If I could live any place in the world—could count any destination my home other than the United States of America—I would politely decline the offer to leave this country at this point in my life.

I knew people, when I was in the United States Air Force that lived in villas in the Philippines as military members.

As well, when I was in the Republic of Korea as a serviceman, I paid a lady $20.00 a couple of times a month to keep my room clean and tidy—and she did an awesome job.

In each case, the reason we were able to do what we did—I and the people I knew—was that we were being paid wages that, inside the confines of the continental U. S. were considered to be at, slightly above, or a little below, the poverty level.

Put another way, as some of the poorer people in the country, we were able to afford to live exceptionally well when we went to places outside of America.

This should help to paint a picture of what it’s like to be a citizen of this grand experiment, by comparison to what much of the rest of the World deals with on an ongoing basis.

I bring this up, because I wanted to make a significant point.

There are people out there, who whether by intent or accident, are implying that living in this nation is tantamount to being unable to choose one’s form of government. Dr Noam Chomsky more or less says as much in the first chapter of “Understanding Power, The Indispensable Chomsky”.

My answer? That may well be true, but apparently it’s not keeping you from living a life of what would be considered one of privilege in and by the rest of the world.

The fact is, the U. S. wasn’t designed in such a way, that its citizens had the authority to choose its form of government.

Does that sound crazy? Allow me to explain.

The intent of the government that was put in place, was to allow the people in the country, to choose who represented them. Inasmuch as changes to that government were concerned, it was in fact, their job to make them.

And that’s not all, the fact is, this country was created as a representative republic. That first word, is explained in the former paragraph, but the next term indicates the real form of the country.

You see, America was designed not as a democracy as so many love to couch things, but by intent as a republic.

Let’s be clear on what that means. We were supposed to be a “nation under law;” a country who had a set of base rules, that were to be very hard to change. Those laws were not intended to be written in stone, but they weren’t designed to be easily mutable either.

It was the intent of those who created the country, to put in place, a set of foundational documents (read here, “The United States Constitution and The Declaration of Independence”) that would be very hard to change.

That way, when modifications were made to those underlying parchments, they would have to be considered in the most serious of ways.

The result is that the Declaration has had no changes.

The Constitution on the other hand, has been amended a number of times. That said, it was never a painless or easy thing—it wasn’t intended to be.

Because this is true, attempting to radically change the form of American government, would have to be done by one of just a couple of means.

The first is getting people to agree to make those changes to the under-girding structures in place, such that things were adapted to make it possible to have a form of rule not intended nor desired by The Founders.

The second? Essentially revolution. Put another way, whether with armament or not, those basal documents would have to be taken out of force.

You can argue that either seems like a good thing, but you’ll permit me to strongly disagree.

Where it’s fair to say that it’s difficult at best, to change how this country is governed, I have to question why that’s such a terrible thing.

I’m going to say it yet again, the people of this country live what most would consider charmed lives. Even our poor are objects of envy, when compared to folks in other countries—and we’re not necessarily speaking about people in relative impoverishment either.

You can certainly argue that there are people in this country who’re doing things they ought not do.

You can definitely say government sometimes behaves in ways that are indubitably outside its purview.

Rather than making an argument against the founding, and the accepted form of leadership though, typically, you’d be making an argument against people abusing the system.

The American system of government is not perfect. If you’ve read my blog, you might’ve come across an article entitled The Perfect Government. If so, you should be aware that I indicate in that piece that there is no such thing as a perfect government (sorry to be a spoiler if you haven’t had the chance to peruse it, but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth reviewing, regardless that sneak peek).

You’re never going to get spotless leadership.

Does that mean you don’t try to make things the very best they can be? Not at all. We should continue to strive to improve.

That said, one ought not be disheartened on the realization we haven’t managed to reach Nirvana.

There are certainly arguments for using the tools at our disposal to effectuate change. Part of the wonder of this country (unlike many others) is that you have those mechanisms to use. They’re literally enshrined in our most basic law-giving texts.

So you can’t just change the way the country is run at your will. Yes, we have problems against which we’re constantly toiling. That said, there’s no place in the World I’d rather be than this one. You can be assured, based on the sheer number of people trying to get here, and the many not interested in leaving that I’m not alone in that.

Thanks for reading, and may your time be good.