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Popular conservative radio host, Laura Ingraham uses the 60s anti-war cry, “Power to the People,” for the title of her New York Times bestselling book. Wishing to take back America from the “global liberal elite, from science worshipers, and from politicians who spend more time on their hair than serving their constituents,” Ingraham urges all to, “protect the country that we love” because “it is ours to lose.”
As American citizens we govern ourselves. The government’s job is to protect us; that includes protecting our moral values, our voice in government, and obviously, protection against foreign threat. What happens when our government protects the pornographers and rappers, not the people’s values? How about when it strips our voices and empowers the federal government past its tenth amendment, constitutional powers? As the constitution states, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved for the states respectively, or to the people.”
Republican or democrat, conservative or liberal, we all can agree that we want to be heard. Whether the issue is our “pornified” culture, education system, immigration laws, federal court system or stem cell research, it is our right to be heard, and not ignored, as illustrated in Ingraham’s book.
When I first began this book, I have to admit, I was a bit reluctant. I mean, what can I do about the McCain-Feingold bill that limits our first amendment freedom of speech (not the women-degrading “rap-star” type of “freedom of speech”, but our political freedom of speech)? How can I change foreign policy or make sure the Supreme Court practices “judicial restraint”?
That’s when I realized that instead of just stewing in my own complaints, this book actually offers methods of influencing the government’s decisions, and provided examples of where the people’s power has prevailed. It urges you to write letters, start blogs, call into talk radio, go to village hall meetings, or take part in the parent teacher association. Do anything and everything that ensures that you shape your own government and that politicians don’t shape it for you.
Similarly, make sure you shape culture, instead of being shaped by it. Ingraham asks what many may have wondered themselves, “How does a woman with virtually no vocal gifts become a platinum selling recording artist? How does a nonstop party girl and a mediocre actress become an A-lister?” She sums it up in two words: sex and scandals. Children and teenagers are no longer taught that manners, charm and class get you far, but smut. Girls are sexualized in both fashion and music. Everywhere you look- television programs, magazines, billboards, the internet; our culture is “pornified.” It’s no wonder girls as young as six are being diagnosed with anorexia.
No matter what your political stance, don’t let the government shape you- it’s your right to shape the government. Don’t let “pornified culture” shape you. You have a right to control it. You have power as an American. Sing the once sixty’s anti-war battle cry, read Ingraham’s New York Time’s bestselling Novel, and return power to the people.
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