On the Constitution and our Purpose

Happy Constitution day! Didn’t know about it? You must be a terrible citizen!

Kidding!

Sounds like just another day made up to celebrate another whatever whatever right?

Yes and no. Sure there was various interest groups in getting the day established but what it commemorates is certainly worthwhile!

This day commemorates our constitution and those who are citizens and have become such through naturalization and through birth.

On this day in 1787 delegates to the constitutional convention signed the constitution and we were reborn as a United States rather than a confederated set. America had several births and re-births - some were in fire and blood as in our revolution or civil war, some were in measured consideration and debate as in the signing of the constitution and the bill of rights - the first 10 amendments to the constitution.

When I was an active duty Marine I carried a pocket constitution with me ion my left breast pocket over my heart whenever I was in cammies and not wearing a flak. I was notorious for challenging and quizzing Marines. Asking what they had sworn to support and defend - and when they had last read it. I was a huge devotee of it - I took my oath as sacred and expected my peers, my juniors, and my seniors to do the same.

I’d like to invite you now, as a friend, a peer and a fellow citizen to consider re-reading the constitution. But let me read 2 important excerpts

1.) Declaration - why we took violent action to have a revolution - why do we believe governments exist in the first place?

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed

2.) Pre-amble to the Constitution - why are we writing this constitution? What do we hope to get out of it? I’d ask you to reflect on purpose - why do we have a nation? Why have we agreed to arrange it in this way?

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.Preamble to the United States Constitution

I was talking with a fellow vet about what’s most important to us in a presidential candidate and I realized for me its no longer merely someone who understands what’s there now, but who understands the intent behind it. That can take that intent and meet the challenges of the future. Our nation, our republic, our world is changing at a more rapid pace than it ever has before and we need a leader that both understands our past and what was written then and why, and our future, how to take that intent into a vision for the future.

The biggest threat to our nation isn’t some foreign power - it hasn’t been since approximately the age of steam and machine gun. It’s also not a civili war anyone who entertains that fantasy or fear has probably tasted too little of war to know how low it should fall in preferences. The biggest threat is that changes we have wrought in our pursuit of happiness will begin to impinge on our rights to life and liberty (and to pursue happiness.)

With automation making one in 3 jobs obsolete by 2030, with climate change proceeding at a more rapid rate than even many pessimistic projections and with division among our people being accelerated and weaponized by partisans on both sides its time we have a leader with a great combined understanding of the past the present and the future. Who can bring us together, not left, not right but forward!

I think the answer to all of this is Andrew Yang 2020!