We the People...

Is this not a misleading and manipulative phrase? Does it not push us in the direction of believing that the common people have much more political power than we really have?
atriot:

Maybe it was more true when Thomas Jefferson used it in the Declaration of Independence than it is today. Maybe not.

Isn't there great power for politicians in getting the common people to believe that WE are doing everything together, as a cohesive unit? Perhaps this lie is the glue that holds America together.

Food for thought.

 

The lie is very legally important. Sovereignty is legally vested in the people of the United States which is legally has helped implement several things including the primary system, legally binding referendums, the ability for state conventions for a constitutional amendment, ect, though because there's no election on a federal level it's more relevant to the states. Whether people choose not to use these legal precedents or not is up to them, and they generally don't.

 

We the People....make very bad decisions. Not to mention that we allow ourselves to be manipulated.

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We the people becomes a diluted statement as population increases. It is the extraordinary will that rallies public sentiment, I uphold these things.

 

THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE =/= THE CONSTITUTION

The Declaration of Independence is not even a US document. There was no United States when it was written, and the laws of the future United States were not yet conceived.

The founding fathers ARE the common people. They are common people that rose up against over-taxation by a monarch that ignored their needs.
Freedom is inherent not in a societal system - but within the human will. We can be free at any moment that we choose to be.

Why don't you choose to be?

 

Well, the founding fathers were the common slave-holding misogynistic mostly-wealthy older white men; at least. Let's not pretend they were glorious demigods with virtue for blood and love for bile.

...and as far as the OP goes, the system that controls this planet is built on misleading and manipulation.

 

I don't think it makes people believe they are doing things together s such

and perhaps it's just very impressionable to people. Hear that, and whether you agree or not, not to would sound as though you are against the grain- when a whole of a community may agree with your opinion.

Imagine a child, and someone tells them it's cool to like ice cream and everybody (the people) else does, this child will be running strait to mum and her purse- regardless of whether or not it's actually true.

The majority are scared to follow a personal belief. Or at least that's how it seems where I live, many people clearly exhibit certain attitudes but never follow them through politically.

*shrugs* Just my thoughts.

 

But there is something called absolute Freedom also. It is based upon the capacity for Reflection, which is totally personal, seeking the beginning of freedom in a wholly contingent way. And contingency occurs ironically less empirically than for the knowledge in the reflection: directly before our eyes.

 

It's very important to remember that they were only human - so that we can remember that though what they did was quite special - we can do it too, if and when our government becomes too out of control.

 

When did the declaration of independence come up??

And yes, the founding fathers were a bunch of rich white, slave owning males who didn't want to pay their taxes, but really, isn't that the American dream?

 

In OP - I just reacted overly strongly because he seemed to be combining or mixing the two or something, and that's a pet peeve of mine =P

See this thread.

 

I guess the "founding fathers" have now been replaced by the "funding fathers" and "We the people" is now more representative of "We the party in control" which has created as the new American dream "Send the bill elsewhere."

 

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^ What??

I'm so confused, no. You said when Thomas Jefferson used it in the Declaration of Independence. It is in the Constitution.

The Declaration of Independence starts something like 'When a government does blah blah blah it is a tyranny'.
It's that well written, really - I don't see how it helped rally the people.

 

Let me splain how this system works, Whichever party is in control was voted for by the majority of "We the people," as was the President.

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Yup, and if you don't vote, that was YOUR choice not to be one of those people.

 

I think you're missing the point of how the "system" was intended to work.

 

No, it's set up to be a democratic republic - which is what we've always had..

Aside from less people voting, more politicians being added, and new departments being created the system works the exact same way it did ever before.

The major discrepancies against the Constitution's set up are laws that don't seem to be in the nature of the Constitution - and laws that are straight out against the Constitution.

 

I think every one of those who were involved in the creation of the Constitution would disagree with everything you have written.

A Republic yes, comprised of Democratically represented States. The Federal government having "enumerated" powers which essentially left the greatest power to the individual States and the citizens within. Not a single experiment in a new form of government, but freedom for the States to experiment with minimal constraint from the Federal government who had as a primary responsibility to protecting the citizens from both external as well as internal threat. Read some of the papers and letters written by the founders which explain their views more clearly, and why they did not just create a Democracy which is closer to what we have become today.

 

Bullshit. Those guys had a lot of trouble agreeing on most things. Read some historic letters between them, they argued as much as politicians today (just not dirty =P)

The thing is, what does the federal government do that can't be argued as being to protect the states from a threat?

Social programs - protect them from ill education, health, poverty, crime

Federal taxes - without, the government can't protect us.

The FCC - protects us from a 'moral threat'



I'm all for a smaller federal government.

I hate a lot of the laws that have piled up and the idea that rational thinking has been lost to a sea of business and organization lobbying, bad laws escalating into more bad laws, poor trends socially and politically, a failure by the major parties to take risks and have true values rather than just compete with each other, and voting Americans' fear of the independent candidate (which is slowly changing).

But the system works.

I remember this thing called slavery. I remember anti-communist laws. I remember this thing called segregation.

The biggest problem the system has is that it moves slower than ever and has the least control by the people.
You know why?
People used to vote.
People used to make their opinions heard.
People stopped.