We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. [emphasis mine]

We’re now sitting 9 days away from America’s 2008 quadrennial election. I wanted to take a moment and opine on what “we the People” means to us and then connect that theory with a few news stories that broke today.

Go ahead and re-read the Preamble, above, again. Read it out loud, if you need to; whatever it takes to get it reverberating inside of your head. Then, read on…

It has often been said, over the last several decades, that we in America have become, “Of the People, By the Politicians, For the Bureaucrats.” I would instead posit that it is incumbent upon the citizens to be vigilant at righting this fundamental conceptual flaw.

There are a number of reasons why, essentially, “we the People” have been, are, and will continue to be in charge; after all, “the only way for evil to win is for good to do nothing:”

• “We the People” are the ones with all of the rights and all of the obligations of maintaining all of our rights. Not a single federal officeholder has a single right that can be construed to be constitutionally conferred upon them; they do, however, have all of the obligations to perform very specific powers as the governing authority
• “We the People,” whether we realize it consciously or not, always have the power to dictate who shall govern over us. Philosophically, this means that the governed (the People) always have a say and will always be obligated to hold the governing (Officeholders) to account
• “We the People” — despite whatever Senator Barack Obama (or whomever else) would have to say on the matter — shall always have reserved to us (or the several States, in popular group terms) any and all rights not otherwise reserved to the Federal government; to wit:

Article the eleventh [Amendment IX]
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Article the twelfth [Amendment X]
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Along with this fundamental principle, there has always been an on-going debate of exactly how much power the Federal government should have, versus how much power the many States should have; this missive shall not resolve that issue. However, I think we have two examples, today, of how the balance must always be there:

• Sen. Stevens guilty on all counts, career in peril (also via hotair.com and peachpundit.com): “We the People” must always be vigilant to demand the best out of those who govern us. Fortunately, in this case, the oldest Republican Senator has been held to account
• OBAMA was to be assassinated today – 9 days to the US Presidential elections (via API from Fox News and hotair.com): It is the responsibility of government (the state) to actually govern “We the People” to fulfill the rest of the Preamble. We are a nation of laws, not of People, and as such, even the People need to be held to account. 

Always remember and never forget: We the People ultimately have the power.

-Phil

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Update:

Convicted Sen. Stevens won’t drop out of race.

As hotair.com points out (culled from the above link):

For most politicians, a guilty verdict on seven felony counts “eight days before an election” would guarantee the end of a political career. But Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens is not like most politicians. After his conviction Monday on charges that he lied about free home renovations and other gifts from a wealthy oil contractor, the 84-year-old Stevens refused to drop out of his re-election race against Democrat Mark Begich.

Republican presidential nominee John McCain called Tuesday for Stevens to resign from the Senate, saying he “has broken his trust with the people.”

…

In a statement issued by his Senate office, Stevens said he was disappointed but not surprised at the verdict, “given the repeated instances of prosecutorial misconduct in this case.”

Stevens proclaimed his innocence and said, “I will fight this unjust verdict with every ounce of energy I have.”

He asked Alaskans and his Senate colleagues to stand with him as he pursues his legal rights and his re-election campaign.

I like what Sen. McCain says: “[Sen. Stevens] has broken his trust with the people.”

Yup, that’s “We the People.” It’s time to demand better from our leaders.