It is a sad commentary on the health of our nation when the voice of the people and states' rights have been abolished. No one should feel cause to celebrate just because it seems some agenda that they favor has been served, because it will just as easily serve agenda to which they are opposed. No matter on which side of an issue we stand, we should not celebrate the loss of the voice of American citizens, nor should we favor an all-powerful federal government robbing the states of the rights to which they are entitled.
Yesterday, single-handedly, Judge Vaughn Walker overturned the outcome of Prop 8, which means that he silenced the vote of 7 million people. I don't believe that the constitution was ever meant for private interpretation in such a manner as to support the views of the individul interpreter against the voice of the people or against time tested values.
There are those that would argue that religious commentary has no place in the politics of the United States. Unfortunately, today they may be correct. But at the same time, they are imposing their own religious beliefs on the rest of us. For what is religion, but a set of standards and beliefs to which we adhere? So why should we value the imposition of a set of standards with which we don't agree that is arbitrarily imposed? It seems clear that the voice of the people is needed now more than ever to safeguard the rights and beliefs of the American people as a whole. If we succumb to those who subvert the voters' rights because we think that they have our best interests at heart, we are essentially abdicating our right to vote, which in turn will take away our future freedom to do so. In celebrating the overthrow of the vote of the people and the overthrow of individual states' rights, we are giving up our freedom as people of a republic and telling the politicians and judges of this country that they may make all our decisions for us.
Not so humorously, this is the very reason for which the colonies severed ties with Great Britain. They no longer wanted to be children pestered and guarded by a mother country that served her own needs over and above theirs. And now it looks like we have come full circle and are begging for a monarchy or dictatorship that will tell us all what is the best for us, that will take over our thinking and feedings and provide for our every need. So it would appear that it is high time that we wake up and grow up. It would certainly be a shame if we had to fight for these freedoms all over again.
Patty Sprunt to Heidi Sommerfeld Stevenson: Heidi;
ReplyDeleteI read your blog and want to say that I so much appreciate your words...I couldn't agree more..it's a sad time for our country, something that we've seen coming for some time. Now more than ever, it's time to step up to Patriotism, teach our children the importance of voting..I have worked at the polls for years and I'm always ...appalled at how few registered voters actually get out to vote, and how few people are even registered to vote...we live in a nation of apathy...
Tricia Stoddart Cauley Well said.
I understand and respect your opinion on how you feel about this ruling. But there's another side of the story about particular points in your post.
ReplyDeleteYeah, this country was founded on the principle of escaping religious persecution, but at what cost? You stated in your post, "In celebrating the overthrow of the vote of the people and the overthrow of individual states' rights, we are giving up our freedom as people of a republic and telling the politicians and judges of this country that they may make all our decisions for us."
Is that any different than what was done to the indigenous people? Europeans came over, told them their culture was barbaric, that they weren't really people, that they were unthinking creatures, and they did everything wrong from how they raised their families to the way they dressed, and they were either assimilated or annihilated. Except that there wasn't a vote amongst them... they were not given the privilege to decide if they wanted this done or not. They never gave up their freedom, it was stolen from them.
At least the privilege to vote was extended, it's just unfortunate that the collective voice of the people was ignored.
I don't really feel that that was a very good analogy, simply because we gained our freedom from Britain at the cost of many many lives, loss of culture, loss of language and a way of living based on pure ignorance and the unwillingness to accept people that live/look/think differently. Europeans have left nothing but destruction and chaos every time they thought their way was better and forced to assimilate.
I do agree that as Americans, we do need to wake up and grow up. We need to stop being apathetic, we need to stop our dependency on foreign imports/exports to sustain our economy. We broke away from dependence on Britain to provide us with things we needed to being dependent on the Middle East and China. Our cost of living shouldn't be affected by some war that's been off and on since the Biblical times, nor should we have to cross our fingers that what we're bringing into our homes won't poison us or our children or even animals for that matter. We still have heavy foreign dependency and it needs to stop. Let's put our energies into bringing value and credibility back into the American people and why we came into being before it erupts into bad enough political upheaval that we get invaded by another country or something worse.