The Lesson to Learn

“Congress shall make no law …abridging …right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

Benjamin Franklin once wryly observed that in describing and defining a populist uprising it was only in the third person, their revolution, that such an event was illegal and should be dealt with harshly by the subject government. It was in the first person, our revolution, that such movements were legal and justified and thus by definition were to be embraced by the population at large.

The founders and the framers of the Constitution had seen the effects firsthand of a government attempting to thwart a revolution by the populace and insured, by the implementation of the Constitution,  that no such action would ever befall the citizens of their fledgling democracy. The hard fought lessons are there within our founding documents; we must, as history tells us, remember to learn its lessons or fall victim to those same lessons.

In was passes as the cockeyed world of political reality, the protests currently under way nationwide beneath the umbrella of “Occupy Wall Street” are endlessly labeled as either crackpot anti-Tea Party movements or heralded as true populist uprisings looking to shine the light on the inequities of the American capitalist society.

While there does indeed  exist  intelligent, supportive arguments on both sides of this nonsensical debate, there has been an almost complete absence by the body politic and the media as a whole shedding light on what should be the corollary argument to both sides. The current state of discourse on public policy has descended into nothing more than shrill shrieking blather on both sides and their co-conspiratorial media flacks; the commonality in this debate should be a point that reaffirms our unique solidarity as a nation and act as a fresh starting point in doing the peoples business.

To wit:

The rallies in support and opposition that are being held both in lower Manhattan and simultaneously nationwide are being held and therein lies the historically wonderful truth of America.

That fact does not seem to resonate with either the participants themselves or the electorate watching the events unfold on the televisions. These are not riots; the military has not been engaged to suppress the marches. Pundits are free to support or condemn the protests without fear of government retribution. The citizenry are free to publicly express their position on the issue without fear of disappearing in the night.

There are protests currently underway in Syria; they are marked by blood in the streets. The images from Libya show not a peaceful populace protest, but rather tanks and mortars in the streets.

The founding fathers gave us a most precious gift within the first amendment; the right to peaceably assemble and to petition the government for a redress of their grievances against that government.

“We the people” and “of the people, by the people, and for the people” are not simplistic slogans or mere political catchphrases. They are our birthright, and if we do not honor and protect them, and allow them to live and thrive, we shall surely lose them. We have evidence today around the world that speaking out can come with the ultimate price being paid; America will not join those ranks, but we must be ever vigilant to actively protect and exercise our freedoms.

If we do not, they shall surely perish from the face of the earth, and that must not be our epitaph to our posterity.