We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

The preamble to the Constitution of the United States of America.  Wise and powerful words written with quill and ink on hemp paper that sum up what this nation was destined to stand for.  Words that come from a deep seated belief that we are stronger as a whole than the sum of our parts.

When you look at the list of names that signed this document you will see a list of the richest and most powerful men in America at the time.  Men that could have taken this nation down a very different path if they so chose.  These men could have made themselves royalty.  They could have made their families the most powerful this nation would ever see.  They could have insured that the power stayed with them and them only but they chose not to.

One thing I find very sad is if that document needed to be written today, at this very moment, it would be very very different.  I doubt we could find enough wise, wealthy and powerful men so selfless in our country today.  We still must remember these seemingly simple words for their meaning and not just as an historical document.

We the people.  In order to form a more perfect union.  All the people.  Regardless of bloodline or skin tone.  No mention to religious affiliation.  No words on rich or poor powerful or weak.  We all are Americans and it would help if  those who are currently working so hard to split this country up along any and all of these differences to remember theses three words.  The signatories of the Constitution did not set themselves apart as the rich and powerful attempt to do today.  They saw a nation that helped their fellow man and had the foresight to see that what is good for the majority of the people was best for the union.

Provide for the common defense.  Defense is the key word here.  For most of our history The United States had to be dragged kicking and screaming into war.  From the Revolution to WWII the United States fought wars to defend our nation or our allies.  Today that is not the case.  We go to war over resources.  We jump blindly into it based on the word of leaders we do not believe or trust.  We spill our blood in foreign jungles and deserts with nothing to show for it.  The winners of our recent conflicts have been international corporate entities and the politicians that work for them.  We talk of the honor and the glory that our soldiers win in conflict but history is already showing that our most recent conflicts have been a waste of our national resources and have caused our ability to defend ourselves to be diminished.

Promote the general welfare standing.  This is pretty self explanatory.  For all of you right wingnuts out there it is NOT talking about welfare as in government cash to the poor or to your precious corporations.  It is talking about the welfare of our people.  Is there starvation?  Is there poverty?  Is there sickness?  The Founding Fathers realized that the greatest resources that our nation would ever have are its people and its diversity.  Hence the term out of many, one.  Today the many suffer for the benefit of the few.  One of the biggest threats this nation has ever faced is that now amongst those few are the very people that represent the many.

To be a politician today, for many, it seems it is no longer a calling or a public service.  Now it is a career or a stepping stone in to a better paying position that you cultivated while serving your term in office.  Today politicians vote in  favor of legislation that benefits the corporations they worked for before they took office.  When the voters catch on to what they are doing and vote them out of office they become lobbyists for or form PAC’s that represent these same corporations.

It would do us all good to remember the preamble of the Constitution and to remind our leaders of it as well.  It seems that somewhere along the path we lost our way.  It is up to the people to put us on the path once again.

ON THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES…

“The Constitution is more than literature, but as literature, it is primarily a work of the imagination.  It imagined a country:  fantastic.  More fantastic still, it imagined a country full of people imagining themselves.  Within the exacting articles and stipulations there was not only room to fly but also tacit encouragement to fly, even the instructions to fly, traced delicately within the solid triangular  concoctions of the framers.

— Roger Rosenblatt, Time Magazine

ON THE MORALITY OF DEFENSE …

No man my initiate the use of physical force against others.  No man —or group or society or government— has the right to assume the role of a criminal and initiate the use of physical compulsion against any man.  Men have the right to use physical force only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use.  The ethical principle involved is simple and clear-cut:  it is the difference between murder and self-defense.

— Ayn Rand

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