To the Editor:
I submit the following in response to Don Chase’s letter of December 12, 2019.
Would Don Chase in his next letter to the Citizen, please tell me, and I’m sure Richard Grover and a host of others would also like to know, exactly when our government became a democracy.
I was taught in Civics class as a freshman some 74 years ago that the founding fathers in debating the past histories of other countries saw how quickly the autocratic democracies governing European empires collapsed upon the citizens through the increasing corruption and enrichment of their rulers and elite, agreed to establish this nation as a Republic, of the people, for the people, by the people.
Possibly I missed announcement of a changeover while serving in our military overseas way back in the 1960’s, as the integrity of our elected leaders since then have definitely turned Washington and many state capitals into swamplands and on a course that continually divides citizen attitudes and is perilously close to incurring the destructive fate the founding fathers strove to avoid.
The founding fathers must be turning over in their graves at what has occurred during the past six decades: repeal of meaningful laws, passage of legislation beneficial to few rather than the whole, free reign for political correctness groups to rewrite whatever chapter of America’s printed history they desire, including removal of the civics course from high school curricula, unmitigated street and media protests for and against everything imaginable, open borders, citizenship tests in immigrant’s native language, social and moral breakdown across the land, and all one needs to vote in elections is a local street address.
Those are actions consistent with autocratic democracies, so Mr. Chase may be right after all in his labeling our government a democracy, but I still would like to know when and who changed it from the republic it was founded as, in order to stock provisions for surviving the inevitable collapse. Hopefully he can tell us.
John R. Davis
South Paris
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