Civics 101 and American Government

The lack of education on Civics and American government studies becomes more obvious to me in comments on internet news articles, on all published media, social networking, and from the man on the street.
The order of the day is to blame everything that happens in this country on the President. The  expectations that are put on President Obama and what he can or cannot do makes me question what is being taught to our children in school today and if the adults were absent from school on the days when Civics and American Government classes were held.

Civics is the study of the responsibilities of citizenship and the study of governments and how they compare to other forms of government. American Government is the study of how our specific form of government, Republic, is structured in the United States. I am constantly amazed how ignorant people are of the workings of our form of government.

Our government is not a Democracy, but rather a Republic. There are three branches: Executive, Legislative, and Judicial. The President is the head of the Executive Branch and the Commander in Chief of our military forces. This might be likened to the CEO of a large corporation. The legislative Branch is the Congress. The branch is bi-cameral which means there are two bodies that function in tandem. Ours is the Senate and the House of Representatives. They create and pass laws and make allocations of funds or write the checks. The Judicial Branch enforces the laws and also determines whether laws meet the interpretation of the Constitution. The Executive and the Legislative Branches are the misunderstood functions. Our citizens seem to think the President runs both of the two branches and therefore can be held responsible for every bad and missed decision that Congress makes.

I can understand how our citizens can be so misguided. Our economic stand still, two wars being fought, and global tensions make for the necessity of a scape goat. Racism is apparent in the driving hatred and name calling that sometimes borders on treason. A new word I've come to like is sheepeople, the people of this country who blindly follow the flock wherever it takes them, right , wrong or indifferent.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt is quoted as "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself". The citizens of this ountry are so afraid that their anger, fear and need to blame someone, anyone makes them all in a constant state of panic and hysteria. Calm heads do not prevail and so every issue is a source of contention, a battle to be won at all costs, no matter if the population suffers. The middle class, the unions and basic services for our poor are fast disappearing to the drum beat of cutting back on government spending. The true test of a government is that is is only as great as how its poor and disadvantaged are treated. It seems our country is no longer the country I swore to protect and defend three times in my life.

Our citizens no longer want or care about being good citizens and understanding their vital role in the governmental process.  Its easier to place the blame for all our woes on the face of the nation, the President. 
Rights and responsibilities go hand in hand. Understanding how things work, how they effect our country and our lives, using logic and education to solve the challenges we all face now is no longer optional. It's either get busy or get out and many of our people are doing just that, living in other countries.

The bottom line here is know your government, how it works and functions and who is doing what to whom. Your responsibilities as a citizen to vote in honest and hard working civil servants, hold them accountable and vote them out if their job performance is sub-standard.  Stop blaming and get busy finding the answers to your questions through research and not by listening to Joe the neighbor or the people at work. Make up you own mind,  stop being sheepeople, and question the validity of what you see, read and hear. The way out is as it has always been, education, education, education.         

Endings and Beginnings

It seems appropriate to begin this blog at the end of the year, endings do make beginnings.
Birth ends the life of living so comfortably in Mom and is the beginning of our singular journey in the world outside. At the other end of that journey, as many believe, is the birth in a new life with the creator of all things.

How many times in life do we have to end something for something to begin? I believe 
"that if you're here you can't be there and if you're doing this you can't be doing that".
It's true in every facet of your life, school, work, relationship, and on and on. The word for it is choice. Choice is in every minute of every hour through out our lives. Even making no choice is still a choice.

The one thing that so many of us seem to forget is that the outcome of things is not in our control in almost everything. We share this planet, time and space with an unimaginable amount of "things". Whether these "things" are living, non-living, temporal, microscopic, universal or any other descriptors you'd like to use, the result is that there are too many factors in the equation other than us to have any control of the outcome at all. 

All we can do is put as much effort into our part of the equation and then let it go. Doing our best means just that. What can we do to shrug off the "well I can't change anything so I won't try" mentality? We must understand that the won't try mentality is still a choice that ends any hope of seeing a change and doesn't add in that one more piece of effort that may make the difference to a new beginning. 

We all are born with innate talents. We also discover other talents that can develop during our lives. Using our talents to make things easier or better for others doesn't alter the out come but can make the journey of our lives and our fellow travelers easier, since all of us have a rough ride from the beginning, birth, to our corporeal end.

Beginnings, choice, outcome, effort, change, talents and endings are the fabric of our existence. How we look at those factors in our equation of life makes all the difference in
what our lives become. 

May 2013 mark the beginning of a well lived year as we say good-bye to the end of 2012.