When Benjamin Franklin rose to cast his vote for the Constitution in Philadelphia in 1787, he warned that “this Constitution with all its faults…can only end in despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic government, being incapable of any other.”
Despotism is defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary as “oppressive absolute power and authority exerted by the government.” Franklin was warning of a society ruled by terror and a lack of democracy.
While we aren’t quite at that stage as a society, the future looks bleak for a variety of reasons. As a nation divided over problems such as inflation, national debt and gun violence, we need to take a step back and look at the causes and key values in play.
When the Constitution was written, the ability to vote for the candidate of one’s choice was a special, seldom-seen before privilege. Few took the ability to vote for granted, because they knew it would affect the future of American society. When a candidate was chosen, the decision was accepted with little trouble.
While our nation has always been divided on key issues, we now live in a highly partisan world where people’s identities are intricately connected to their political party. Everything is either red or blue, yet our nation bleeds purple. Rather than fighting over issues, the diversity of ideas should be accepted and collaborated on to make a change. The loss of human life and devastation to our economy should far overpower any politics in play.
In 2023, nearly 47,000 lives were lost to gun violence. Nobody agrees with it. Yet it still happens. Why? Americans want an end to it. So do politicians, yet nobody acts on it. This isn’t about politics; it is about money. Pro-gun groups donate millions of dollars into the bank accounts of powerful people, ensuring a bill would never be passed in the Senate. Politicians are afraid to make change, in fear of losing their position.
“We’ve got too many politicians in this town who work for the gun lobby,” Senator Raphael Warnock, Democrat of Georgia, said. “The people need some public servants who actually work for them.”
The biggest problem here isn’t and shouldn’t be about passing a bill in the Senate because of divided lawmakers. The problem is that people are dying and our government opts to do nothing about it.
“We’re not going to fix it,” Representative Tim Burchett, Republican of Tennessee, told reporters on the steps of the Capitol just hours after the shooting that killed three children and three adults in his home state. “Criminals are going to be criminals.”
Stark admissions like this are exactly the problem. If lives are to be saved, action must be taken. However, the loss of lives isn’t the only problem plaguing our country.
Ladue publications states that “Logic would have it that impossibly large problems would require impossibly expensive solutions. At least, that’s the excuse politicians give … instead of talking about pressing issues such as poverty, homelessness, drug abuse and more.”
Issues like homelessness, a rampant problem in our nation, can be solved. Yet they won’t be. The reason being? It costs too much money. Bloomberg states that for the next 12 years, it would cost roughly 8.1 billion dollars annually. Yet with a net worth of 248 billion dollars, Jeff Bezos could solve homelessness on his own.
Implementing a coordinated response to homelessness would eradicate most of it. The fact stands, if both parties can come together to solve the problem, looking for higher rewards than money, a solution would stand.
This article wasn’t written as a message of despair. Rather it should be viewed as a message of hope. We may not be heading in the right direction, but we have the means to do so. The next generation, including students of Oak Park High School, should keep these issues in mind as they move forward in their lives. The only way to stop “American Decline” is to put politics and money aside to save lives.
