Troubling times in America

We have failed as a representative republic when our elected representatives in both houses no longer fear their constituents' votes. When the ruling class can vote to exempt themselves from the same laws they have forced upon the rest of the population with no resistance, we are becoming a socialist state. We no longer are a nation of the people, by the people, for the people. We have now become a nation of the government, by the government, for the government.

There may be a difference between how we are governed and other socialist states, but after we are living totally under the complete control of the Affordable Care Act, Obamacare, we will have become the socialist state that the progressives and the liberal Democrat party have been successfully striving for during the past 100 years. They accomplished this while we citizens naively assumed our oath-taking representatives, Supreme Court justices, and our president would honor their oath of office and defend our constitutional rights. What a bunch of fools we Americans have become!

GENE N. ISOM, Olive Branch, Ill.