the form of a hole as it is punched out of a ballot.
When our forefathers staked out the blueprints of what would eventually become the greatest nation in the world, there were reasons why they were adamant that the government be made up of the people. Of the people, by the people, and for the people is a history lesson that all of us should study and review time and time again. After all, we have a big test coming up in November. It will be interesting to see who passes and who fails!
For further information, visit www.voice4victims.com
If you are interested in having Mr. Hall speak at your next club or group meeting, please email contact information to:
SHallBadgeNotes@aol.com
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