The Right to Rise!

The Right to Rise?  This interesting, “NEW” phrase seen in the Wall Street Journal article, penned by Jeb Bush, on December 19^th 2011, is actually a consolidation of several rights that we all should be intuitively aware of.  Look to our country’s founding and the writings of the founders to determine the meaning of this phrase.  If we look at the constitution, we will read,

“We the People in order to form a more perfect Union . . . and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

In this instance the phrase “right to rise” simply refers to the peoples desire to secure the blessings of liberty for themselves and future generations.  We can look back at the Declaration of Independence to garner some evidence about what they meant then, by the “Blessings of Liberty”, though for most they again are intuitive.  The most important of these blessings is the basic concept of the American Government that most profound and basic concept being, all authority, power, rights, and responsibility for governance belong to the individual citizens.  The individual citizens for a period, for a specific reason, voluntarily give permission to their representatives to use said authority, power, rights, and responsibilities to govern for the common good. This is the other piece of the Constitutions Pre-Amble;

“We the People . . . Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty . . . United States of America.”

We the people allow those we place in government to wield our authority for ensuring the opportunity for all to secure the “Blessings of Liberty”.  We declared our Independence because the King and British Parliament took held a monarchical view of governance and inflicted upon the fledgling colonies, laws, regulations, and taxation that inhibited the ability to gain the “Blessings of Liberty”. The complaints of the colonists in the Declaration reaffirm the intuitive nature of the American form of government.  Government exists to serve specific purposes on behalf of, in place of, and at the direction of the people.

So again, the right to rise is the sum total of the American experience, living life in a land governed by a political process created by the People, for the People, at the consent of the People.  A government whose sole purpose, primary objective, and ultimate responsibility is the sustainment and protection of the individual liberties of the people.  The right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness or the attainment of personal property, for the purpose of obtaining an easier, self-styled life for ourselves and future generations.

As we try to define the cause behind the decline of the economy, we would not look to government if we were confident that they are doing the job we asked them to do in the constitution.  When we discover the decline as a direct result of the actions and or in actions of the government, we are shocked.  Some yell at the government “you should have/you should do something” others yell “why did you do that”.  The answer to both sets of screamers is read the constitution, understand it, and compel your elected representative to hold true to its dictates.  Yes, the dictates of the people and the several states found in the constitution, a contract that created the Federal Government and details specifically the things that the Federal Government can and cannot do.  We the people need to know what the constitution says, we must insist that our elected representatives follow the rules established in it, and we must restrain ourselves in our desire to ask for actions that the constitution directly prohibit the Federal Government from doing.

This is the only nation on the face of the earth where each person should wake with an optimistic spirit and a knowledge that if they pursue their desires, work hard, become knowledgeable, and maintain a level of integrity and honesty toward their fellow man then success will come. 

1st principles

The governed, have the unalienable right to select the type of government that governs them.

First expressed to the modern world in the US Declaration of Independence.

“Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, -- that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”