economicmultipliers_76

Economic Multipliers (76)

Do you know what these are?

They help CREATE wealth in systems.

Democratic principles are economic multipliers IF the people and the institutions that exist within their framework make them so.

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The founding fathers of the United States considered ‘democracy’ to be an experiment: They wanted what they created to last but they didn’t know if it would. Unfortunately, you can’t really know for sure until the framework has been ‘tested’ for a couple thousand years.

Past leaders and Presidents who formulated the democratic framework and defended it were a diverse lot (I’ll pick religion as an example):

• • One rewrote the New Testament of the Bible. As a ‘thinking’ man, he couldn’t wrap his head around all the miracles. He didn’t say that his version was right: It just made more sense to him.

  • Most were sworn in on a Bible but not all (by choice).

  • More than one questioned the many facets of Christianity even as most of them considered themselves to be Christian.

  • Some belonged to organized religions: Some didn’t.

  • All of them had an understanding of how religion had torn apart the societies that they and/or their ancestors had come from.

The founding fathers thought that a democratic system could offer more than systems that had gone before IF there were some boundaries.

When holidays roll around in the United States, someone somewhere is filing a lawsuit over whether a nativity scene (or any other religious symbol) should be in front of a courthouse or some other public building. Flash back to 1776 and it’s likely that none of those public buildings existed AND religious symbols were not prominently displayed in any that did.

As a result, I always find the ‘desire’ to file lawsuits like this to be frivolous, wasteful, ‘odd’ and un-American.

The founding fathers provided an opportunity for any American to found and build a church that would be protected by civil (public) forces like police and fire departments. As part of this opportunity, they gave any American the right to put up a nativity scene (or any religious symbol that did not promote violence or hate) on their own personal property and/or church property while celebrating their religious beliefs throughout the year (WITHIN the limits of NOT taking away those rights from anyone else … their ‘boundaries’).

The founding fathers wanted people to have their individual rights.

They also knew that the only way people ever have any ‘individual’ rights is if they are willing to respect the rights of others.

That is what democracy is all about: That was their legacy.

I’ll hope this year that there aren’t too many lawsuits filed over religious displays in public buildings … mainly because it just seems like ‘Americans’ could find better things to do … like put the displays on their own lawns, celebrate their faith in ways whereby people would want to join their churches, and use taxpayer and community funds to protect the rights of all the individuals who live in their community.

Just ask yourself: Do you want YOUR rights to be protected in your community?

The ‘thinking men’ who wrote the U.S. Constitution did.

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The strength of any nation or institution is found within its ‘weakest links.’

Democracy came into being when a group of men thought that ‘God’ was not directing people (through their religious institutions or elsewhere) to create havoc in societies and within other people’s lives.

They thought that peace and prosperity (wealth) were most easily created and maintained when people respected other people’s rights.

And they knew that the ‘weakest links’ in any democratic system are the individuals who (for any ‘supposed’ reason) would use or abuse or start wars with others for money, their own personal gain or perhaps even ‘fun.'

Millions of Americans have fought and/or died so that millions of others could have a chance to live in a ‘democracy.’ Millions of others across the world have aspired to have the same chance ...

And, for all of those millions, whether ‘democracy’ can survive anywhere is determined by its ‘weakest links.’