Reason to care: The growing concern over the nation's next steps

 Don't fall for the spin.

When you hear the president talk about a do-nothing Congress and the need for him to "pick up his pen," don't just take his word for it that he is allowed to do it or that it is in keeping with the principles upon which this nation was founded.

Understand what "executive privilege" means and why it is something we should reject from any president unless it is accompanied by strict limits and checks and balances.

Do not immediately assume there is no agenda, no political by-product of such a move.

When you hear that a court has overturned a law passed in a state by its citizens or when you see a major change in public policy enacted at the hands of the Supreme Court, know why this is something to be informed about and why it should make you pay extra attention when you check a box in a judge's race, or make a decision on which party to leave in power when a Supreme Court seat might be opening.

One of the reasons so many people are so worried about this nation is that too many people do not know and they do not worry.

They watch their liberties slip away and then wonder why they no longer have the rights or why no one is listening to the voice they thought they had as an American.

They sit back and watch something that is wrong, but say nothing, choosing instead to leave it to someone else, someone with less to risk, to point it out.

They don't know how critical it is for them to know what is going on in their back yards and in their country.

And we are paying the price now.

You still have a voice, a way to speak up. You can make a difference -- yes, even though you are just one person.

Sometimes it takes someone to stand up and to pull aside the curtain, someone to point out that the emperor has no clothes, that a nation has strayed from the principles upon which it was founded.

Sometimes it just takes one voice.

The victories of those voices are not just conservative or just liberal. There have been many people over the years who have stood for what was right -- even though it put them at great personal risk.

We have to get back to those days. We have to start putting our country's future onto the list of things we care about and are willing to fight for.

We have to listen to each other and take the best ideas from both sides. We have to stop allowing only a few people to control the message.

Scandals matter. They are signals of a government that does not think it answers to anyone, a bureaucracy that has lost sight of whom it was created to serve.

There is no more important time to watch the decisions that are being made and to express your feelings on how they are being implemented.

It matters what you think. Really.

And there is no better time to speak up.

Published in Editorials on July 12, 2014 11:58 PM