That Sacred Trust

Today we are living in a time of great uncertainty. Too much of which has been the publics failure to learn the lessons history is supposed to teach us. As a result, the prospects for America’s future look pretty bleak. We have to remind ourselves of the great sacrifices made by our Founding Fathers and those prosperous men who fixed their signatures to one of histories most sacred documents The Declaration of Independence during this nations fight for independence.

The struggle to forge this nation must never be forgotten. And yet we have allowed our democratic republic dissolve into an unrecognizable existence far removed from the hopes and dreams of millions of Americans. For over 200 years each generation of Americans prospered better than previous generations. But for the past 40 years that all ceased to exist. There has been a steady erosion of our guiding principles fueled by the growing encroachment of an oligarchy ruling class elite.

As we look back to those brave men who signed The Declaration of Independence that pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor we think how many representees today would do the same thing. They risked their lives for they knew the consequences of what they undertook. Of those fifty singers many failed to live to see the result of their sacrifices.

It was Thomas Jefferson who warned us about the abuse of power in government in the first two paragraphs of The Declaration of Independence. And today it has been our failure to not see what was happening right before our eyes. Are we too blind to see what is happening to our world. The almost insane rhetoric from Trump and many other republicans along with the oligarchs riding on the coat tails of the MAGA base has to be what Thomas Jefferson understood when he put this paragraph in the Declaration of Independence “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, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.” The long train of abuse by Trump is well documented. And now by virtue of a beguiled public and millions of campaign dollars funneled in by the oligarchs all are what Jefferson warned us about. 

We have to recognize the similarities that doomed Ancient Rome and now probably the United States. Each nation at first started out as democratic republics. For over 400 years Rome was that pillar of democracy but soon fell under the rising upper-class elite. This in turn gave way to the oligarchy rule. And they say the rest is history. The United States is now following in the footsteps of ancient Rome in ways that are striking similar.

Now more than ever we have to be diligent students of history. First in realizing what transpired in Ancient Rome and what is now transpiring today in the US with Trump and his cronies. Secondly, we have to be alerted by what the Declaration of Independence states in Jefferson warning to the nation about abuses of power. To rephrase it is the right of the people to alter or abolish any form of government that does not adhere to the will of the people. Ther is a clear and present danger lurking now in the halls of Washington. Do we dare confront it or do just say the rest is history? The choice is ours.