Cause and Effect: The Death of Individual Rights in the United States

Part 1


      It is only fitting that the president elect of the 2008 election, Barack Obama, ran his campaign hailing a single word; “change.”  For it is change that Americans have longed for since the reign of the Bush administrations failing approval ratings.  However, although it appears the people have been ignored by the current administration in Washington, it needs to be understood that George W. Bush is not the problem, but only a very small piece of a larger picture.  Our government has been failing us for decades.  It has not been the presidents in office but a majority of men and women within the senate and congress as well.
      Americans have become apathetic in every sense of the word, but there are many reasons for this, the largest being the disintegration of individual rights.  The American people have been suppressed by government taxes, invasion of privacy, and disregard for the constitution.  At the same time, the American people have been spoiled because they have been not only able, but enabled to receive and borrow money they did not earn, nor could never pay back, create court cases in which “rights” means employers should pay and hire employees on some undefined standard of “equality.”
      While the government is to blame for readily producing welfare, etc. it is the responsibility of the individual to understand he or she can only consume what they produce.  Just as well, it is the right of any business to hire and pay anyone in the manner they so choose.  It is because of the dichotomy of government suppression and government aid that personal responsibility is failing, and as personal accountability has failed it has enabled our government to  become “big brother” destroying the basic principles of the constitution; most of all, that  of individual rights.  Now, in such dire times, it is "We the people" who are responsible to fight for those rights once again.