What Does Government by the People Mean?

The topic of discussion for this Constitution Monday comes from the Preamble of the United States Constitution:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. (Emphasis added.) 

“We the People” established the government of the United States, according to the Constitution. President Abraham Lincoln also spoke about the people on November 19, 1863, when he spoke at the dedication of the National Cemetery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. The battle at Gettysburg was one of the decisive battles fought during the Civil War and took place July 1-3, 1863. President Lincoln said the following:  

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate – we can not consecrate – we can not hallow – this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us – that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion – that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain – that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom – and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. (Emphasis added.) 

Government by the people makes a difference as shown in what is happening in the European Union. In his article published at The Daily Signal, Peter St. Onge wrote about the economic situation in Japan and the European Union. 

New numbers say the European Union has joined Japan in the “lost decades” brigade, with per-person gross domestic product in dollar terms nearly flat since 2008.

According to the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development, while disposable household income in the U.S. is $51,000, it’s just $39,000 in Germany, $34,000 in France, $29,000 in Italy, and $21,000 in Greece. For perspective, Mexico is about $16,000.

Why is Europe fading? Simple: Government took over. Government spending is nearly half of Europe’s GDP, which hogs physical resources – steel, workers, etc. – while predatory tax rates punish production and welfare tempts workers away. Nobody produces, everybody takes.

Add in mandates from environment to social policy that hike prices and slap straitjackets on companies, and the smart ones leave, the rest grimly soldier on, staying in business till their factories wear out, then it’s lights out.

In short, it doesn’t pay to produce in Europe. Atlas is shrugging.

What’s driving the takeover is a toxic combination of vote-buying welfare and crony handouts to corporations. I’ve mentioned in previous videos Europe’s stream of trillion-dollar “stimulus” bills that went to corporations, while welfare spending consumes 1 in 3 dollars in countries such as France and Italy. In the U.S., it’s still high, at 23%. In South Korea, for comparison, it’s 15%.

While the corporations feast on government handouts, the taxes that sustain Europe’s welfare state come from the small and medium businesses, who are getting wiped out. Today, the U.S. has 33 million small businesses. Europe, with one and a half times the population, has just 24 million. Half as much per capita.

The difference is even greater with new startups. Europe’s venture industry is six times smaller than the U.S., which has just two-thirds of Europe’s population.

Americans are currently in the midst of a presidential election that will determine the direction that the United States takes in the coming years. Do we want the government to become more powerful, or do we want the power of the government to rest with the people? Kamala Harris will steer America further down the road towards socialism and communism. If you like that idea, by all means vote for her. Donald Trump supports the Constitution – no matter what his enemies keep saying – and will help America to regain its footing for government by the people.

Each of us has a choice about the future America that we want to see. I will be voting for Donald Trump because I do not want my posterity to lose their freedoms.