LETTERS: NO CANDIDATE? LESS GOVERNMENT

To the editor:

I guess Southeast Missourian gurus are glad some candidates filed for the Cape Girardeau City Council Ward 5 vacancy. I seriously thought Southeast Missourian sages were going to have a cow about the whole thing.

Frankly, I also thought a lack of any candidates in Ward 5 or, for that matter, in any other ward, would have been an indication of tremendous progress, a great leap forward, if you will. On the other hand, Southeast Missourian media mavens seemed near hysteria, on the verge of a collective panic attack. Why? If it got to the point where no one ran for or held elective or appointive local office, it would mean to me that the past office holders had done such a tremendous job that all local problems, past, present and, yes, future, had been addressed and solved and that there was no longer a need for any local government at all. That should be a cause for celebration.

Before you conclude I'm a kook, keep in mind that the view that a society can peacefully evolve into a perfect community or commune, if you will, with no need for government has a long historical tradition. I won't bore or try to impress you by rattling off a long list of thinkers, generally referred to as utopian anarchists, who advocated and predicted this phenomenon, but there have been and are a lot of them.

Many people think that the word anarchy means chaos, violence and confusion, but it doesn't. Anarchy merely means absence of government. I think a gradual dwindling away and eventual complete absence of local government in Cape would mean that citizens had created a perfect, utopian community. Everyone would live together in peace and harmony, work according to his or her ability and receive only what he or she needs. Share and share alike would be the order of the day. Real equality would reign.

I really wish Southeast Missourian bigwigs would stop being spoilsports by, for example, beating the drums for Cape citizens to run for the city council. If you would let well enough alone and allow Cape's local government to naturally fade away, as I think it inevitably will, we'd have a community as near to heaven on Earth as is humanly possible. What's your problem? Are you afraid you won't have anything to write about any more? And, while I'm on a roll, why is it that the Southeast Missourian is always screaming about the need to get the government off the backs of the people and then, when there is possible movement in that direction locally (fewer city council persons), you change course and start calling attention to and complaining about it.

Finally, having written all this, I do not want readers to draw the conclusion that I am some impractical, wild-eyed idealist with no common sense. There would be exceptions to what I have outlined. For example, I think that there should remain in place a kind of comunally financed mini-local government whose responsibility would be to provide essential and even nonessential services for one person: me.

STEVE MOSLEY

Cape Girardeau