Sample Letters To The Editor #4 - The Necessity of Effective Government.

I am posting a series of "letters to the editor" designed to try to change the focus of political questions and discussions. Humbly {G} I offer these to all as models

Feel free to copy (and edit them) for your own locations/papers. (Please add a comment to this blog entry, or email me at rjw.progreesive@gmail.com if you use one.)

I believe a significant short coming of Democratic politics is the failure to affect the focus and language of political discussion. I'm aiming to make the letters succinct with easy to grasp concepts.
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The Necessity of Effective Government.

No one believes in or wants "big government."

Many folks have been convinced that government is "too big:" they have caught media attention with their anti-government position: "Government isn't the solution; government is the problem."

We are in the middle of a massive environmental disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, and it turns out that over the past decade regulations on oil drilling were rolled back and what remained haven't been fully enforced.

In 2008 and 2009 our economy was on the brink of disaster because regulations on banks and finance had been rolled back and what regulations remained weren't fully enforced.

No one can deny that corporations and large scale commerce have done incredible good for our society, but without effective checks and balances on their power, we have seen that they are also capable of incredible destruction.

And no one can that when government is "too big" our country may suffer, but when government is stripped of essential powers it is rendered ineffective and our country also suffers.

I believe the events of the past two decades years has demonstrated the importance of effective government and the essential need for effective checks and balances on large corporate and commercial interests.

The primary purpose of corporations is to pursue profits for shareholders. The general good they do for society is secondary.

The primary purpose of our government is "to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity."

I believe it is as misguided to pronounce "government is bad" as it is to pronounce "big business is bad."

Effective commerce and effective government are best achieved when (1) both are empowered to fulfill their purposes, and (2) there are checks and balances on the power of both.