101. The Constitution

           

           One of the greatest things about the United States and being an American is our constitution. It makes us a nation that is open to debate ideas and even battle them out with rancor in courts that can dissipate that rancor, but all of this is conducted with a belief in the rule of law. We aren’t a people who just accept what’s given to us, but we have managed to figure out how to fight for those things we deem fair. We are a very diverse people who sometimes can be at great odds with one another, yet our founders discovered sensible ways to deal with our disputes. In the country we do our best to abide by the rule of law that we have established in our constitution.

            I’m not one to think everything about our constitution in its written form or its living form is perfect. The opening lines of the preamble are the poetry of which I cling when recognizing this, as do all Americans, “We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union…” It may not be perfect what we’ve got here, but it’s pretty damned good.

            As a man of words I find great comfort in the American Constitution, its insurance for this people that we can abide together fairly peaceably even in the most trying of times. We are allowed to abide together from great diversity as one people: E Pluribus Unum. Sometimes it seems like we’re falling apart at the seams but that one blanket holds us together in our squirming, rioting, tumultuous beauty that one blanket that really seems to be seamless is our constitution. I know it is still more ideal than reality, but through it we can resolve our differences, hold onto our differences, soar like eagles or creep like worms but remain through it all one nation believing in justice even when we struggle to attain it. This is our constitution, we, the people, the American people.

            Enjoy this 243^rd American summer and our diverse independence.