1 - Restore Our Union (ROU) Preface & Founding
Preface
It has been 12 years since (2008) wherein my brother and I took up the cause of compiling comprehensive fix to the sad state our government had become. Twelve years ago we witnessed multitudes of complaints concerning the sad state our government had descended into but, never hearing of any comprehensive fix to this dilemma we were experiencing. I am sad to say that nothing has changed in the preceding 12 years that could lead to a comprehensive fix except for what we have compiled.
As a hands-on practicing engineer for over 40 years, I profoundly learned that truly solving a problem always required a full understanding of the problem to include all aspects of it. In compiling the fix, we thoroughly studied all aspects of our governmental problem to astutely compile comprehensive solution to fixing government.
The following discussion is one derived from a letter I drafted to send my sons in hopes of having them continue this noble and important task to inform We The People of means to keep secure, far into the future, our fundamental rights for our families and all US citizens.
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“Restore Our Union” Founded for Our Kids, Grandkids & ALL Future US Citizens
and NO!
My Brother, Marlin, & I were and are not Insane or Radical
In the last quarter of 2008, my brother, Marlin, and I were discussing the sad state of our (US) government due primarily to politicians (all of them - Republicans, Democrats, Independents ●●●).
In our discussions, we noted that almost without exception; politicians, reporters, citizens and others were hounding on and on about their disappointments in what was going on but none ever presented any comprehensive solution to what they were bitching about. We decided maybe it is time to define a fix that was comprehensive and fully address the problems we have with our government. After some thought, we concluded that any fix would have to be more permanent than not thus requiring amending the US Constitution in a comprehensive manner yet still holding to our founders original principle wherein the individual US citizen is supreme and government is instituted to protect our fundamental rights. We then went about studying what was wrong with government and how it went wrong so we could astutely formulate a more comprehensive and permanent fix.
Yes, this was the beginning of the “Restore Our Union” journey that continues today and hopefully will continue until it is completed. My brother, Marlin, is now gone and my days are in decline so I’m holding to all concerned US citizens to carry-on with this extremely important duty to your “sons, daughters, grand children and all future citizens of this USA” and that they will then pass the importance of it along to their kids, grand kids and other US citizens if need be to finish it and truly secure all US citizens’ “Life, Liberty and Happiness”.
Below is the Preamble/Preface for amendment proposed by Restore Our Union (ROU). Its content is based on Marlin’s and my studies of what our government was at the time, 2008, and how it got there. This was then conflated with what our founding fathers envisioned for us and the origins behind their great visions that were ingrained within our founding documents. This preamble predicates the very brief idea/summary of what is embedded within ROU’s proposed amendment materials.
We The People of the United States of America, in order to restore our union to the more perfect union our founding fathers architected for their sons, daughters, grand children and all future citizens of the United States of America, now enact this amendment to our constitution by specific authority of the Declaration of Independence to reclaim our republic and our constitutional form of government that is of the people by the people and for the people.
The founding principle of the Constitution of the United States of America is the protection and furtherance of individual fundamental rights, freedoms and liberties for individual citizens with minimal interference of government to the citizens' exercise thereof in their pursuit of Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
" The basis of our political system is in the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of government" while absolutely protecting our fundamental rights from abrogation or perversion by the nefarious.
The USA founding was not a happenstance occurrence nor was it a spur of the moment ad hoc action but rather was predicated by many years of human dignity usurpation by the British Crown and many, many long discussions on how to best secure man’s life, liberty and happiness. This culminated in the decision to succeed from Britain and the writing of The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America in July of 1776 (Declaration of Independence). The supreme principal of our founding was in the supremacy of the individual citizen’s fundamental rights ingrained in “mankind” by their very creation (we exist because of whatever mechanism be it miraculous creation or evolution or whatever; we were created). Our government was to be founded such that it would equally protect every individual citizen’s right to exercise their rights without governmental interference in their pursuit of Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. Our government was founded to protect the individual US citizen’s rights and not for the collective state’s good.
Please carefully read the first two paragraphs of our Declaration of Independence (listed below) wherein you will find the “founding principle” that was central to our successful founding and its continued existence, let’s make sure it continues far into the future.
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
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, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. -- Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
As I proclaimed in the title above, neither my brother Marlin nor I were or are insane or radical. We have bothered to look and see what was and currently is and have acted to avoid the ruin of our great nation as it was founded. We both agreed that it is not perfect but at the same time realized that is the closest to perfect that man has ever achieved and be assured that mankind has tried many, many times and has never come close to what we have achieved in the USA as founded.
Today our country, as founded, is constantly under attack by those who would abandon our founding principle and replace it with a fantastical utopian government that runs our very lives according to the bureaucratic fancies of a strong central government. This has been tried many times over the last 10+ millennia and has never ended well for the people/citizens who have had the misfortune to experience it. There are those that say our Constitution is old and dusty and needs replaced but both Marlin and I and even the majority of US citizens contend that man’s desire to be alive and be sovereign with liberties and freedoms to pursue happiness as they individually desire shall never collect dust or become obsolete and as such the US Constitution should never to be replaced but rather it should be amended as directed by our founders wherein government is to be fixed by “the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”
Patrick Henry, first governor of Virginia, said "The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government - lest it come to dominate our lives and interests."
Ronald Regan once said that our “freedom is always but one generation away from extinction” meaning that every generation has to embrace our liberties and protect them for all future generations to come or it will be lost.
John Adams said "But a Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever."
I ask all concerned US citizens to go to the following link and study the theme that Restore Our Union presents as it pertains to our US Constitution’s founding principle and warnings and insight our founders had.
http://www.restoreourunion.org/citizens_supremacy.php
The founders were firm believers in individual’s rights, freedoms, integrity of self (honor) and dignity of self, self reliance and responsibility of self.
"The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself." - Benjamin Franklin
Our government was founded not to provide our every wants and dreams but rather to protect our freedoms and liberty so that we could pursue them as we wish and are able.
PS - I thank you for reading about the founding of Restore Our Union.
Now...
The next article will briefly address the primary causes of our governmental problems & what would be required to fix them.
