In Benjamin Franklin’s Speech at the conclusion of the Constitutional Convention, he asserted his overall support for the Constitution while remaining cognizant of its flaws. Franklin remarked that he agreed to the Constitution, “with all its faults” and expressed hope in its ability to endure so long as the government was well administered; however, Franklin notes that our good government ”can only end in Despotism as other Forms have done before it, when the People shall become so corrupted as to need Despotic Government.” It is difficult to maintain that there was any other time in American history when the people were more in need of despotic government. On one hand, we boast of our liberty and independent spirit while, on the other hand, we ask the government to provide for our every want and need. Americans cannot have small government, low taxation, and a manageable debt at the same time that we ask the president and Congress to become more active in our lives. If the citizens of America wish for a republic again, then we must act like republicans and be willing to live with less government while shouldering more responsibility for ourselves and our communities. Should we desire greater government involvement in our lives, then we must be willing to pay the price of maintaining and supporting a despotic government. When Franklin was asked what type of government the founders had created at the Constitution, he allegedly replied “a republic, if you can keep it.” Americans must now decide whether or not we are willing to do what is necessary to keep this republic.
Senator Bunning of Kentucky has taken a courageous and necessary stand against the incessant spending of the Congress, spending which threatens to undermine the economic, political, and military relevance of the United States of America in the future. That Republicans distanced themselves from Bunning rather than coming to his defense, and failed to support his call for fiscal responsibility, exemplifies the fact that the political culture in Washington has not changed. Republicans and Democrats alike are equally complicit in the destruction of the Constitution, the perpetuation of reckless and dangerous fiscal policies, and the deflection of responsibility in acting in the best interests of the people. Bunning’s stand against the failure of Democrats to adhere to their own Pay-Go system in funding unemployment benefits should not only awaken the American people to the hypocrisy of the Obama administration and the Democratic Congress, but to the reality that so-called Republicans who claim to be fiscal conservatives cannot be trusted any more than their counterparts across the political aisle. In the end, the citizens of our republic must realize that government cannot solve all of our problems and that we must live up to our obligation to keep a close watch on those who claim to represent our views.
One of the more disappointing aspects of the Obama presidency is his failure to live up to the monumental image that he created for himself, and that we Americans then expected once he entered the White House. Perhaps it was naive to think that a president could somehow bring the left and right together to work for the greater good, to dissolve the racial tension for all intents and purposes, to elevate our public discourse to a higher level and for a more noble purpose. This is the goal that Barack H. Obama set out to achieve, practically annointing as the great uniter and convincing others that he could achieve the impossible. Yet, the president has not failed merely as a result of underestimating the complexities of human nature that keep us from breaking free from the flaws in our character. To this reason we could point had the president made a sincere effort to reach across party lines and to consider the ideas coming from a broader sampling of the people he represents. Instead, President Obama has revealed himself as the consummate partisan seeking to achieve great objectives through deceptive means and willing to sit down to negotiate in the health care debate only when the stark reality of his party’s political future demanded a new course of action. And even then he did not listen. Now the American people no longer believe that their president is capable of living up to their monumental expecations. We are to blame for asking so much of a president, but the president is to blame for taking advantage of our brief electoral hallucination in order to advance his progressive-socialist agenda.
