When the Founders drafted the U.S. Constitution, the intent was that the rights and benefits created, or recognized, were for the benefit of every one of us. They said it in language of that day, as being for "all men" and for "ourselves and our posterity." That is, everyone: present and future. The goal was to prevent those early states from creating either a monarchy or any government where even a majority of the voters or of Congress (with concurrence of the president) could ever ignore the rights of even one individual.
They knew that no direct democracy had ever worked -- other than for the very small city-states of ancient Greece. And when too many "voices," or interests, began screaming for disparate policies or action, no "government" could possibly control matters. Chaos would result. So, they wrote it so that no president and no group of Congress persons could ever over-look or void our individual rights. No combination of Trumps, McConnells, Cottons, Womacks, Ryans or any number of super-rich oligarchs -- individually or in a group such as Freedom Partners and the Koch brothers with the ability to "buy" all of the above -- could ever ignore the Constitution.
So, the Founders created a "representative democracy," i.e., a democracy in the form of a "Republic" where the voters choose the "politicos" who, in turn, must act and vote on matters that come up in the best interests of the folks back home. This careful draftsmanship was designed to prevent persons such as the Trumps and Cottons from benefiting themselves and the 1 percent rather than everyone. For that reason the Preamble to the Constitution of 1787 is written fully in the plural: to make certain that the foundational principles of the Declaration of Independence of 1776 establishing our "unalienable rights to ... life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" are forever joined with those words of the Constitution requiring those elected to provide for the "general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity." Thus vesting the "ownership" of the Nation in us -- not those folks in D.C.
We are living in crisis, viz, too many of our elected representatives have never taken the Declaration and Constitution to heart and do not identify with it. Thus, upon election and re-election when they are "sworn in," they merely "recite" -- and do not "swear" -- the oath of office. Especially the words of it reading "I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic."
Too many in Congress have forsworn the duty of service to all. They are only concerned about the spotlight and personal interests, not of the rights of their electors. The politics of great wealth, I fear, has entrapped each of Arkansas' six elected congressmen, who do everything they can to pay it forward to the rich and take it away from the poorest of the poor -- the greatest irony being that it was the poorest of us who elected them.
Don Switzer
Rogers
Editorial on 12/14/2017