Local opinion: Considering We the People

Are we a people?

Simple questions lead to complex answers. Simple answers ignore complex realities.

We began our American Experiment under the premise that all are equal under the law and that the power of government should emit from the people being governed. Our declared independence was revolutionary. Any true reading of history will tell us that the majority of our population at the time was to be excluded. Anyone with a degree of melanin in their skin and any woman would be excluded.

We agreed that equal creation meant that “men” meant males and then, only some males. Alas, compromise is necessary in any group decision, and our written ideals were betrayed in law. This would hold until we fought an unprecedented civil war that began well before the attack on Fort Sumter. The Blue Guys won but left the economic premise of the antebellum South intact. We are left with Mr. Booth possibly being the most consequential single actor in our more modern history. With a tainted Vice President Johnson as a stand-in for Mr. Lincoln, the healing of our nation after 1865 still festers.

Men of color, some of them, were given franchise in our nation, and we came closer to an understanding of each other. It would take another 52 years for females, some of them, to be seen as equivalent partners. Ownership through marriage persisted. No-fault divorce and birth control came in the 1960s, giving women a fuller franchise, but arguments remain to take us back to oddly defined glory days.

All this, because textualists defined “Men” as male and not “Man”, thus all of us. So much trouble, because of a single letter.

In 1828, Andrew Jackson campaigned in favor of what would be named the “Trail of Tears”. We now call a like act ethnic cleansing. The taking of the ever-redefined “West” was done with our eyes wide open. We now call this an act of genocide when it describes others. The Trans-Atlantic Slave trade has recently been named as “the gravest crime against humanity” by the United Nations. Though this certainly puts aside Mongolian warfare under Genghis Khan, it begins a discussion about the complexities of populations after the invention of blue water navies. Approximately 3% of that slave trade came to US shores, much of the 97% and all those thrown overboard have been lost to history. Still, too, misogyny persists.

The colonialist Adam Smith taught us that humans are rational actors. Modern neuroscientists tell us that we are feeling people well before we are thinking people. Recent evidence points to our brains making decisions before we are consciously aware of them. Contemplating our complexities gets complicated.

E pluribus unum, “out of many, one”, remain three of the most important words in American history. Out of individuals, one population with all its differences. Seeing that as a requirement is folly. As a goal or an imperfect ideal? That is what our American better selves are about philosophically. That is what made our experiment great.

Perhaps those who shout, “No Kings!” on our streets are not reflecting a true understanding of “Remember Yorktown!” as much as not wanting to be trampled on by a powerful minority. Like the Who in Whoville, they shout “We are Here!”.

President Donald Trump may be an abomination, but like Jackson and Johnson and Nixon and Reagan, we, as Americans, voted for him. What now? The true problem in any population is not in the leader but within the people. It is far from odd that the theocracy of a rural nation, tired of the “lax” morals of the city, might present a leadership of fundamentalist totalitarians. Does that describe Iran, the United States or both? Or is it just a predictable political certainty of division?

If we are to be a free people, then we must agree to disagree. We can only do that if we are fair to all and understand that our ideas must be subjugated to our agreed ideals. If we continually choose violent expansionists, then perhaps we are the real issue. Therein lies a deeper and more relevant conversation about “We the People”.

America, heal thyself.