The Constitutions Greatest Enemy

[Music]

we the people

these three words encompass the very

roots

of our blessed country our founding

fathers

put aside their personal differences and

spent the long summer

of 1787 meticulously crafting a document

that would establish a country where the

people have the power to make their

voices heard

however during this same time many

people were

criticizing the american experiment of

giving the people this much power

stating that it would cause these things

called

factions now what is the faction you

guys may be asking

well james madison defines faction in

fabulous tent as

a number of people whether amounting to

a majority

or minority of the whole who are united

and

actuated by some common impulse of

passion

or of interest adverse to the rights of

other citizens

or to the permanent and aggregate

interest of the community as a whole

my history teacher once dubbed it as the

constitution’s greatest enemy

now when i first heard this in history

class i had the same reaction as you

guys

the constitution’s greatest enemy

that sounds a little extreme right but

imagine

a faction is an interest group with the

intent of limiting another group of

people

and this inherently threatens the entire

american system

as the whole purpose of the revolution

was to establish a government

that represents all people not just some

people

if a faction can use democracy to get

into power

then our system truly is no better

than a tyranny or a monarchy

this moment sparked my interest into

politics

it moved me to conduct research on

factions

i could not comprehend the possibility

of our founding fathers

just leaving us with the constitution’s

greatest enemy

but thankfully i did not have to

our founding fathers were in fact

cognizant of this risk

and molded the constitution in such a

way to prevent these factions from

rising

for example our founding fathers

established our government

under the principle ideology of

federalism where the overall federal

government

has power over the smaller state

governments

and each state government has power over

the local governments respectively

with this setup it gives the people the

power to suppress

and limit factions to the local level

and not allow them to make its way up to

the national government

our founding fathers tried so hard to

make sure

that a bitter partisan environment would

not occur

and that adverse factions would not try

to oppress one another

in fact when george washington gave his

farewell

address he specifically advised our

country

to not form political parties and fall

into this factionalism

where groups of people are pitted

against one another

however even washington was unable to

stop factions

and just as they left power the

federalists

sent in the northeastern states were

pitted against the southern

agricultural democratic republicans

all of their hard work

wasted this is particularly evident

during the build-up towards the civil

war

as well as post-war conflict our country

built under the principal ideologies of

freedom

and unity got so corrupted by violent

factions

that we became in serious danger of

collapse

as the southern states attempt to secede

from the union

and form their own confederate states of

america

this civil war embodied the dangers of

factions

groups of people who are so unwilling to

compromise with one another

that they are willing to tear our

country apart

and today i feel like we are facing a

similar problem

see i’m extremely passionate about

politics for as long as i can remember

i have dreamed about a career based on

improving the lives of the people i

serve so you get a taste of this field i

incurred at a local campaign running

in a nonpartisan election and while it

was a great experience

i was shocked at the level of challenges

i faced

see in the election a white man was

running against an indian-american man

and i chose to work for the white man

and this

surprisingly bothered a lot of people

some doors answered with anger and

mistrust

for a colored person like me trying to

get involved in politics

his opponents tried to label him as

someone who was

unamerican because he hired me to be on

his campaign

on the other hand his opponents on the

other side

tried to label him as a racist and a

white supremacist

just because his skin color was white

see the two factions both wanted to win

so

badly that they resulted to dirty

politics to try to divide

us and completely left out the issues

that mattered most to my community

and that right there truly

made me question my faith in the

political process

of this country

now i am not advocating for getting

rid of our political parties i know that

is a lost cause

but that does not mean that we have to

allow them to become

factions you see the key thing about

factions that is so scary

is that they are adverse to the rights

of other citizens

and have the intent to harm one another

if we allow our political parties to

become like that

then yes we are in huge trouble

but i firmly believe that political

parties

and a positive and united atmosphere can

co-exist as long as politicians

make the effort to reach across the

aisle

now you guys may be thinking look ashwin

we are just ordinary citizens

some of us cannot even vote yet

we cannot fix this this sounds

more like a government problem but in

the end

aren’t our politicians just

representatives of ourselves

this culture in washington isn’t it just

a rendition

of the culture in our dinner tables

you see they’re only acting like this

because we the people are acting like

this in our daily lives

the change has to start with us and only

then will it trickle up

to our policy makers

we need to first read the constitution

and appreciate

the powers our founding fathers gave us

you know a recent study conducted by

marquette university

found that a staggering 57

of americans have never read the

constitution

how in the world are we supposed to use

our powers guaranteed to us

by the constitution if we do not even

know

what they are but it’s not enough to

just learn

we must also act let’s discuss politics

with our local neighbors

instead of dismissing the opinion of

somebody we disagree with

let’s hear them out and truly understand

where they’re coming from

now don’t get me wrong let’s have our

passionate opinions on issues

but at the same time let’s make sure to

acknowledge

that those on the other side are in fact

well intentioned

share our values and want to see the

same

problems fixed let’s

finally understand that while we may be

driving different cars

we all want to get to the same end point

now i know that this is not going to be

easy

i currently run a club at briarwood’s

high school called the briarwoods

political union

our goal is to create an environment

where our fellow classmates

feel free to voice their political

opinions

and empowered to become civically

engaged

and i will be the first to admit that

sometimes

discussions do get heated and sometimes

we are not able to find common ground

but whether we like it or not we

need to engage in those difficult

conversations with one another

our generation especially has to rise to

this occasion

we are inheriting the world’s major

problems

things like climate change gun violence

and the growing national debt if we

want to have any chance of fixing these

problems

we cannot just run away to our echo

chambers on social media

whenever things become difficult

now we need to be braver than that

we need to seek those who may disagree

with us and embrace

those arduous conversations

as cliche as it may sound simple acts

like these

can truly stop our political parties

from turning

into those violent factions it can

reinvigorate that culture

our founding fathers want it for so long

a positive passionate

and understanding political atmosphere

and so my fellow americans my fellow

teenagers

as john f kennedy once said ask

not what your country can do for you

ask what you can do for your country

we have an election coming up let’s go

and make our voices heard

we the people have the power to defeat

the constitution’s greatest enemy so

we the people must

thank you

you