Our Responsibilities as a Free People
- May 29, 2003

As we span time between two holidays commemorating sacrifice, Memorial Day and Fathers' Day, we should reflect upon what our responsibility is to each other in a land where government seems to be more concerned about the preservation of its aristocracies than the due process of law and equal protections of its people. What are we to do about such a condition? What is our role? Simply stated, we must reform it.

Our state constitution not only says we have a right to alter the government, but it specifically instructs us that it is "the duty of the people to provide for an equitable mode of making laws, as well as for an impartial interpretation, and a faithful execution of them."

In the Declaration of the Rights of the Inhabitants of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Article VII states that, "Government is instituted for the Common good; for the protection, safety, property and happiness of the people; and not for the profit, honor, or private interest of any one man, family or Class of men."

So in the face of powerful aristocracies, we must not turn away. We should test the integrity of the processes and challenge its state actors to do the right thing. Also, we need to be careful not to sell out our fellow citizens by allowing ourselves to be bribed or extorted, or by kowtowing to those who may unlawfully control and obstruct our liberty and freedom whatever their motivation.

We must exercise the moral courage to bring our government back to its foundation. If after giving full consideration we discover its true colors are not so true, then we have a duty to call for change, and participate in it. Reference again Article VII; which says, ". the people alone have an incontestable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to institute government, and to reform, alter, or totally change the same, when their protection, safety, prosperity and happiness require it."

Our form of government is sound, but imperfect. It functions best when we stay vigilant and keep it in check. People's constitutional rights are in jeopardy every day so we must, as an opposing offset, work toward a revolution every day, not just in crisis. If we do not do this, we fail in our responsibility as free and sovereign citizens.

Mike Franco
State Co-Chair
The Fatherhood Coalition