Preambling.

A weird concatenation of Facebook and more real-life events today sent me meandering down odd paths until I wound up stumbling across this, which many may recognize as the preamble to the Constitution of the United States:

“We the people of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

Archaic language aside, and the fact that it is the only paragraph in the Constitution NOT considered law aside, it remains an impressive statement and vision of what our “founding fathers” meant for our nation to become.

Such OPTIMISTS they were!

Rereading it even from my now 21^st-century vantage point, I mentally summarize it as saying, “We’re all in this together, and we’re standing together not just for ourselves, but for our children.” Pretty simple stuff--and pretty heady stuff, as well.

Now, I know (or think I remember, anyway) that only about one-third of the country’s populace supported the American Revolution, another third stood steadfastly on the side of King George III (NOT “Dubya”), and the other third was more or less neutral, being more interested in keeping themselves and their children fed and housed. We’ve only become more fragmented, socially, as the centuries have progressed since the care-free 1780’s.

(Parenthetical revelation: Maybe the Preamble is where people get the notion that this nation was founded on “Christian principles,” whatever those might be. I’ll think about that tomorrow, or maybe the next day.)
“We’re all in this together.” “One for all, all for one.” “There is no ‘I’ in ‘team.’” “I‘ve got your back.” “We must, indeed, all hang together, or assuredly, we shall all hang separately.”

See a trend, here?

Sad thing is, we all give lip service to all of this stuff, but when it comes to actual “action?” Not so much.

Somehow we’ve become much more about “competition,” much less about “cooperation.”

There really shouldn’t be a battle between those two concepts--they CAN coexist, maybe even peacefully, if we don’t get too wrapped up in one or the other.

There used to be another “c” word--”compromise,” I think it was. Two “sides” each give a little, and by doing so, together they “promote the general welfare.” Everybody wins, maybe not as much as they would like to, but nobody “loses.” We’ve lost that “everybody wins” idea, and I’m not talking about every kid getting an “A” so as to protect their precious self-esteem.

Our forefathers had a fascinating vision. They weren’t always good at promoting it (anybody remember the “Alien and Sedition Act”?, or, um, the “peculiar institution,” slavery?), but their hearts and minds were in the right place. Somehow they managed to see beyond what we/they were, and imagine what “could” be.

Heady stuff.

So how have we, as a nation and a people, managed to drift so far from the ideals with which they prefaced, or preambled, the Constitution that holds us together?

How has “welfare”--as in, you know, “promote the general welfare”--become a swear word, or at least a pejorative?

When did we learn to start hating each other so much?

I think it was Dubya’s fault. Or maybe Obama’s, I get ‘em mixed up. Or maybe it was the Tea Party (I HATE tea) or the “Occupiers” or maybe even Sarah Palin’s (she does have a lot to answer for).

Remind me to burn my voter registration card.