What political parties do is reinforce the stereotypical views that our society places on being a Republican or Democrat, and by inference, being a human being. If you’re not in one camp, by definition, you are in the other one. The ‘camp’ or the ‘class’ that you find yourself in defines who you are and what you value in life.  A very popular parameter that is used to put people in one class or another is money. If you have a lot of it, you’re a Republican; the lesser amount of the green stuff you have may cause you to slip into the Democratic bailiwick.

Declaring yourself as an Independent isn’t fair, because you’re just begging the question as to what party you indeed favor. The reason I say that is because, it’s convenient to say that as far as social programs, you think like a Democrat and fiscally, you think like a Republican, treating those two concepts as being independent entities, when in fact, they’re not, they’re inter-related. We shore up our ‘social’ plans like our Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid programs, or any other entitlement programs by establishing fiscal policies that support such plans and hope it’s money well spent.

Our Founding Fathers didn’t think like a Republican or a Democrat, or even like they did when they established the first two political parties, the Federalist vs. Democratic-Republican parties, because such political entities didn’t exist when they wrote the Declaration of Independence, Constitution and Bill of Rights. Because of what they wrote in those revered documents, it was obvious that they thought like a patriot, like an American. They were concerned not about what was best for themselves, but rather, what was best for America, or something greater than themselves. They were even willing to die for what they believed was right, by either fighting in or supporting the Revolutionary War, simply so that future generations could enjoy the benefits that come from being an American.

What is so tragic about ascribing such high value as money to measure a person’s worth is that by doing that, we completely circumvent what I consider the higher values of life that our Founding Fathers were willing to fight for to protect, even if it meant the loss of life in doing so. By doing that they allowed successive generations to be free to be who they wanted to be, as long as it was within the boundaries of the law – which was the message that was lovingly, caring and compassionately written in the Constitution and Bill of Rights. I’m sure the Founding Fathers, many who were wealthy, didn’t support the Revolutionary War because they wanted to protect their personal prosperity, but rather, they did so because they wanted to provide a governmental platform that would permit future generation to thrive because of the freedoms they were defending against British domination and suppression, all of which is discussed in my book What Would Out Founding Fathers Say?

As a country, we need to return to the basics and begin to emulate what our forefathers viewed as important in America’s governance, which is to respect those above mentioned documents which represents a universal message, which is to speak to the hearts of those who cherish freedom everywhere, and in so doing, help others pursue, life liberty and happiness in a way not available to many countries that make up this world today.

In order to actualize those abstract concepts of freedom for all Americans, Congress and our president must learn to compromise and make decisions based on not only their heads but their hearts as well. They’ll only be able to survive the rigors of politics here, in the 21^st century, by using a similar formula our Founding Fathers used when they wrote the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and Bill of Rights. That formula involved putting aside their selfish interests for the good of the country and working toward something greater than themselves, where a sense of fair-play and equal treatment of every American, regardless of ethnicity, gender, or sexual preference is present and a recognition that it’s a privilege and an honor to serve their country in the best way possible.