Does the Government Reflect the Will of the American People?

Does the American government of today reflect the will of the American people?

The ideals of the founding fathers are all but lost today; special-interest groups, lobbyists, big business, and corrupt government have made it impossible to live them out. We have lost our national identity and given up our rights to a more powerful government. This was not the intent of the Constitution from the beginning. The founding fathers wanted a limited government, peace and freedom to live as they chose. I believe the American government does not reflect the wishes of its constituents. This is true partly because the public does not hold elected officials responsible and because the silent majority is not active.

Government social programs and business bailouts have removed the foundation of our free enterprise system. Initiative and hard work are no longer required to succeed in our society. More importantly you can fail yourself to success because the government will eventually bail you out. This shortsighted approach has caused haphazard business plans to be implemented and an erosion of our normal business process. ObamaCare, corporate welfare and social programs are not the answer. What the useful idiots do not understand is someone will be paying for their handout.  We are the government!

The lack of national identity has robbed us of the unity which was displayed by the founding fathers. They didn’t all agree on exactly how the country should be structured, but they did understand they had to come to a final determination. Our lack of identity today has divided us into races, factions, and special interest groups and has robbed us of our community and ability to compromise. This is a sad situation and has caused gridlock in Congress, preventing the progress that so many politicians speak of but are unable to produce. If we just studied the long term effects of the decisions we are making our choices would be different. We would realize most of what we’re doing is bankrupting our future.

So how do we fix it?

I believe we must return to a more nationalistic approach, a focus on maintaining our freedoms and our economic system. These are concepts that made America great from the beginning allowing us to build such a great country in a short period of time. Many countries around the world want what we have but at the base of what we have are freedoms- freedom to choose, freedom to work, freedom to succeed, but also the freedom to fail. Big brother government has interfered and tried to prevent the negative consequences of bad decisions and in doing so have prevented a huge learning curve. Success is attained through failure and those who don’t fail are not really a success at all.

We must find a way to balance the budget and although I know the economic impact will be devastating, over time making the right choices we’ll be able to deliver a better fiscal situation for future generations. Putting our dollar back on a standard would also be instrumental. Limiting government agencies, the money spent in these pipelines is astronomical. The advent of the computer and high-technology should cause the government to be more efficient and smaller, we should be doing more with less which is not the case.

We also need to be more vocal in our voting and campaigning. The public must insist that elected officials do what’s best for the constituents. Understanding sometimes citizens don’t have the full picture, and the official must go against what constituents expect. For the most part elected officials should be doing what’s expected of them. And if they don’t they must be replaced.

We must require of ourselves the same integrity and good citizenship we expect from our elected officials. We want things done for us, even at the expense of others- a very shortsighted view. We must first educate ourselves understand the whole picture not just the small piece that were interested in and then make educated decisions on what’s best long-term. We the people will be one of the most important attributes that we need to flesh out in the future to maintain prominence in America.