Getting back our Nation

In the greater scheme of things, getting older has its advantages. I can remember ideas like national interest, common interests, public policy, civility in political debate, and the seriousness of it all felt by citizens. Since we all remember the good more than the bad, all was not perfect in our past, it was just…different. And time only goes forward so there is no return to whatever existed in our past. But ideas can be timeless, it is only the societies that change.

For the slightly younger challenged, the present political society has not always existed. The raw adversarial relations between the press and the Republicans, the two national parties acrimonious fights, the politics of personal destruction, the atmosphere of political blood sport, the schemes to gain political advantage, and so on, are more products of recent times than our American way of government. Even President Bush has done his best to lead by example in the idea of civility in discourse. And even in my time I can remember when Time Magazine seemed like an arm of conservative political thought rather than the opposite it seems to be today. So things do change, at least in my experience.

Some things do not change. We still have a constitution, and oaths are sworn to the constitution, not any individual or vision. Those who use more democratic principals of political leader visions of a perfect future, with polling data to support it, and a willingness to subvert basic principals of our country to advance their cause are in the wrong place. Either move elsewhere to countries that use this method of government, try change the constitution by legal means, or enter the constitutional process. Legalisms to try subvert the electoral process, or even the basic legal process by arguing over what the meaning of “is” is are alive and well today. But many less age challenged remember other more fundamental and constitutional processes that are in need of restoring, or at least refurbishing.

Sometimes one wonders if a majority of the USA citizens today know when they have been attacked by foreigners, as in destroy them and their way of life? And one wonders if a majority of USA citizens are so confident about their way or life that they think we are always going to be here as we are today. I even wonder if a majority are willing to fight for their way of life, even if the issue is in doubt? And I wonder if the majority of the politicians we elect today care more about themselves and their parties and mining our national wealth than they do about our Nation? All these doubts and worries are about we, the USA, today.

Again, getting older has its advantages. What political society exists today is not as it always has been, even in my lifetime. And again, ideas are timeless, though societies are not. The question I have is: how do we get back our Nation? The historical solutions are obvious, at least to me. They are: 1) we go down the tubes of history; 2) we have a civil war or another revolution; or 3) we citizens take back our Nation using our Constitution, and hard work. We do have something that is special in world history. The immigration patterns confirm that others know this.