This is something I agree with our Nutty Right-Wing Friends about: the citizens of the United States own the government of the United States and all government employees are, therefore our, as a collective body, employees.
So, do I have a constitutional foot to stand on?
No, of course not. There’s even been some Big Decisions on this, regarding whether or not a civilian is a cops boss. You don’tr even get to claim, legally, that you pay their wages. Same at Wallmart; You pay Wallmart, WAllmart pays the clerks.
Actually, dropzone, paying taxes doesn’t get you much in the way of rights. Being a citizen does.
Come on, legal types. Give ol’ dropzone some hell. 
Peace,
mangeorge
Define “own”.
Or, define it in such a way that 1/250,000,000th ownership in something has any practical meaning.
I suspect that dropzone, normally a pretty rational guy, may have a love-jones for someone special
Could it be? :dubious:
In the same manner as my wife, owner of a single share of Lucent stock, still gets financial statements and proxy ballots (and boy are they pissed they have to spend the money to send them out!). Owners of a single share of anything tend to be powerless but if they get together with like-minded shareholders they can exert great influence.
Mangeorge, I resent your implication that I have EVER been “pretty rational.”
The government is not property, and thus cannot be owned.
Does that qualify as “giving him hell”? 
Is a corporation only property?
dropzone:
Exactamundo! I was going to make the corporate stock analogy. So, you own the gov’t in the same sense that you would own IBM if you had 1 share and there were 250,000,000 shares outstanding. (I’m using that number as a proxy. Put in whatever the actual number of registered voters there are in the US. Maybe closer to 100,000,000.)
Individually we are quite powerless, thats what elections are all about.
Many Politicians forget that they are elected to “serve” the people.
“Represent” is more accurate. They are not supposed to be merely carrying out the public will. We could just do direct democracy if that was the case. They are supposed to use their own judgement, even if that sometimes means doing something that most Americans oppose. If Americans feel strongly enough about it, they can make a change.
Okay, if you and I are NOT stockholders in America Inc, who DOES own it?
I think several of us have said that we are stockholders. One share gets you one vote. Why don’t you tell us more about what you mean by “own”, and delineate sole ownership from shared ownership. Do you not see how different the two are?
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men…are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable Rights…That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the consent of the governed…That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it…”
-Thomas Jefferson, et. al. , Declaration of Independence
Not quite Constitutional documentation, but close.
We own the government in that we have all agreed that they do what they do only by our collective consent, whether it be active or passive.
When the agreed proportion of us decide to effect a change in the government, in whatever forum we have all agreed will be considered valid for such decisions, the government changes.
Certain passages of the Constitution are the nuts and bolts description of how this is to work.