Citizens of America, WAKE UP!!

We, the People of our nation need to WAKE UP to the kind of life to which our Constitution calls us. Stop the political name calling and trite social aphorisms. Internet jokes, whining, and blame setting will NOT fix our Nation. Many, if not most, of We, the People, have become fearful, immoral, and lazy, in body, mind, and spirit. In his Gettysburg Address, Lincoln, hopefully posited, "that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." Our Civil War, or War of Northern Aggression, was NOT won by General George B. McClellan, as he was not a man willing to risk assertiveness on the battlefield. Oh, he could dress up an army and make it drill efficiently, but he was timid and retiring when it came to the battlefield. 

Too many citizens, today, are willing to sit around, like McClellan, fearfully asking for more information, more supplies, more troops, but remaining frozen because of their fear of taking personal responsibility to actively engage the enemy or issue that is before them. McClellan-like retreats from constitutional Principles and Language has brought much decay, moral sickness, and cost us much in the eternal exercise of Rights and Responsibilities.

Because of our fears, we have not attained Lincoln's dream, but rather allowed ourselves to wander into aimless finger-pointing and gridlock, in our political arenas as well as in our personal lives. Today's "politically correct" chaos holds everyone's opinion or heritage sacred and blameless, except the citizens whom the reigning government despises or whom it can manipulate. Too often, we citizens fearfully acquiesce, further adding to the burden that is our modern government.  This increasing rate of social and political degradation has been going on for a long time, as U.S. history shows. Now, as ever, ONLY active personal sacrifice, commitment, and action of the majority of our citizens can ever hope to restore our Nation to the Ideals on which we were founded.

We, the People, complain about wanting our constitutional Rights, but by our own fearful, selfish, self-centered lives, we fail to exercise our constitutional Responsibilities that secure those Rights. In the most recent elections, half or less of Connecticut's registered voters went to the primary and general polls. THAT demonstration of apparent apathy is a huge part of why we are in this mess. Too often, we dissociate ourselves from what we dislike instead of working to change it. We still complain about it, even if we didn't participate in selecting the candidates or drafting legislation. We still push other people into the political arena to do all the active dirty work of government for us. We're all too happy to be able to take safe "potshots" at them for anything they do in office... but we don't want to be involved in getting the necessary work done.

Today, We, the People, don't want to be inconvenienced. It might upset our parties, budgets, family time, vacations, or invade our personal space. By our evasion of Responsibilities, we fail to honor those who sacrificed everything or nearly everything in our American Revolution. We fail to count the  cost to those who secured our Independence and Constitution for us! We fail, also, to count the cost of our social and political degradation.

We need to stop complaining and get actively involved. We need to "stick our necks out", because WE are the ones driving the way that our government is taking us, whether by inaction or action on our part. We elect to office and then abandon people of all types, the good and the bad, the generous and the greedy, the principled and the unprincipled. When we abandon good officials, they become susceptible to evil influences. When we fail to hold bad officials accountable, they further corrupt our system. What has happened to the clarion call and spirit of "We, the People"? Our personal refusals to be active in government, failing to encourage, support, defend, and monitor government officials, is a key component in our current problems. Additionally, I dare say that most of us fail to pray for government officials, despite the biblical command to pray for them. 

As we fail our leaders in these things, they fall prey to worldly pressures and their own desires. By failing to support and hold accountable those in leadership positions, we allow them to do virtually anything, irrespective of our Constitution. WE, the People, complain and howl about all sorts of governmental things that we do not like, but many, if not most, of us virtually never actively hold ourselves nor our elected, appointed, or hired officials accountable to constitutional Standards.

Until "We, the People", change our own attitudes and behaviors, to actively bring ourselves into line with the Bible and our Constitution, we shall continue to elect and permit the society-destroying practices that we and our government have followed; that have sunk our nation to its present level of chaos and decay.