What I Think Of Our Government?

I think the American system government is an excellent system of government that provides opportunities for its citizens to exercise its freedoms and choose between multitudes of opportunities to have a quality life within society. It is a continual work in progress that requires active participation from all of its citizens, not just a privileged few and must be tweaked to protect the rights of all of its citizens, not just a chosen few that either are educated or affluent.

The reason being is that if you look at the framework three areas of our government--the Congress, the Presidency and the Federal Judicial System, you find that within our system of capitalism, the educated and the affluent are poised to take advantage of these opportunities while the poor, uneducated, and disenfranchised get left behind and aren’t aware of what is going on within our government. Power and money are variables that corrupt our political system and disrupt the system of checks and balances that prevent one area of government from having too much power. One example of power corrupting our government is the lack of congressional term limits on our congressmen. Congressmen make careers out of their office, taking advantage of the numerous financial and other perks without remembering the original intent of our Founding Fathers which was to represent the constituents that elected them. The institution of congressional term limits that allow a congressman to be an effective voice for his constituents while reducing the corruption would be an effective first step towards achieving this measure. The Presidency has these limits, but the process to elect this individual has denigrated to the point where it can be manipulated and bought by special interests that have a certain agenda to push which isn’t necessarily conducive to the larger population as a whole. It will be interesting to watch a campaign like Barack Obama’s continue to gain momentum based on the interest of the people themselves who have invested significantly in his campaign based on his message, character, and leadership abilities. The judicial system has been a fair one overall with the exceptions being characterized as guilty until proven innocent as opposed to innocent until proven guilty. The system has proven itself to be racially and politically biased (esp. on a federal level), especially in terms of acquiring quality legal representation and jury selection which is supposed to represent a jury of one’s peers, but hasn’t always proved itself to be the case. And in the case of those are jailed unjustly, there isn’t a system of reparations that compensates for the time that they lost in incarceration.

But change doesn’t happen overnight and a lot of progress has been made in the 231 years since the Declaration of Independence was born in 1776. However to preserve the sanctity of our Union, we must continue to evolve and realize that our Union isn’t perfect and that it takes the participation to make it as close as possible.