By the People, For the People

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If my grandmother had not been cremated, she would be rolling over in her grave. 

She who loved being American with every drop of blood in her body. Oh, she was so proud of our rights, our liberties, our freedoms.

Even being as well-read in history as she was, and with as much as she had seen and experienced in her ninety-one years of life, she perceived our country through rosy lenses.

For her America survived the Great Depression.

Her America was the one that had helped put an end to World War II and Nazism.

Her America, though the one that lost Vietnam and, in the process, killed her only brother, was a country that represented goodness, standing up for what was right, and those oft-cited freedoms.

“It’s our right as Americans,” she would say facetiously (and sometimes seriously) about silly things that I, wearing my jaded lenses, would grind my teeth about.

For her America, with its golden hue, was not my America.

Is not the America any of us are in now.

My grandmother’s America was a shining democracy. A country of liberty and justice. No questions about it. Cut and dried. By the people, for the people. Hallelujah. Amen.

This America – our America – is supposed to be a democratic republic.

Or a federal republic. Or a constitutional republic. Or a representative democracy.

So, yes, there’s a bit of confusion on the terms. However, the quick take-away is that our government was set up as a “form of government that involves representatives elected by the people, who execute their duties under the constraints of a prevailing constitution that specifies the powers and limits of government.”*

The powers and limits.

The bottom line is that, once upon a time, the king of England did such things as obstruct “the Administration of Justice,” make “Judges dependent on his Will alone,” and cut “off our Trade with all Parts of the World.”  

Because the petitions for redress by these people (by these men, let’s be honest), were answered “only by repeated injury” the Declaration of Independence was written and signed in 1776.

(Leaving the severe issues of Imperialism and Colonialism for another time), as a result of the king’s failure to act for the good of his people, independence was sought and fought for. In that seeking and in that fight for a better government, the U.S. Constitution was written. The American Revolutionary War was fought. The articles of peace were signed on September 3, 1783.

The bottom line is that those founding fathers established a government under the strictures of the Constitution with checks and balances to ensure that no single person could decide the fate of all. No more kings. No more unchecked power. No single source of legislative, judicial, and executive power.  

We are in a dangerous time where the elected leader is doing all he can to abolish and erode the constraints set forth by the Constitution. For example, the executive order to end birthright citizenship. Or the attempt to freeze monies, an action which is not within the president’s purview—according to the Constitution— but is within Congress’s. Or his repeated suggestions that he run for a third term. As if this were an option to be decided on a whim. It is not. The two-term limitation is established by the 22 Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

Those early people of the United States, stated very clearly in the introduction to the Constitution that their intentions were to, “establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.”

We are their posterity.   

As such, it is our responsibility to uphold the Constitution. To pay attention to what is being done especially with regard to the general welfare and domestic tranquility of our fellow citizens and countrypeople. The rule of law and democracy is not something to be disregarded.

It is the president of the United State’s duty, as per the oath of office he took when accepting his role, to ensure that he will “to the best of Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

We still live in a constitutional republic and if we want to continue to do so we must adhere to the Constitution. Even and especially the president. Even and especially those who work for his administration. Even those called in as advisers. Even and especially those elected to legislative and judicial positions.

I, for one, absolutely do not want to live in an oligarchy where the country is ruled by the few. I certainly and absolutely do not want to live in a country where that few is a handful of billionaires who do not have the interest of the common person in mind. They certainly don’t have my best interests in mind.

I do not want to live in a monarchy. If the current president’s post, in which he wrote of himself saying, “Long live the king,” was a joke, it was a joke in very poor and very unconstitutional taste. As an American under a constitutional republic governance, I do not find that funny and I do not want to be ruled by anyone.

There is a huge difference between being governed and being ruled.

I will abide being governed, I will not abide being ruled.

Yes, there is corruption in our country. Yes, there are changes that should and need to be made. But these should be made lawfully and constitutionally. They should be made with the consideration for the general welfare and with the “all” part of “all Men are created equal” very fixed in mind. And, while we are here, let us acknowledge and understand the term “Men” in “all Men” as all of humankind. All. Not only the billionaires. Not only the elected officials. Not only those whose skin is a certain color or body parts a certain shape. No, all.

If we step away from the Constitution of the United States, if we allow our laws to be overturned, overlooked, and overreached we expose ourselves to the endangerment and very real potential loss of the freedom, independence, and rights we have for so long championed, defended, and boasted about.

I would rather speak up for the Constitution now and be wrong about what is being done in this country at this time and right before my eyes than stay silent and be right.

I would rather urge us to see the opportunity we have to actually become the kind of country, the kind of democracy, the kind of republic my grandmother was so proud of.

I would rather recall Lincoln’s words of the Gettysburg Address regarding the dead from our very own Civil War, in which he said,

“It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth,”

and remind us all of those words than pretend that I am not furious about what is happening.

We have another great task remaining before us – to defend and sustain our democratic republic.

We have allowed ourselves to be divided.

It is time to remember we are the United States of America and We Are the People.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

*https://www.usconstitution.net/republic-vs-democracy/

https://www.npr.org/2022/09/10/1122089076/is-america-a-democracy-or-a-republic-yes-it-is

https://www.thoughtco.com/republic-vs-democracy-4169936

https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/democracy-and-republic

https://constitutioncenter.org/the-constitution/white-papers/the-declaration-the-constitution-and-the-bill-of-rights

https://constitutionus.com/constitution/declaration-of-independence/when-did-america-gain-independence/

http://hrlibrary.umn.edu/education/all_amendments_usconst.htm

https://www.owleyes.org/text/gettysburg-address/read/text-of-lincolns-speech

https://constitutioncenter.org/media/files/constitution.pdf

https://declaration.fas.harvard.edu/resources/text

http://hrlibrary.umn.edu/education/all_amendments_usconst.htm

https://www.federalregister.gov/presidential-documents/executive-orders/donald-trump/2025

https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/01/29/2025-02007/protecting-the-meaning-and-value-of-american-citizenship

https://www.justsecurity.org/107087/tracker-litigation-legal-challenges-trump-administration/

https://www.dukechronicle.com/article/2025/02/trumps-executive-order

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/king-trump-rcna192912

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/19/trump-backlash-social-media-king

https://people.com/donald-trump-calls-himself-king-as-white-house-shares-fake-time-cover-11683451

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/white-house-post-trump-as-king/

https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-pause-federal-grants-aid-6d41961940585544fa43a3f66550e7be

https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/5144327-trump-administration-federal-grant-funding-freeze/

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-administration-rescinds-order-attempting-freeze-federal-aid-spen-rcna189852

 

 

 

In Search of An Honorable Man

Starting sometime after Christmas, my mom and I work our way, night after night, episode after episode, through the TV show Foyle’s War.

It’s the story of a policeman in the town of Hastings on the south coast of England during the Second World War. The main character, Christopher Foyle, is a man of dignity, honesty, intelligence, and uncompromising honor. 

Though he tries to join the Service so that he can do what he feels would be a greater part for the war effort, for political and often malicious, revengeful repercussive reasons, year after year, he’s kept in his role as detective chief superintendent.

From that place, in that position, he upholds the law because it is his job to do so.

As murders happen (it is a police show after all), he seeks justice for those who died—whether of British, German, or other nationality—and tries to deliver, if not peace, at least the comfort of the knowledge of what happened for the ones left behind.

When possible, knowing circumstances matter, and when he legally can, he lets people off with warnings as he does with a young woman who had been coerced and threatened into performing acts of sabotage such as cutting telephone lines to a nearby base.

As the war stretches out longer than anyone imagined it would, as both sides do more heinous actions, as prejudices swell like blisters, Foyle holds himself, those who work for him, and those he encounters to the highest standards. To the law. To what is right.

For example, when a war profiteer is arrested and the fresh food he was price-gougingly and illegally offering is confiscated, the hungry, rationed officers including his WTC-borrowed driver salivate over the turkey locked up in the evidence room. It is not right, by law, for them to eat the evidence. But Foyle, understanding the folly of waste and the needs of those around him, manages to get permission from the proper hierarchy to use a photo instead of the perishable item for when the trial goes to court. But even then, Foyle does not allow that turkey to be cooked and awarded to himself or his officers. He recommends, instead, that it be donated to a refugee station but with the invitation for his driver (to her delight) to be able to attend the dinner.  

Time and again, he’s offered incentives to let something illegal slide “for the sake of the war.” Time and again, he’s both underestimated and threatened by bullying military brass and other powers-that-be who try to pull rank and rain down fire and brimstone on his head.

Time and again, he acknowledges that the fire and brimstone might rain down, but, nevertheless, that that doesn’t concern him where the law is involved.

The actor who plays him, Michael Kitchen, is a master of subtle expression showing a range of emotion, thought, and character.

It is easy to see, through Kitchen’s skill, the disappointments Foyle feels, the horrors of war, death, and destruction, the recognition of the gray lines that are drawn when law and procedure are abandoned for the “greater good” of the war, his joys and sorrows (British stiff upper lipped as they are), and his dreams.  

It is also easy to see, in the historical context and with such visual representation, how quickly a world can be divided against itself. And how, unfortunately, many of the blistering prejudices depicted in the show (and known from history) still exist today. In the exact same form.

We still kill each other. We still hate what is other. We still make horrible mistakes. 

And while I despair at times for our world, this country, and the future of democracy, I’m reminded of the anecdotal memory which television’s children host Mr. Rogers offered as a way for parents and children to deal with tragic events depicted in the news. He said, “My mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’ To this day, especially in times of disaster, I remember my mother’s words, and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers – so many caring people in this world.”

While wars still wage on, while people are still killed, abused, and tortured, while prejudices balloon, while hate lingers, while injustices are done, while laws are broken, while unjust laws are enacted, while good things are destroyed, I think about the character and leadership of the fictional Christopher Foyle, the goodness of the real Mr. Rogers, and I remember that the bad picture isn’t the whole picture.

It isn’t the only picture.

It isn’t the entire story.

As the series comes to its last episode, and I’m thinking (as I often do as a writer) of the character in terms of character development, character arc, and the story as a whole, I bookmark Christopher Foyle as the honorable man—a solid rock in a sea of horrific turmoil, as an impeccable leader, as a helper for the people of Hastings, and as a fierce advocate for preserving the integral underlying structure of law in his country. For, if lawlessness and wrongdoing are allowed in times of war, if the evils the Nazis did are then done by those at home, if those atrocities are allowed because they are being done by the “good guys” then, as the questions are raised often within the show, “What are we fighting for?” and “What was the point of the war?”

The point of war… well, that is a barbed-wire subject for another day.

As the show concludes, and I tease apart (as I so often do) the story as a whole to see the parts (story, character, story arc, character arc), knowing that as humans we have our flaws and too often want to see those flaws revealed in others, I rejoice that the show’s writer(s) didn’t bend or break Foyle. Fictional though he was, and though he comes off as nearly so, Christopher Foyle wasn’t perfect, but even so, he never compromised his values or principles. And that makes me happy.

For, these days, more than ever, I find myself wishing for the honorable man and wishing for the honorable woman in both real life and in fiction.  

The human experience is a strange and messy one. We are all figuring out what it means to be alive. What it means to live. We don’t always choose the right options when given them. We don’t always follow our values and principles. We don’t always learn from history.

We are flawed. Fortunately, and unfortunately, that is part of what it means to be human.

But even so, despairing at times at the apparent lack of good people (mostly good leaders), I remember Mr. Rogers reminding me that they’re there. They’re all around me.

They’re the helpers—for big, world-changing events and for the every-day-oh-so-important little ones.

I think of Mr. Rogers as that helper for many, many children (and adults). 

I think of my father, who was kind, generous, quick to stand up for a cause, and ready to fight for the underdog, as a helper.

I think of the examples, historical, actual, and fictional, of good people, honorable leaders, and all the helpers there have been, are, and will be.

With the show’s images of a blitzed out London in my mind’s eye, my experience with a British woman who still, these generations later, remarked upon my use of cream in my coffee as an extravagance (are we still rationing ourselves this long after that war?), and with my 2015 visit to the concentration camp Sachsenhausen which opened my eyes with heartbreaking wideness to the atrocities that humans are capable of in a way they had not before been opened, I think of what I—being as idealistic and hopeful as my father was—desire for the world.

Peace, for one. Love for one another. Kindness. Understanding. The type of compromise that allows one to live with the other. The ability to share. The telling of stories that reveal honor more than dishonor and a hopeful outcome rather than a dystopia. The speaking of words that unite rather than divide. And… And, isn’t that just the tip of the iceberg?

I think of myself and my place in this world, as beautiful and messed up as it is, and as beautiful and messed up as I am, and hope that I can also, despite my flaws and mistakes, as much as possible, where and how I can, be an honorable woman, a leader—even if only by good example—and, most of all, a helper.