On “The Might of Millions”
D.R. Tucker writes on The Right Angle about “The Might of Millions”.
Do I want President Obama to fail? No. I want the country to succeed despite his agenda. .. there’s still a part of me that believes we can make it through the Obama years as well.
What I want, is for President Obama to change. I want him to find it easy to do the right thing. I want his mistakes to fail, to be so difficult – he has time to realize he is wrong before causing harm and difficulty for others. Unfortunately, life doesn’t work that way for any of us. Instead, errors are simple and quick to make, and painful to correct. Doing simple, good work – is tough.
No one man, no one President, can weaken the greatness of America—
Tucker may be correct. There are supposedly checks and balances in government, to rein in a Congress, a President, and, over generations, a Supreme Court that make mistakes, that act outside their authority.
That isn’t what we face. Congress, if anything, is making more egregious errors in judgment, under Pelosi/Reid, than President Obama. In the name of political expediency, party politics, ambitious personal greed for power, the Democratic Congress is failing in it’s duty to adhere to the Constitution, as each Member and Senator swore to do when they took their oath of office.
So we face not just a President intent on “change”, but a Congress intent on “buy the votes with deficit dollars” big government shopping lists. At this point, the Checks and Balances the Constitution instituted – are unbalanced.
Now, it is true that the people, collectively, can nullify the country’s greatness. An uneducated, crude populace, one that can be easily swayed by charming words and effective marketing, can create the circumstances under which America becomes just another country. However, so long as the country’s people remain intellectually and philosophically strong, the country will retain its richness.
I fear this statement, “so long as the country’s people remain intellectually and philosophically strong” is both elitist and pejorative. Elitist in that basic, compulsory education has been broken for too many poor and minority people. Pejorative in that “intellectually and philosophically strong” implies that Tucker’s definition of right and wrong, and of what philosophy dictates, is “right”.
I was taught in school, way back in the day, that Democracy is a horrible form of government. Inefficient, wasteful, ponderous, tough to get things done. That a “benevolent dictator” is the most efficient form of government.
The problem is that dictators have a horrible record for not being benevolent to many of their people, for very long. And a harsh government is costly in time, lives, and money to correct.
Democracy actually builds in regular government changes, the ponderous inefficiency prevents a lot of good things from being done – but on the whole, prevents a whole lot of bad things from being done. What we are left with is a ponderous, semi-stable government that tends toward pretty good goals.
But democracy requires every voter to understand the Constitution, the ballot, the role and limits on government officials, and the responsibility of every voter to also adhere to the Constitution.
Every voter that has trouble reading the English language is a threat to America. Voters that have to rely on others to translate political discussions rely on others to form their opinions – their participation in a free election is stolen from them.
Every school system that fails to teach, by eighth grade, to read, to write, to understand the basics of government, of campaign promises and broken campaign promises, such schools systems fail the United States. Some schools fail because they exist in a community rife with lawless elements, others from poverty or other social pressures. Some fail students from particular backgrounds.
And sometimes schools fail because they have been tasked inappropriately. They teach ecology and sports and social activism at the expense of math and communication in English – the basic language of the government, thus the language every voter must master, to individually assess what officials do and say, and make an informed, individual choice on voting day.
No Child Left Behind is one school program that seems, at least on the surface, to penalize a class to the progress of the child having the most trouble – at the moment. We each have different levels of accomplishment in different areas. This seemingly “warm and fuzzy” program instead increases burdens on teachers and schools – at a time when salary and administrative challenges cause many to question education as an attractive career. Educators, especially in the elementary and middle school levels, are critical to preparing our nation’s future. Yet we blithely make their job tougher and less rewarding, for political gain or social agenda.
Obama worked a fast one on the nation. The votes that won Obama his victory included a lot of voters that had not been voters before. That had not paid attention to government, and the role of voters. That had not paid attention to the role of foreign policy, of deficit spending and the national debt, of the subtle and long lasting importance of freedoms of the Bill of Rights, in the lives of all Americans. They were unused to thinking of how their vote would affect all Americans. And Obama worked these people. He identified enemies – rich people. Because so many voters are unused to thinking about numbers and arithmetic, telling people that a handfull of wealthy pay more than 60% of the taxes in the country is meaningless. Obama used their ignorance, not their patriotism, to win his campaign.
Tucker, I think, overlooks the results of generations of spotty education performance, of the social and political isolation of many communities, particularly minorities and “wealth-challenged” communities – and the blind arrogance and ambitious leaders of the Democratic party and of Congress. We aren’t looking at a rogue President Obama.
We face a Congress with a Democratic Party-style political and social agenda, with an inexperienced politician as President, and a newly-energized but largely inexperienced segment of the electorate.
We face the Clinton Administration reborn, intent on accomplishing everything the Constitution and a balanced Congress prevented their first time in office.
Blessed be to all.
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