Me and My Llama: 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