Speak
up
"Somebody
else will do it." Maybe that's what you think when you consider writing
your state Senator or Representative about something you don't like or that you
want to change in the government. "My input won't do anything," you
think. Well, you're wrong because your opinion does count and you can make a difference. Nobody can stop
you from stating your opinion.
The
Constitution says that we have the right of free speech in religion, speech,
the press, assembly and petition. We split from Great Britain because we were
fighting against "taxation without representation" or, in other
words, we had no voice in Parliament about our taxes. Is that what our
government is coming to, where the people have no voice, either because we
won't be heard or we won't speak up? I hope not. Abraham Lincoln thought the
same thing; he wished "that government of the people, by the people and
for the people shall not perish from the earth." I think that means that
we need to be stating our thoughts. I think that government of the people means
that we run it, by the people means about the same thing and for the people
means that it's for us so we clearly need to help run it. To me, it all means
that we are part of our government wither they like it or not. The Declaration
of Independence states that it is our right and our duty to "throw off
such government, and to provide new Guards for" our security when
necessary. Just because we're not in Congress doesn't mean that we don't have a
point of view. And our views count, they really do.
Some
people think that the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution don't
apply today. I disagree; I really don't believe that our founding fathers would
have spent so much time on both of those documents just to have them thrown out
the window years later. They wrote them for the nation then and now. When they
wrote the Declaration of Independence they labored all summer for hours on end
in a hot, stuffy building in Pennsylvania. They definitely didn't do that for
nothing. It's like Thanksgiving; you wouldn't spend two days cooking two
turkeys, a ham and lots of good food if only a few people were coming. And you definitely
wouldn't if your guests didn't like the food and you had to throw it all away.
That would be a waste of time. Our founding fathers were committed. They worked
long and hard; the least we can do is use and respect their work. We don't want
to be the guests who turn our noses up at the food and cause the cook, or
cooks, a lot of wasted time.
There
are a whole bunch of things that we could and should write to our Representatives
and Senators about. Gun Control or ObamaCare for instance. It could be a page
or a paragraph as long as we speak up and share our opinion. And, you know, it
doesn't matter how old you are either; you could be a kid or a senior or
somewhere in between, it doesn't matter. If you wrote a letter complaining
about say, The Patriot Act, which is an act that overwrites police having to have
a warrant to search your house, and you had your friend write one too, then I
think your Senator or Representative or even Governor would think about
changing it, if possible. And you might even bring up something new for them to
think about. Who knows, if you write a letter you might be partly responsible
for helping change something in our nation. That's what happened to a farmer in
Indiana named Jamison Shoemaker, who was directly responsible for Texas
becoming a state. He voted for Madison Marsh, who won by Shoemaker's one vote.
Marsh went on to vote for James Harrigan, who also won by a single vote. And
Harrigan voted for Texas statehood, which, quite remarkably, became a state by
one vote. And it all started with Jamison Shoemaker and his one, homemade paper
ballot. So, sure he changed the nation with a vote, but that doesn't mean that
we can't with ink and paper or with a computer and a keyboard. I know that we,
the people, have opinions and they need to be heard. We tend to be "more disposed
to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing
the forms to which they are accustomed" as the Declaration of
Independence says. I think that means
that we either don't care what happens in our nation or we're afraid to write
for whatever reason that may be or maybe we just never get to it when we
should. It also means that most of us just wait to see what happens and talk at
home about our opinions when we should be proclaiming our opinion to the
government; that's the only way it's going to change. We just sit and suffer
instead of going and doing. We care but we don't care enough to actually do it.
I must admit that I do the same thing so I applaud those who do actually act on
their opinions. Writing a letter and not sending it like I do isn't enough,
though it does feel good to just vent to a piece of paper. We've got to shout
our point of view to the world, but not literally, because then people might
think you're crazy.
No
matter what you send in to your Senator, Representative or Governor about your
opinion in politics or changes or whatever, you can be sure that you are making
a difference. A difference in the nation or your state or both. Jamison
Shoemaker changed the US with one vote and you can too, whether you use a ballot
or a letter. So, pick up that pen or pencil or start typing a message; let you
opinion be heard.
