Forum Post: Consent of the Governed

My fellow Citizens, I do not write as a white man, a black man, a brown man, a tan man, a yellow man, or a red man. I write as a common man. The United States since the Industrial Revolution has experienced one of the biggest leaps in wealth of any nation in the entirety of the world’s history but all have not shared in that wealth. In fact, it is with great sadness that I write this evident truth, the history of the United States is the history of greed. America’s history is the history of the many led by the few. Our history is the history of wolves promising that they are acting in the interest of the lambs. Wolves do not act in the interest of lambs. Wolves act in ways that keep their bellies full. Wolves act in ways that keep the lambs penned in and in a position of sacrifice. Recent events show the rich act not only to remain rich but to become richer at the expense of the working class. The rich have the audacity to twist laws to their advantage with the deviant plan to increase the volume of their voice. The rich and those that act to keep the status quo believe that they have worked harder and God has smiled more favorably upon them than those of the working class and are therefore entitled to their luxuries. Someone, somewhere in this country has a house worth over four million dollars, a vacation home worth over two million dollars, a yacht worth over a million dollars and someplace else a single mother without insurance sits in an emergency room with her two children. Someone, somewhere is receiving a bonus at the expense of a government bailout and someone else, someplace else is having his home foreclosed on because there was no bail out for the common man. I begrudge no man his success but I begrudge every man his greed. There is right and there is wrong. There is justice and injustice. I must step up and let the oppressors know that the oppressed will no longer live in their pens. The oppressed have already sacrificed too much to allow this generation of the rich to continue to exploit my family, my friends, and myself. I was born to the servant class and I have served but I will not allow my children to serve. I pray that my peers wish for the freedom of the next generation. I pray that we are all beginning to realize that those that lead in business and politics have interests that differ from those that work in their factories and are misguided by their political advertisements. Those that govern are different in their principles from those they govern.
Those that lead from the authority of privileged birth do not represent me. Those that lead from deals made with corporations for political funding do not represent me. I am the governed and I no longer give my consent. The common man’s democracy has been usurped by the wealth of an elite few. My role in this system has been reduced to the feudal peasantry. “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”
--The Declaration of Independence I love this country and I love those that strive to improve this country and her citizens but the currently employed system of government is not protecting the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and, the pursuit of happiness for the majority of the American people. With a heavy heart, An American Citizen