WHY ACCOUNTABILITY IS CRITICAL THROUGHOUT A REPUBLIC The government is merely a servant — merely a temporary servant; it cannot be its prerogative to determine what is right and what is wrong, or to decide who is a patriot and who is not. Its function is to obey orders, not originate them. In the beginning of change, the patriot is a scarce man, and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot. Mark Twain Many people pretend to hold dear the principles which are vital to a republic. Insufficient few of us exercise those principles if we cannot even agree on a singular, yet vital truth. The founders of this place we pretend to hold so high reminded us across all their works that we must be vigilant, that we must perceive the truth, and that we must act soundly on it. But even if we hadnt been reminded so, it is of the greatest conceivable dishonor that an entire nation, even the world, could not only be artificially dispossessed of its wealth; but that its very chance to prosper could be extinguished while each of us at most only looked haplessly to each other, never fathoming how and why. It is easy to cite the many shortcomings and abuses of a purportedly representative government. But it is no more handsome or toward that its people know no better. Why must a republic be accountable across the whole of itself? The decay of all the things which preserve and promote a republic did not happen in a day. One and every other one of us let them decay. We let them decay when we let the first one of us stand for their lot, rather than universally, for the whole. We let them decay every time we let pass what we knew was not true. We let them decay every moment and every time we let a fellow countryman unshoulder their responsibility to know and abide by the truth. We let them decay when we ourselves abandoned critical thinking. We let them decay when we failed to recognize when we should hear; and we let them decay when we let the republic fail to meet the standards of what it should hear. A republic begins to fall the first time we fail to hold everyone accountable for their role in the republic. Mike Montagne perfecteconomy/pg-accountability.html
Posted on: Mon, 22 Dec 2014 21:01:57 +0000
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