I believe in the Constitution of the United States. Do you? Lately, I have been struck by the awareness that “We the People” have forgotten what “We the People” stand for.
The First Amendment of the Constitution states:
And Capitalism is defined as:
Taking every advantage of our countries abundance of capital goods I am in the delightful process of remodeling our home. We were flooded and so the lovely goods we had were a wash. I love to cook and was somewhat inhibited by our rather small kitchen, so we took the opportunity provided by the flood and added on. I poured over new and improved cooking accessories and carefully weighed the benefits of each appliance against their cost. I landed on the good old American company of General Electric and supplied my kitchen in its entirety with the GE Monogram Line. The CEO of GE, Jeff Immelt, is the chair of President Obama’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness.
My political preferences do not align with Obama. But I bought the GE products, giving no consideration to that, because I believe Mr. Immelt has a good product. To buy a lesser product because of the CEO Immelt’s First Amendment right to choose to support the President would be prejudice against GE and Mr. Immelt.
I adore sleek, efficient technology and am the proud owner of all things Apple–iPhone, Macbook Air, and iPad. I look like a walking Apple employee unloading my goods at the airport security check. I have great admiration for Steve Jobs and believe him to be one of the most innovative business men of our century. I have spent thousands of dollars with his company as the mother of five children, three of whom have both iPhones and MacBooks.
My religious preference does not line up with Buddhism, as did Steve Jobs. Of course, it never entered my mind to boycott Apple because of Steve Jobs First Amendment right to freedom of religion. That would be rather…prejudice.
So my questions for “We the People” of America are:
Do you believe in the Constitution of the United States?
Do you believe in capitalism?
Did you choose your favorite football team based on the coach’s religion?
Did you choose your university based on the university president’s race?
Did you secure a mortgage for your house based on the political beliefs of the bank’s CEO?
Do you buy your chicken based on anything other than taste, cost and cleanliness?
Why would the personal beliefs of Dan Cathy, the CEO of Chick-fil-A, stop you from buying his chicken? Should corporate CEO’s such as Immelt and Cathy be forced to hide their religious or political preferences because it might hurt their company’s profitability? Are Americans becoming so hateful and prejudice that leaders must evade questions or lie about what they believe, personally for fear of attack?
How could “We the People” tolerate the boldness of a Mayor or any other public official who defies capitalism and the Constitution by assuming they have the right to prevent a company from providing a legal product–chicken to American citizens living in their city? Isn’t there another name, other than capitalist, for a government that controls commerce?
“We the People” need to think about how far we have come from what “We the People” believed when we wrote the Constitution.
My passion and chosen occupation is to serve moms. I love them–all of them and want to serve and enable them to be the best mom that they can be. Over 5 million moms visited iMOM.com this year. I am the Director of iMOM. Should I have refrained in this blog from mentioning my political preferences? Should I have refrained from mentioning that I am not Buddhist? Will you choose to boycott iMOM because of my personal choices, despite the fact that you could benefit from the parenting resources available at iMOM.com? Will you use your prejudice of me against the organization I work for?
I am concerned that those who are screaming “prejudice” at Chick-fil-A CEO, Dan Cathy are, in fact themselves, behaving with a prejudice that will destroy everything our country stands for–the rights of “We the People.”
