While the Founding Fathers began the United States Constitution with a preamble that established its foremost goal of forming a more perfect Union, Raul Balderas began a Constitution of his own with a more sardonic tone.
“We, the people, are pissed,” he joked, to the amusement of the dozen residents who had gathered in the Wasatch County Library last Wednesday.
The group had come for the latest in a series of lectures about local history held this year in honor of the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
This lecture, given by former and current Wasatch High School history teachers Dawain M. Wheatley and Easton Powell, explored the founding principles of the United States and their relevance to Americans today.
In an attempt to hammer home the latter point, Wheatley and Powell asked attendees to gather in small groups and discuss how these documents could be applied to their daily lives.
The members of Balderas’ group were inspired by the Declaration of Independence’s assertion that the purpose of government is to secure the people’s unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The document says that it is the right of the people to “alter or abolish” any form of government that is destructive of these ends.
Wheatley provided a local example of this alteration of government to better serve the needs of the people in Wasatch County’s change from a three-member county commission to a seven-member county council in 2003. County commissioners could live anywhere in the county — even, hypothetically, all in the same neighborhood — while now, there are five regional and two at-large seats.
Balderas’ group had its own ideas about how to alter the government to better fit the needs of the people. Their thesis was that the federal government should spend more money on support for American citizens, especially in a time when inflation is rising.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics announced last Wednesday that consumer prices had risen 4.2% since May last year, a 0.4% increase since last month’s assessment and the highest rate of inflation since 2023.
Balderas, a dual-immersion kindergarten teacher at Heber Valley Elementary, said inflation and Wasatch County’s cost of living are creating financial stress for him.
Meanwhile, Romanie Murdock expressed her desire for the federal government to better support disabled people and caregivers. She has been her husband’s caregiver since he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease four years ago.
“There’s little support for disabled people,” Murdock said. “And caregivers aren’t supported. Society expects that a loved one is the caregiver.”
Murdock said local organizations, particularly the county senior center and the Mountainland Association of Governments, which provides resources and education on aging, Alzheimer’s disease and caregiving in Wasatch, Summit and Utah counties, have been valuable resources for her. She isn’t sure exactly how the federal government can better support Americans who are disabled.
But whatever that support may look like, it could be beneficial for all Americans, suggested group member Ammon Teare. The phenomenon is called the curb cut effect, named for sidewalk ramps, which were installed for people in wheelchairs but are used by others, like people pushing strollers or shopping carts.
The Americans with Disabilities Act, which required nationwide accommodations like curb cuts, was signed into law only 36 years ago, thanks to the efforts of disability civil rights activists and government officials alike.
“It took a lot of people a lot of time to fight for those changes,” Teare said.
Teare said such progress is often prompted by Americans reflecting on their country’s founding principles and questioning whether current policy is contradictory to those principles.
He was particularly inspired by Wheatley and Powell’s discussion of how civil rights movements throughout American history have repeatedly led to the reversal of discriminatory government policies.
“Whether it be current immigration policy or the attitudes toward people in this country who are from different parts of the world, the way they’re perceived has changed over time, and at least some part of the impetus for that change was from people looking back at the Constitution, the Declaration (of Independence), and saying, ‘Well, when they say, “we, the people,” or they say, “all people,” they didn’t just mean a handful of people,’” he said.
Teare hopes that America’s 250th anniversary prompts all Americans to reflect on the country’s founding principles and become advocates for them, whether it be through grassroots efforts, voting, running for office or voicing opinions in a public forum.
“There’s never been a time in the country where talking about our rights, talking about the foundations of our democracy, hasn’t been valuable,” he said. “We should be looking (at) how we can use these to improve the rights and lives of all Americans.”