10. We concentrate more on a couple of extremists per year who burn the flag than on upholding what it stands for.

9. When government officials take the oath of office to promise to “faithfully execute the law”, they concentrate more on how to get around them.

8. We invoke laws to protect classified information, then turn around and leak it when it promotes a political agenda.

7. Once elected, our Congressmen and women listen more to corporate lobbyists than loyal constituents.

6. We allowed a Congress to act like the “West Wing of the White House” blindly authoring bills that solely promoted the White House agenda without review or oversight.

5. We allowed erosion of competition in elections via politicizing redistricting.

4. We allow People living in the smallest states to have twenty times the say as people in the largest states thanks to the Electoral College.

3. We have electronic voting machines that are easily hackable and offer no audit or paper trail.

2. We turn out less to vote with 48% compared to Cambodia’s 90%, Western Europe’s 77% and Eastern Europe’s 68%.

1. We turn our backs and look the other way while our democracy goes down the toilet.

We watch as the present government has invaded a country under false pretenses, refused to seek warrants for wiretaps, leaked classified information for political propaganda, tortured hundreds if not thousands of people under the guise of “enemy combatants”, restricted the constitutional right of habeas corpus, incarcerated hundreds of people without charges, altered the law so as to make it easier to declare martial law, and allowed the president to assert the power to not enforce hundreds of duly enacted laws under the auspices of “inherent power”.

When we stand by and do nothing, we are abdicating our responsibility in this democracy to demand that the Constitution is upheld, to demand fairness in government, and to demand accountability and consequences for violations of the law and abuse of power.

What’s wrong with democracy is when we turn our backs and look the other way when we know the above atrocities committed by this administration have gone too far. When we have a President who thinks he has, within his “inherent power” as Commander-in-Chief, the ability to exercise his own authority if he thinks Congress has voted the wrong way, we are in trouble.

So, what can we do to take our democracy back? We join the efforts of others who are as concerned as we are and make our voices heard. There is a group called The New Democracy Project (NDP) founded by Mark Green which is a New York City-based national/urban affairs public policy institute. Through innovative and well-publicized research, NDP seeks to provide policymakers and the public with thoughtful solutions that promote democratic participation, economic fairness and social justice. They have created what is called the Democracy Protection Act which outlines the basic tenets with forty proposals that will allow us to take back our democracy.

This is not just a “must do” list from liberals. This is a powerful invocation of citizen right’s to share in the basic ownership of this country. We have sat idly by while the Neo-cons and plutocrats continue to plunder this nation’s wealth and treasure with an ocean of corporate money, lobbyists and lawless officials threatening to override America’s constitutional powers.

I highly recommend you check out the Democracy Protection Act above and then do your part. Let all your Congressmen and women know that you support this new rule by the people. We need to stand up against the authoritarian usurpation of power by the elitists and those in the highest levels of government who promote their secret agendas through fear propaganda and threats of terror. We must remember that we have had to face dangers such as this before in this great nation. And, even Benjamin Franklin himself said,

“A democracy is two wolves and a small lamb voting on what to have for dinner. Freedom under a constitutional republic is a well armed lamb contesting the vote.”

It’s time for us lambs to start arming ourselves again.