Rebuilding our Community
By Dr. Andrew Calhoun, Ed.D. Special for the Milwaukee Times
There is nothing like finding a truly amazing opportunity. The quest to find such deals is beneficial, provides economic security and in some cases is worth the search. They are hard to turn down and in fact we look for them each day.
The preamble in the United States Constitution provides one of the key foundations to our great Nation. This is the basic belief that, “…in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity…” This was a promise to all citizens.
However, since the adoption of the Constitution on September 17, 1787 as the supreme law of the land that when into effect on March 4, 1789, the interpretation of the constitution continues to stir up debate, controversy and protest. Our history is full of events in which the very essence of the Constitution and its meaning has been put to the test. The subjects have varied greatly and the reactions to legislation and Supreme Court reviews have not always been widely accepted.
It goes without saying that we continue as a nation to struggle with seeing things in clear terms, especially in dealing with the basic rights for all Americans. This includes the right to vote, fair housing, quality education, health care, gun control, and immigration, employment opportunities, to unionize, to provide a safety net, equal representation and to be judged by the content of one’s character and not by the color of their skin. This struggle is real.
We do not need to look far in history for a blueprint of what a new deal looks like. President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933-1945) was the architect of two new deals and they came at a time when the nation was in economic free fall, dealing with the Depression and World War II. He created the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), to protest the bank deposits of people; Securities and Exchange Commission to regulate Wall Street; the Second Bill of Rights, that provided for a living wage, freedom from unfair competition and monopolies, fair housing, access to medical care, quality education and Social Security, to just name a few. At one time, FDR cited that the “test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much, it is whether we provide enough for those who have little.”
Those deals sound fair to me… Can we do better than that? What do you think?
For feedback you can contact Dr. Calhoun at email: andrewiiicalhoun@gmail.com, Facebook, twitter: AC53, http://whatdoesitlooklike.blogspot.com/ or 414-571-5015.
