Just Citizens Governing Two Republics: Their State and the Union of States

Counter-intuitively, the preamble to the United States Constitution offers citizens Just Civic Governance by Justly Governed Citizens. Most citizens just want to be free to live in peace, yet peaceful citizens find themselves perpetually at odds over the majority federal vote. Why? I think it is because events that no one anticipated have obscured the literal preamble. Peaceful citizens may live their lives the way they want to, with one exception:  they must fulfill the preamble, perhaps updated from 1787, in governance of self, state, and union of states.

The preamble is needed, because just governance is needed. Just governance is needed because no two citizens pursue happiness alike---neither the same way nor for the same ends. To accommodate wonderfully different paths to happiness, citizens need a regulator. When traffic signals are powerless, for example, during recovery from Hurricane Isaac in August 2012, there is chaos. Drivers are relieved with green lights restored for safe, expedient passage and red lights for prompt stops. A few offenders demand force, but most citizens empower traffic control. For just civic governance, citizens need a prompter against their freedom restricting another citizen’s justice, but so far, most citizens have not empowered the preamble.

Just civic governance is offered by the literal preamble only by chance. The signers of the Constitution debated states’ rights versus a people’s republic, and by a final vote of 65% decided for “We the People,” obscuring the rest of the phrase, “of the United States.” However, the Constitution’s articles empower regimes to abuse citizens, based on the claim that citizens behave only under force. The signers knew the Constitution was imperfect, so they provided means to amend injustices as they are discovered, debated, and corrected. It is not surprising that the signers overlooked that the important phrase is "We the People of the United States," to emphasize the definition in the preamble, which invokes good behavior.

Most infants have the inborn inclination to behave; they grow goodness if they are so coached; evil is taught by example. Assuming that human good only comes by force is a self-fulfilling evil. Signers like Benjamin Franklin urged the people to be informed enough to preserve the republic that may offer just governance. However, for 225 years, political parties have influenced citizens to think that most people behave under two forces: the coercion of theism enforced by government. In democracy, only one vote is needed to influence followers to jump off a cliff, and the group that is one vote short goes, too. From “Out of many, one” (1782) regimes coerced America to “Under God” (1954), and the subsequent six decades have reaped exponential decline.

That's not to say that both theism and government are evil. Theisms motivate many people to just self-governance; however, so many theisms exist and have been found wanting by so many persons that it is not a basis for just civic governance. People who are attacking each other's god/no-god and devil-control/self-control cannot find mutual civic accommodation. Also, citizens cannot enjoy just governance without government; without traffic signals, drivers crawl through intersections. For 225 years, we have been governing without the moderation offered by the preamble. By not embracing the literal preamble, citizens reject the power to govern justly.

                While the US Constitution states, “The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government,” many people cite the American democracy, perhaps in an attempt to establish the means for tyranny. The unique American republic is assured not only by the Constitution, but by the citizens distributing designated powers to both horizontal and vertical offices of each state and similarly distributing powers in the union of states or federal government. Replace the republic with a democracy, and America is destroyed.

The signers of the US Constitution vaguely hoped ethical elected-representatives would uphold the Constitution and provide a people’s republic. Informed citizens would vote out misbehaving or unjust representatives. However, the American majority are proving that divided citizens beget dysfunctional governance. But citizens can create a new majority by practicing the preamble. America’s focus on entertainment promises a country so weak another country can take it over in the future. Over 70% of the sexually active population has a sexually transmitted disease. Only just citizens’ cooperation on written, accepted purposes, such as the seven goals in the preamble, can preserve each person’s opportunity to pursue the life they want--not for the distant future, but for their brief time on earth.

Citizens:  become the majority that is cooperatively autonomous yet accommodates every peaceful citizen, as they are and where they are in their quest for the happiness they pursue, not a competitive, special-interest prescription. Support all lawful citizens during their lives, not penalizing liberals during the cycles when conservative interests are served by the majority vote and vice versa. Create, for the first time on earth, just civic governance by justly governed citizens.

My tunnel-view is insufficient. I propose consideration of just civic governance by justly governed citizens on Saturday, June 21, 2014, in Baton Rouge, perhaps calling it Ratification Day, commemorating ratification of the US Constitution by the required nine states and "We the People of the United States" as defined in the preamble. The objective is to promote the preamble and plan how to make celebration of the people and the preamble an annual event. Please contribute to the planning and register for the meeting.

Copyright©2014 by Phillip R. Beaver. All rights reserved. Permission is hereby granted for the publication of all or portions of this paper as long as this complete copyright notice is included.