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Happy 238th Birthday to the United States of America

General

July 08, 2014

This being the weekend we celebrate the 238th birthday of our Nation I wanted to convey some of my thoughts on our Country.

 

What a great place to live, work, and pursue happiness! No other place offers us the opportunities afforded to “We the people of the United States.” This is the greatest country in the world. Despite its imperfections we have thrived over the past 24 decades because of our principles, our free enterprise system, our embracing of technology, our humanitarian endeavors, and our American ingenuity.

 

What gives us this right is the law of the land—our United States of America Constitution. However, over the years, I think some have lost sight of how the Constitution works. The Constitution laid the framework for our three-branch system. The Legislative Branch—the Congress makes the laws. The Judicial Branch evaluates and interprets the laws. The Executive Branch is empowered to carry out the laws and provide leadership for the Country. All three branches are designed through our system of checks and balances to work together to move the United States forward and “form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.”

 

We complain about the gridlock in Congress. Our representatives are just that, our representatives and we empowered them with our votes to make the right decisions to form a more perfect union. If they are not, we need to keep in mind that we put them in office. We have the opportunity to put others in their place if necessary, with our vote.

 

Our President continues to issue executive orders, many of which are declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. The President’s job is not to issue executive orders because he thinks the people want him to dictate policy, but to carry out the laws. Again, his is not to issue executive orders that contradict the law of the land, but to carry out the law of the land. Remember, the people who supposedly want change voted for those representatives that put the laws in place, or have not demonstrated the ability to change, amend, or eliminate the laws.

 

Leadership is critical in a President and if Congress is deadlocked, he must bring the Congress together and work together with them to provide solutions to our problems. Again, work together with the representatives of all of us to provide solutions to our opportunities, challenges, and problems. In my mind, the leaders in Congress as well as the President, must work together to lead—not point fingers, not take their ball and go home, not remain deadlocked.

 

This is a great country. The greatest. We are the model for the world. I heard a statistic on one of the Sunday news programs this morning that was quite impressive and truly reinforces my belief that this is the greatest country in the world; even with our challenges, the world recognizes it. It was stated that one of the polling companies asked many, many people around the world where they would like to live, if they could live in any country. The answer was that 165,000,000 chose the United States. Wow!

The United States was built on diversity, built on technology, built on natural resources, built on intelligence. To remain the greatest country in the world, our representatives need to lead, work together, compromise and get back to moving us forward.

 

I am proud to have the opportunity to be able to express my feelings, live, work, and pursue happiness in this great country. I am proud to be an American.