By Jeff Utsch, reprinted with permission
The electorate showed us in November that it does not know where it wants to go.
Election results are as much an admission that the country has no idea where it wants to go as it is a referendum on Barack Hussein Obama.
When either party is in control, it promises hope and change for the masses. That is a constant from one election to the next and it lends itself only to betrayal, intentional or not. The problem is structural. Everyone has his own idea of what that change should be and, with only so much change that can take place, inevitably, that change fails to match the fantasy the electorate has sought.
This dynamic is bound to upset a majority of Americans, regardless of party affiliation.
We look to Washington as the answer to all of our problems when we should only be looking to find answers to the limted role our federal government is supposed to play. We should be looking to Washington for less, not more.
This pendulum effect will continue every cycle with the party in power because neither can keep a majority happy at this point in our history. Nor was it intended to do so.
This has all come to pass because the Fed Govt has exceeded its original mandate and has forgotten its proper role. We have forgotten its proper role, as well.
The government that should affect our lives the most is that which is closest to us — namely the city, county, and state. But how long has it been since that was reality?
If it was true and power emanated from the local level, there would be fewer reasons to look to D.C. We would feel more enfranchised, in control of our own destiny rather than expecting the end-all would come from a far-away centralized government.
The only answer that will satisfy those grasping for answers and looking to correct the system is to return to Federalism, under which states retrieve their sovereignty over the lives of their citizens.
If this were the case then each of us could live within a state that most exemplified our own beliefs. Or we can stay within a state that may not — and fight to change it.
The list is a lengthy one. Whether we are talking about minimum wage, abortion, gambling. gay marriage, education, right to die, drug use, land use, water rights, and on and on, we have a right to govern ourselves locally in all areas not delegated to the federal government. We ought not be subjected to the usurpation of a federal government that is deciding for itself what powers it has and what it does not.
We do not need an all-wise parent from afar telling us how to raise kids or regulate our diet. Enough with federal financial strings and bribes to states. The American public is not a junior high-school student punished by a cut in allowance.
Enough of the hypocritical, self-centered and self-appointed elite who think they know more than average citizens and who coerce for our own good. Federal government, let me make my own mistake and get out of my life. Concentrate on your own job and those things that you need to do to clean up your own house first. Concentrate on your delegated powers that you fail to do first and, after you have done that, keep doing it well and still stay out of my back yard.
This is the only sure and permanent solution to maintaining our Republic for the long haul.
Americans were never supposed to go one way or another on a vast numbers of issues, and we will never be one as America if we are forced –coerced– in to taking direction from the federal government to be, or act, a certain way. Stop already.
Let’s bring our enfranchisement back home, closer to the people and let us decide how we want to live and accept others and, indeed, their right to live a certain way as well.
The tyranny of the majority was a major concern of our founders if the Fed government ever became too big. Well, we are there.
Freedom and the reality of political subdivisions that allowed the utmost freedom to Americans was their vision and it allowed us to become a nation despite vast and widely different views among the states.
We must rediscover and re-implement that strategy today if we are to stay as one for any length of time.
About Jeff Utsch
Jeff Utsch is the Vice President of Educational Development for Compact for America, Inc. and a founding member of the States United Balanced Budget Initiative Arizona – an Arizona-based grassroots 501 c 3 dedicated to supporting the Compact for America. An aerospace engineer by training, Jeff currently consults with Paradynamics, a Tucson-based company contracted to develop parachute-type canopies capable of flying specific missions as required by the Defense Advance Research Agency. Using the skills he developed as an All-American swimmer and Captain of the University of Arizona swim team, Jeff currently serves as an Instructor to the Navy SEALs / Naval Special Warfare community where he teaches Navy SEALS and support personal in specialized tactical swimming. He also served as a Director and Ambassador for the Navy SEAL Foundation. Jeff is a self-taught constitutional scholar and historian with a keen interest in the founding of this wonderful country. He currently can be heard as the constitutional expert for the weekly constitution segment of the James T. Harris Show on 104.1 The Truth FM radio in Tucson.