Response to The Founding Fathers ?

Hi, Joel....I am the descendent of the poor white trash, some of them going back to the 1600's. One of them came to America as a cabin boy and grew up to be a long hunter. He took trips into the Kentucky wilderness, and probably exchanged gunfire with some of my Hubby's relations, who were Shawnee and Miami Indians. His grandma was the product of a rape by the county sheriff and the granddaughter of the Miami cheif, Little Turtle. But the child was taken in by a loving family and raised is a Godly, hardworking home, and they did a good job. Grandma was a lovely, sweet woman, with a lot of good things to pass on to HER family.

Guess that is just the point. In the United States we have a CHOICE to stay locked into the injustices of the past, or crawl out from underneath them and get on with this wonderful gift called life. We can be pretty much what we want to be. For myself, I think that it took a LOT of gumption to load yourself in the dark, smelly, cold hold of a ship and make the trek to America. Hey, they may have been considered trash, but they were trash with courage, for the most part! I will admit that the Founding Fathers were human, with a lot of inconsistancies in their world veiw (read up on Thomas Jefferson and Ann Hennings, for example--the stories have been verified, genetically)--but they had good ideas.

One bystander at the Constitutional Convention asked Benjamin Fraklin what the members had given the people. Franklin said, "a republic, ma'm...if you can keep it." Government is a tool, and George Washington said that "Government is like fire; it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master." They had the right idea. If injustices happen, it is because we allow them to happen, for the gov't is OUR servant....unlwss we allow it to become our master. Andrew Jackson sent the Cherokees on the Trail of Tears, over the ruling of the Supreme Court, because the white folks wanted the Indian's land. A lot of the banished people were ones that fought with white Americans in the battles of 1812 against the British! Some gratitude, huh?

Guess what I am trying to say is that the gov't is only as good as the folks being governed will allow it to be.

"We hold these truths to be self evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness--That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever and Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the right of the People to alter or Abolish it, and to institute new Goverment, laying foundations on such Principles and organizing its powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."

Now, I am NOT calling for the overthrow of the government...tho' I have heard that some call the Declaration Of Independence a "subversive" document. What I am saying is that the Founding Fathers gave us a form of government that would enpower us to take care of injustices, if we have the guts to do the job. That was intelligent on their part, and calls for dilligence on our part. Go for it!

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