It was an ordinary day. Late October of 2019 and I am attempting to read and understand a 6-page section of my Sunday newspaper titled "Perspective". Almost all of the entire section is devoted to the United States Constitution.
If you are an American citizen, have you ever read the U.S. Constitution? If you are a citizen of another country or nation, have you ever taken the time to read your Constitution or perhaps your code of laws? I have never done so myself, but in order to try to understand what is happening in our country with the impeachment of our President, I found the newspaper section very helpful. There is no way I can even begin to tell you everything about our Constitution, since the six pages of the "Perspective" section wasn't able to do totally so for me, but I can give you a very brief overview of what our Constitution includes. The Constitution begins with the following: "We the people of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, provide for the common defense, 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." What follows are seven (7) Articles which do everything from describe the structure of the government to describe what to expect from the President that we elect. Each Article has varying amounts of Sections to it depending upon how detailed it needs to be. Following the Articles are a list of ten (10) Amendments that were constructed by both the House of Representatives and Senate and approved by a two-thirds majority of both Houses of Congress. These 10 Amendments are referred to as "The Bill of Rights" and describe the legal rights of each citizen of the United States of America. All ten of these Amendments were written by 1789. After that date, 17 more Amendments were added with the last being added, or ratified, in 1992. Our 27th Amendment prohibits lawmakers from raising their salaries before an election takes place. It was actually first proposed as part of the original Bill of Rights, but was strangely bypassed for the next 200 years. So, there is my brief history course as to the laws and working of the government of the United States of America. If you aren't extremely interested in law, or might never have have gone to school to be a lawyer, my guess is you never read, word for word, everything I just described in this story. I do feel I have a better understanding of our Constitution, but certainly will never remember most of what I just read unless I review it over and over again. Perhaps that will happen in my next lifetime! It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.
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