Render Unto Caesar…

Regardless of what happened last Tuesday, whether there was a red wave or a blue wave, or your candidate won or your candidate lost, we should not be as affected as we are with the outcomes of our elections. Our government was not designed for that. And the fact that we are affected this much means that we have it all backwards. Our lives and the outcomes of our lives should not be altered very dramatically based on who the President is or who controls Congress. But sadly, they are. On the morning of Wednesday, November 9th, the day after the election, we should not have to run to the TV set or to our computer screens to see who won the election to determine how good or bad our lives are going to be for the next 2 to 4 years. If our government has that much control over our lives that we live and die with each election, then we have ceded the government way too much power, and the American experiment has failed.

We should live in a country where if we want to see who is responsible for the outcome of our lives, all we have to do is look into our bathroom mirror. Self-determination, should be just that – self-determination. And it should not merely be expressed in showing up and voting, it should show up in every day of our lives regardless of who we voted for and regardless of who received the most votes. That’s the point of a constitutional republic. It is supposed to keep government power in check and in doing so, empower the citizen.

Thomas Jefferson said, “The issue today is the same as it has been throughout all history, whether man shall be allowed to govern himself or be ruled by a small elite.” We fight that battle continuously – the battle for self-governance. Self-governance does not just manifest itself in our ability to cast a ballot every 2 to 4 years, choosing between being ruled by the small elite of one party or the other. Self-governance is the right to determine the course of our own lives every day. Any politician who tells us that he is not only going to make our lives better but that he is also responsible for making our lives better is not only lying to us but doing us a disservice because each and every one of us should be the one responsible for the outcomes of our own lives.