Our Democratic Republic
Every
opinion I expound and every goal I propose for our country is based on certain
facts in which I believe firmly, with all my heart. The first and most
important of all these facts is, God created the heavens and the earth. If you
don’t believe that, pray tell me from where our world did come. Who else or
what did create it? Second, on this earth, God created man whom he instructed
to dress, till, and keep the earth, having dominance over all with requisite
responsibility (You can find that in the Holy Bible in the book of Genesis.
Yes, I may not have worded in the same exact way.). The earth is the responsibility of man.
Therefore, based on these facts, it goes without saying that a third fact is
that the earth exists for man—all men. Obviously this refers to man the species
which includes everyone, men, women, and children of all races, colors, and creeds.
Nowhere do I accept that the earth belongs to 0.1%, 1%, or 10%, etc.—the rich,
the powerful, or the smartest. This earth belongs to all 100% of us!
Just as I
believe in that, I believe in the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness for our people—all of us, every last one of us, as declared in our
Declaration of Independence. This means, at a minimum, people have a right to
food, clothing, and shelter, i.e. the right to a job with livable wages and
housing. For those who are disabled or can’t find work, these rights should be
provided to them and maintained until their condition improves. Our
instructions, “Feed the poor”, and “Love they neighbors as ourselves” demand no
less. Also, in a great and rich nation such as ours which consumes 25% of the
world’s production while consisting of only 5% of the world’s population, our nation’s
total productivity, our GDP, i.e. our total income, is sufficient that we can
afford to provide Public Education, Pre K through the first four years of
college (or vocational school for those who prefer a trade school to college),
Social Security for all, and public access to single payer Health Care for all.
This can and should be paid in full on a
“pay as you go” basis, incurring no deficit or debt through designated income
taxes, based on one’s ability to pay.
As you know,
there are always those who abuse the system—those who want something for
nothing, those who just lay around leaching off the productivity of others when
they are able to work, those who lie, cheat, and steal. You know nothing is ever
free. That everyone must produce to the best of their ability is imperative. These
kinds of people must be dealt with, whether they be couch potatoes or large
corporations on welfare, corporate inversions, or sandbaggers moving their
income off shore. Patriotism must be returned to Capitalism.
I have said to
you many times that the largest threat to America today, larger than anything
else, is the threat to our Democracy, our Democratic Republic, the power of our
vote. Not only should you be scared out of your skin about this, scared of
becoming a fascist nation dominated by a dictator like Hitler or Mussolini, or
scared of becoming enslaved proletarians ruled and dominated by a plutocracy, you
should also be downright angry; but let me explain. When God put man on this
planet many years ago, man soon found he had to work and work hard. You
remember. God kicked him out of the Garden of Eden. The Bible says man had to henceforth
earn his living by the sweat of his brow. As man progressed toward civilization,
his productivity slowly became more and more complex. It took more than one
person to produce a product and/or to perform a service. Eventually, man
produced businesses, and soon, many businesses’s evolved. These eventually
became institutions, later to be named Corporations. These institutions were
created by man to serve man by providing a quality product or service in
competition with others. Obviously, if they couldn’t compete, they would go out
of business.
Along that same path, as people grew in
population, they tended to gather into tiny communities, then villages, then
towns, and, ultimately, cities for which they needed to establish order,
security, and self reinforcement. To this end, they established another
institution to serve their needs—Government. Get this straight. These
institutions, Corporations and Government were both created by Man to Serve Man
for the good of Man. They are Institutions of the People, by the People, and for
the People to serve man. They are Not people. What is more; you have (had?) a
vote in both of these institutions. In your government, you can vote for your
representatives. In the corporations, your vote is your dollar. Now what does
all this have to do with anything?
I know you won’t
like me saying this, but I’m going to say it anyway because it is true. As
citizens of a Democratic Republic, we—each and every one of us, have, a
personal responsibility to rationally and intelligently vote at every election,
screening every candidate for whom we are proposing to vote, based on his/her
qualifications, i.e. intelligence, knowledge, education, experience, leadership
ability, and competence, in light of the issues and needs of the position which
he desires to fill and your government at the time. When we vote, we are hiring
a top executive for a very important job that might have a lasting influence on
our lives and that of our children, grandchildren, and on and on. But what do
we do? Most of us base our vote on the candidates looks, personality, party (My
great grandfather was a Whig; my grandfather was a Whig; so was my father. By
gosh and by golly, I’m going to vote for a Whig). We neither know nor think
about the candidate’s position on issues and such. In fact, most of us don’t
even know the issues. All we know is the propaganda spued daily by emails,
gossip, and the media. This is documented fact. Check out the book, The Myth of
the Rational Voter. In the election of November, 2012, only 1/3 of all the
registered voters showed up at the polls to vote. I submit to you that issues
weren’t, for the most part, even discussed during the campaign prior to the
election. It seemed like everything but the issues were discussed.
As a result of
our past failures we now have a government completely controlled by the large
corporations (I call them The Corporatocracy) and the Power Elite (These are
the very rich[the top 0.1%] and the powerful Think Tanks [The Heritage
Foundation, Cato Institute, and American Enterprise Institute, to name just
three]). Your/our vote is almost worthless. Our elected representatives are
bought and paid for, almost wholly, by these peoples. They no longer represent
us. They really represent the “Haves”, to whom 90% of our nation’s income is
going. It is documented fact that our middle class is disappearing and our “Underclass”
is growing fast.
Take note. This
isn’t just happening here. The Corporations are taking over all over the free
world. You know what has happened with NAFTA. You also know about the Atlantic
Trade Agreement. Now keep your eyes on the trade agreement currently being
negotiated in the Pacific, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). The whole thing
is being done in absolute secrecy. Think about what that is going to do with
jobs.
You are going to
do what you are going to do. I can’t change that. But, if you care about your
country, currently a Democratic Republic wherein you have the right to vote,
you had better start forgetting the party line and, instead, take back your
right to vote and your right to have your vote representative of you rather
than the Corporatocracy and Power Elite as is now. Am I against business? Absolutely
not! I want business to serve the people as they are supposed to do. I want
business to change their first priority from that of serving profit to that of
serving the customer—you and me, like it is supposed to do. Your priority in
voting should be for populist candidates such as Elizabeth Warren, Bernie
Sanders, Robert Reich, etc., people who care about people, who represent the best
interests of the people. There are others, but we must search them out. There
are lots of fakes.
I am sorry. If
you cannot look around you, read, study, and see the relationship of what I am
telling you with what is happening before your very eyes, and do something
about it, I don’t know what else I can do to help. On the other hand, if enough
of you don’t care, we are in big trouble. What can you do for a start? Raise
holy hell with your Congressional Representatives in the Congress, your Representative
in the House and your Senator. Tell him/her you want money out of politics—no
more campaign contributions in politics, public, private, or personal. Pay for
campaigns out of the government budget with taxes. You don’t want to add
another tax? Do you really think all the campaign contributions as they now
are, are not being passed on to you? Trust me. You’re already paying the bill.
You’re just getting it in the back. Secondly, let’s rewrite the voting laws and
put them under Federal Law. Let’s get the discrimination and gerrymandering out
of them and allow for more than two parties. Let’s have fair voting.
Ronald Miller
Email me at
mtss86@comcast.net
