Letters (Jan. 2, 2013)

Dueling philosophies can?t co-exist

In his editorial a few of weeks ago, the editor basically pointed out what he viewed as the hypocrisy of the complaints by the grass-roots conservatives over the purging of grass-roots conservatives from important committee assignments by (House Speaker John) Boehner, while at the same time removing establishment Republicans from committee assignments at the state level.

The difference is this: Begin?ning with the Tea Party movement in 2009 we have had a revolution taking off in this country between the liberal socialist all-powerful big government that wants to scrap the Constitution, and the constitutional conservatives who want to go back to the constitution as the basis for our government. It defines the role of the executive, legislative and judicial parts of our government. It also gives the duties assigned to the federal government and says everything else is reserved to the states, local governing bodies and to the individual citizens.

Then we also have a civil war in the Republican Party. Is it going to be ruled by the establishment, which is about 10 steps behind the Democrats saying ?me too,? or by a return to the constitution?

This was the battle Reagan had because he tried to go from the top down, so all the establishment Republicans had to do was hunker down and wait out his eight years. If you remember, they did their best to defeat Reagan. Now you find them trying to defeat every grass-roots conservative who runs against an establishment candidate. When the conservative wins the primary, they even endorse the Democrat like they did in Nebraska this year?and they lost. The people did the deciding.

I predict either the grass-roots conservatives are going to take over the Republican Party and the establishment Republicans will join the Democrats, or a new party will be formed and the Republican Party will join the Whig Party, a memory. It is impossible to have the two philosophies?big government and constitutional government?coexist.

Also, it is just as hard to expect compromise to work between the two as it was to expect compromise to work between Hitler and Chamberlin. We saw the result of that: World War II.

A bit of history. About 300 B.C. the Greeks formed a republic (which is what the U.S. is), a new form of government. Before that, all governments were dictatorships, regardless of what title you gave the ruler. To answer the question, how long can a government controlled by the people last, one of their philosophers said it will last until the people discover they can have the government give them money without working for it. Then the economy will collapse, chaos or anarchy will result and the government will become a dictatorship and tyranny. It was true.

Beginning then until now the average life of a republic has been 200 years. So far we have lasted 230 years. This is the war: Are we going to save our republic or continue the slide into a dictatorship of tyranny? We all ready have about half of our working-age population living on a government check they do not work for. The sad thing is, most of the media support this slide into tyranny.

Another lesson from history: Before the Pilgrims landed, they drew up the Mayflower Compact that said each person was to work to their ability, and what they produced would go into a common storehouse.

Needless to say, that first summer many men discovered it was more fun to lie around then to hoe corn, women balked at spinning yarn and making clothes for anyone besides their family. The first winter came and over half of the colony died from malnutrition and disease.

The second spring, Gov. Brad?ford gave each family their own house and their own land. What they produced was theirs, to do with as they wanted. That fall they had a bumper crop and the first Thanksgiving.

If the idea of ?share the wealth? should have worked, it was there; everybody started with nothing.

If you want to check my facts, I refer you to ?The History of Plymouth Colony? by Gov. Brad?ford.

Ted McIrvin

Hillsboro

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