Monday, December 30, 2013

Speak up

Okay, really quick, before my essay; this is the essay I was talking about in my last post and it is somewhat long but not like ten pages. It's only a five paragraph essay and...I believe that's all I was going to say, so, here it is...




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.



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