Published May 20, 2008
Checks and balances have made this country work
In his May 17 letter “Of, by and for the military-industrial complex” Robert R. Regl expressed his belief that America has become fascist. Considering that a major characteristic of fascism is “a merging of state and business leadership” (The American Heritage Dictionary), I believe no educated person would deny that we are, in fact, a fascist state.
Mr. Regl blames the Bush administration for our current condition, and it is with this that I must disagree.
America has been on its way to its current situation for a long time, primarily due to our dismantling of the original system of government.
Over the years I’ve often heard it said that the Founders created our system SPECIFICALLY TO FAVOR THE RICH, and that the only cure for it was a shift toward “more democracy.” As an example of the Founders’ supposed bias toward the rich, these people would point to the creation of a Senate that was appointed by the “landed gentry,” instead of being elected by “the people.”
The fact is, the senate was structured this way to pit the rich and common against each other to ensure that neither could abuse the system. As Gouverneur Morris observed during the original Constitutional debates “The Rich will strive to establish their dominion and enslave the rest. They always did. They always will. The proper security against them is to form them into a separate interest. The two forces will then control each other. Let the rich mix with the poor, and in a Commercial Country, they will establish an oligarchy…….By this combining and setting apart, the aristocratic interest, the popular interest will be combined against it. There will be a mutual check and mutual security.”
Too bad so few of our college professors and “think-tank senior fellows” knew about this.