Dear Uncle, you recently celebrated your 239th birthday but I did not attend the party. I tried very hard to get into the spirit of the occasion, watched countless TV programs extolling the event, even bought a new flag to hang by the gate. My effort was in vain. I just could not bring myself to look you in the eye, wish you a happy birthday and pretend that all was well.
You’ve changed, uncle, and I scarcely recognize you any more. Where are all the promises you made that year before your actual birth? What of all the reasons (grievances) you spoke of when you convinced us to separate ourselves from old King George? When you talked about “taxation without representation” you never even hinted that you would eventually have a tax code that ran some 65,000 pages and be incomprehensible to all, even those who crafted it.
Speaking of taxation without representation, how can we say we are represented when the rules are so convoluted we cannot even hope to understand them. I get that you need taxes to operate but what you have given us is a set of regulations designed to obfuscate and to further enrich special interests at the expense of the ordinary guy.
And what about those folks you have running the tax collection apparatus, not to mention the State Department and the Justice Department. How can you allow people who are under investigation for possibly having committed high crimes and treason, to blithely destroy subpoenaed evidence and then say, “it’s all gone, so what?” Where is the rule of law as applied to those who work within your bosom?
You gave us a government that was made up of three equal parts. Checks and balances, you said. How is it that your Supreme Court can declare rights under your constitution that were never written into that document and how can it uphold laws that were never legislated or ignore the plain language of a law in favor of some subjective interpretation of “intent”? It would seem that they’ve ripped the blindfold off of Lady Justice and are using it to shine the shoes of the administration and its special interests.
You knew from the beginning that changes would occur over your lifetime and that’s why you included an amendments process, a device to adjust the constitution to address those changes. Yet you allow your courts and your administrative branch to craft new laws by executive order and through bureaucratic regulations that have the force of law and you say nothing.
If your Supreme Court and your Administrative Branch can collude to run the country then what need have you for the 535 members of the Houses of Congress? I realize that they must spend the vast majority of their time campaigning and raising funds for their next election but shouldn’t they be left with some legislative or budgetary duties?
Another question, uncle, why have you permitted Lady Liberty to move her “golden door” from New York Harbor to the Rio Grande? There must be a logical reason why you have allowed, nay encouraged, so many people to illegally enter the country and then have gone so far out of your way to make it difficult to send them packing.
How can a city, any city, on its own authority declare that it will not follow federal law and you just say, “uh, okay”? You discovered that the barbarians were at the gate and you responded by handing them the key.
You crafted the world’s premier fighting force. I proudly wore one of its uniforms for ten years. How can it be that the most important mission you can find for this fine group of young people is to travel the globe and engage in nation building? Where is the advantage to you in spending blood and treasure to craft, install and prop up a dictator only to return in a few years to topple that very same person and replace him or her with yet another?
Haven’t you learned that you cannot export democracy as you would a load of farm fresh carrots? For democracy to flourish it has to have people naturally inclined to build it for themselves.
And now you have embarked on yet another foolish quest, a further revision of history and cultural cleansing of our nation’s past as if hiding what some consider to be dirty laundry will somehow make it to have never happened.
Uncle, the problem isn’t your people, it’s you. Sit down, have a cup of tea, and read through those foundational documents you so proudly gave us. Maybe you aren’t so far gone that you will fail to see where you went wrong.
And one final thing, lay off the little blue pills. You’ve already diddled us quite enough, thank you.
rixlibris 
Reblogged this on HarsH ReaLiTy and commented:
An honest write, but the issue is we are all “part of the Uncle” here and therefore part of the issue. Because we all have our own agendas in this free world. I enjoyed the word play a lot though. 🙂 -OM
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Thanks for the reblog. We are all a part of “Uncle” and therefore all share in the blame, if there is any, for what the nation has become. I wish that I had the answer but the only thing that I can come up with is education. If people are to be allowed to vote then they need to be informed. Age appropriate civics, taught at every grade level, might be a place to start. “But civics is dull,” is how one educator I discussed this with assessed the suggestion. My counter to that, “how important is the right to vote?” You wouldn’t put your kid behind the wheel of that shiny new Corvette within teaching her how to drive it. The right to vote drives the entire country.
I enjoyed the honesty. No matter what people do, there will always be masters and slaves. We must either be better slaves or vote in better masters. I do know what is going on in this country is not working because we have 93 million not working that can and should work. We need a better plan that works for our countries best interests in many areas. I say slice, dice, and sacrifice the poppycock. Where is that chainsaw? 🙂
Thanks for the comment. We are, for all intents and purposes, still a democracy. The problem with democracies is that they cannot function without an informed electorate. Universal suffrage granted to disinterested and/or low information voters will always doom such a system. If the ideal of one man, one vote is to be upheld then it behooves us to elevate the knowledge level of each individual voter. Of course your chainsaw is not a bad idea either.
You are welcome. I enjoyed your article.
Excellent post! I love it. I only wish it wasn’t so sad but true. You write to Uncle Sam, and wish he would pay attention. Me too. When I watch the downfall of this country, I feel like I’m watching a loved one wither away from some horrible cancer. 😦
Sorta like having a sick goldfish. You care about the thing but there just is no help available. And in the case of government, no toilet big enough to flush it down.
That’s a good way to say it. I don’t think I ever felt anywhere near as bad when I lost one of my goldfish. Or even my cats!
Reblogged this on Capt Jills Journeys and commented:
Here’s a post I came across today, he writes the way I feel.
Thanks, Cap’n.
Reblogged this on Jdawgswords and commented:
and, so folks…what now? for me, just more bitching and whining…anything more forceful will get me locked up or killed
I agree. It would seem that all we, the people, have left is to continually re identify the problems while those we elect based on their promise to fix those problems quickly assess the difficulty in making effective change, recognize the profits available in the status quo, and become like all the rest.
yep…sadly true
Well done post! The only place I disagree is when you say it’s not the people. We the people have let Uncle Sam go off the rails, and we’ve got a lot of work to do to set him right. But yes no more little blue pills for him!
Thanks for the comment. On “we the people”, guilty as charged. Ultimately in a democracy it comes down to the people but I think that our fault is due more to apathy and neglect than intent whereas our elected officials pretty much know what they are doing and it is intent on their part.
Yeah, I agree with that. It amazes me though how many people in this country are unaware of basic things about our government and the principles it was founded on. Liberty is so passé to that crowd…;)
Wow…. barf.
“How is it that your Supreme Court can declare rights” – this is one of the only good things the Supreme Court has ever done. All humans have natural rights which are only legitimately limited by any harm that one does to another individual. That means that all voluntary, peaceful actions you can think of – everyone has a right to those. The end. The government’s responsibility is to defend those rights. That’s what it did.
“illegally entering the U.S.” see paragraph one. Freedom of movement is an individual right. Entering the U.S. cannot legitimately be criminalized.
But then, someone who WAS PAID USING STOLEN FUNDS AS A THUG WORKING AS A PAID HITMAN FOR THE STATE, aka a soldier like yourself, generally isn’t very sensitive to individual rights.
Thank you. Your’s is the first negative response and there is no debate without dissent. To your first point, creating rights. I do not disagree with the intent of the court, my problem is that it isn’t within the purview of the court to legislate. The Supreme court was designed to be an IMPARTIAL arbiter of the constitution as it is written. If the court rules on anything according to ideology rather than the law then it is not impartial. As it is the highest and final authority on the law, there can be no place else to go to seek justice from an impartial or unfair ruling. This is exactly why there is an amendments process. Whatever your cause, if you think that it constitutes a right, then by all means use the proper process to achieve that status.
My personal philosophy is Buddhist so I agree with your second sentence but I disagree with your conclusion as to the government’s responsibility to defend everything that someone might consider to be their right. It is the duty of our elected and appointed officials to “uphold and defend the constitution.” In fact, each of them has sworn a solemn oath to do so. This means the constitution as currently written, not as it is wished to be. Again, that’s why there is an amendments process.
“Illegally entering the U.S.” By extension of logic, your stance would erase all national borders, worldwide. If nations cannot have borders or defend those it has, then there are no nations, only geographical place names.
Not “Soldier”, “Airman” but your point is taken. I am extremely sensitive to individual rights but only within the law. You have the vote, you have the bully pulpit of the world wide web and you obviously have the intelligence and drive. Use those things to rally sufficient support to your cause and attack the things, within the system, that you dislike or disagree with. To do otherwise can only lead to anarchy. Thanks again for your comments, I truly appreciate you having shared your views.
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Thanks for your comment. My main point is that there must be a bedrock, something unchangeable to underpin any human endeavor. Whether in government or religion or the PTA, if the core principles are mutable then we are left with situational ethics. If our history can be revised, sanitized for current political views then there is no true history, only a soothing fictional account of how today wishes yesterday had been.
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Sorry, I missed your comment. Thanks for the kind words.