Nobody said no. – Moussa
Moussa is a friend of mine. He’s from Senegal and like a lot of his fellow Senegalese who moved here, Moussa works two full-time, physically demanding jobs, usually with a smile on his face. He is currently studying for his US citizenship exam and he may well know more about checks and balances and The Federalist Papers than many American citizens.
Today’s Thought, by the by, is one of the few you will read here that I was actually present at when uttered. Most of the quotes in our personal quotebook come from books.
Today Moussa and I found ourselves talking about checks and balances because Moussa was in the mood to review what we’ve discussed so he doesn’t forget and I reiterated that our system of checks and balances prevents anyone from getting too much power, though, honestly, we’re no longer checking and balancing, were obstructing and impeding and nothing of substance is getting done in America. I didn’t tell Moussa this, however, because his English is still developing and it would have only confused him
Anyway, Moussa nodded and said, yes, it’s good to prevent one person from getting too much power and then he mentioned the word “dictator”, although his pronunciation of that word is still rather unique because of his accent. He noted that Africa has had a lot of dictators over the years and that African dictators always mean bad things for African people.
Nobody said no…
Moussa said these words with some assertion, as if people saying no could have kept the dictators away. Maybe, maybe not. But it got us thinking about what we here in America could be saying no to.
Right now, collectively, we haven’t said no to perpetual war or mindless debt. In fact, we’ve been doing the opposite: collectively we’ve been saying yes to perpetual war and crushing debt because we keep reelecting the leaders have been providing these things. The chains of perpetual war and crushing debt are being applied and if we don’t shake them off pretty soon America will be tossed aside the scrap heap of history before this half-century is out.
When it happens, we will only have ourselves to blame because America didn’t say no.
By Daniel Edwards July 1, 2017 - 17:27
Perhaps it is because not enough “Americans” have suffered enough under the policies and antics of “their” government. Many are not taught at home or at school how to be active participants in “their” government. Look at the new pending increase in gasoline taxes in California – the state which already has one of the highest state taxes on gasoline in the USA….California, a state where the Democratic Legislature has yet to meet a tax they did not like and which they find ways to use the money for “other” things…where is the outrage? I’d bet that if you polled 1000 people at random throughout California, most of them would not be aware that gasoline taxes were going up or what the money is supposed to be used for. Yet, those who vote in Calif. keep sending the same people back to govern them….yes, there are term limits, but how many California politicians who’ve been “termed out” don’t somehow end up still gorging themselves at the public trough?