DESPOTS: Rodkey right on the money

Dr. Rodkey’s letter in the Wednesday, June 20, Opinion page was well written and a needed observation. If I might expand on the thought, Thomas Jefferson in speaking of limited government said 173 despots would surely be as oppressive as one — little will it avail us that they are chosen by “elective despotism.” With the compendium of federal regulations now up to 81,405 pages, “Private sector regulatory compliance” is costing $1.752 trillion or 11.9 percent of the GNP. We need a much smaller federal government.

But we hear a lot of sound bite or bumper sticker political attributions which should lead one to ask where the Founding Fathers got their ideas. Who influenced them to come up with this unique and brilliant constitution of ours delineating specific duties and severe limitations on the three branches of our republic?

A couple of books, “Ameritopia,” by Mark Levine and “A Patriots History of the U.S.,” by Larry Schweikert and Michael Allen, seem to indicate that they went a long ways back to see which forms of government worked and which didn’t. Plato came to admit that largely due to human nature, his Republic could not work; More’s Utopia, Hobbes’s Leviathan and Marx’s Communist Manifesto all led ultimately to totalitarian regimes. So, where did this “democracy” idea that United States is a democracy come from? It is not found in our constitution. It is mentioned in “Democracy in America” by Alexis DeToqueville (as a warning) while describing America’s republican form of government but seems to have popped back up with Wilson and Roosevelt with the “Progressive” idea that human nature has evolved to the point where free people need no longer be concerned with the concentration of power begetting tyrants.

Instead of studying history, philosophy and theology our representatives seem to take their priorities from the infotainment industry and the intellectual masterpieces posted on FaceBook and Twitter. But that’s where name recognition and campaign fundraising come from.

Call your congressman — and perhaps get to talk to a staffer, who will relay your concern, or email his website and check one of the topics of the day. Or send a snail mail which will languish in an anthrax inspection bin somewhere and perhaps be read sometime by a staffer.

You’ll know your representative has gotten your communication when you get a “position paper” in return which may even be vaguely related to your question or concern. Read; and ask “Where is that found in the constitution?” We also need a moral culture to set standards of behavior that government cannot and must not encroach upon. It’s been said in many ways but “Those who will not be governed by God will be ruled by tyrants.” — William Penn

God bless America!

DAVE WAARVIK

Hayden