Please: Come on. We are in charge here.

Now that “our side” won the 2010 election, we all want them to do the right thing. But, do we know what doing the right thing actually means?

“Let’s show them our ideas, and then ask them what they want to support.” Is this how we get them to do the right thing? Implicit in this is our support to help them get their new ideas passed into law.

Helping elected officials get good ideas passed into law is good, but it is an incomplete understanding of our role – and I think it can be dangerous over time.

After all, what is the driver behind successful legislation? Or better yet, who is the driver?

Government serves people within the confines of the rules under which it must operate (constitution). We the people wrote those rules. But we get it backwards. We keep on believing the lie that the constitution lays out our rights. Wrong!

The constitution tells the government what it can and cannot do. This is called enumerated rights.

American government is not about lawmakers choosing what they want to do, but about people choosing what the people want lawmakers to do.

We bring ideas to legislators and tell them this is what we want. To be successful at this, we try to find other people who agree with us, so a bunch of us can tell the lawmaker what we want him/her to do. It is our responsibility to convince them, and once convinced, support them as they move our issues ahead.

One concrete example:

Ten states (not including my home state of Minnesota) have decided to pass or attempt to pass legislation that would make Obamacare illegal in their states. Should we support this in our state? Here are two ways to approach the question:

1.      Does our new legislative majority want to take this on? If so, we can help them.

2.      Do we want our new legislative majority to take this on, and if so, how far will we go to make sure they do it? And when they do it, how far will we go to support them to make sure it passes?

In our form of government, the second option is the correct answer. If we are to continue to be self-governing people, then we must set the agenda. We choose. We lead, not follow.