Do Better Thursday: Levi’s Soapbox “Enough Is Too Much”

So once again it would seem the mercurial American public has once again expressed its discontent with Washington, DC (i.e. the Government) as a concept.  And as always it has done so with fervent protest, inane only partially informed arguments, and a variety of surveys that the gainfully employed among us rarely get an opportunity to participate in (not that we’d answer an unfamiliar phone number anyway).  Which brings me to a recent article in the Express (so with a grain of salt we take this) that says that approximately 80 percent (80% = vast majority) of Americans distrust the government.  Now the article posits this phenomenon as ominous and/or problematic, especially for democratic incumbents seeking re-election this fall.  The article also asserts that this particular distrustful condition has given rise to the Tea Party and other like-minded groups who feel there is just too much government “in my business”.   

Now all of this ill-feeling arouses a curious look from me.  It isn’t that I don’t understand distrust of the government in general but I just don’t understand why “we” see this as new somehow.  The forefathers and/or architects of our beloved Constitution asserted the notion that the government should be monitored to ensure that it is acting in the interest of its citizens.  A bit of paranoia resulting from having just eschewed a government you felt was doing quite the opposite.  Hence all this nonsense about the right to have guns, free speech, and public assembly.  All of which, we see as the nifty trappings of a democratic society.

Next there are the arguments for distrust, chief among them being corruptions (bad Government bad).  Once again I think history offers us a little perspective on this.  What was common among those who were both able to vote and those who eventually put their “John Hancocks” as it were on our governing document?  Take a moment…I’ll wait.  Well for a hint just look at the first three letters in your browser after the “/”.  They were Wealthy, White, “With” land, ok so the like “W” is a bit of a stretch but you get the point.  Now think for a second, how many folks do you think fit that description at that time.  Answer, not too many, which leads me to believe that this country has always been “guided” by the few much to the chagrin of the many.

Finally what makes me more suspicious of this “distrust” is its timing.  Now of course I don’t have empirical evidence, partially because my job won’t let me call you randomly at 2 o’clock in the daytime when you aren’t home to ask you questions, but I don’t remember this same level of distrust in the last presidency or even the one preceding it for that matter.  Those presidencies brought us both a perceived bumbler with a gun fetish and a philanderer with a penchant for oval office copulation.  And yet, no raucous chants of distrust en masse.  Now of course throughout both of these presidencies we were high on the hog so to speak, both our coffers and our pantries full.  Now in the wake of a financial nuclear winter “we” find “ourselves” a little vexed and who shall bare the brunt of our discontent but our beloved whooping boy, the Government.  

Levi F. Daniels
Common Sense Advocate