A time for reason

KENNETT, Mo. -- Perhaps the leading cause of dissatisfaction with today's American political system is not a fundamental flaw in how our nation is governed, but rather the commingling of two phases of the matrix.

Put as succinctly as possible, we seem to have a problem separating governing and politics. In turn, this confusion leads not only to a distrust of governments at all levels but, perhaps worse, an indifference to the efficacy of our form of a constitutional republic.

At the insistence of both political parties, Americans have begun to associate various functions of both our federal and state governments with partisan beliefs as to how public programs should be administered and, indeed, whether they should be administered at all. The feeling that the adoption or administration, or both, of public programs is vindication of a particular party's basic philosophy is not only a contemporary viewpoint but one deemed vital to success by both groups.

The impact of this philosophy on our nation has been pejorative, to say the least, while its influence appears to have become so widespread that we can only experience the unity of America at a moment of national tragedy, such as the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The uniting of America occurred at that split second when foreign enemies destroyed New York's World Trade Center and partially damaged the center of our military establishment in Washington, D.C.

The attacks instantly transformed the nation into a single, cohesive unit, with millions of us suddenly willing and eager to proclaim our patriotism and support for our national leaders. America experienced the same spirit of unity following the Dec. 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese. Other outpourings of national unity occurred in times of less threatening stress, such as the Korean Conflict and, on a more limited scale, during the calamitous involvement in Vietnam.

Moments of military distress seem to trigger the greatest response from us ordinary citizens, although we have also experienced moments of unity at the death of our leaders. I was standing in military formation when the news of Franklin Roosevelt's death was announced and I still recall the spirit of unification that suddenly caused the dissolution of partisan differences. The one member of our battalion who expressed his partisan pleasure over FDR's death by giving out a loud war hoop was later court-martialed and served time in the military prison; the rest of us experienced a sadness that was recalled 19 years later upon the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

Moments of tragedy automatically serve to unite us, while moments of less dramatic but oftentimes equally fundamental import are not always transformed into near-total agreement and national unification. For example, the Great Depression of the 1930s filled the nation with despair and frustration, and while virtually every citizen was acutely aware of the problems being experienced by millions of others, the moment was more one of regret than unity.

On the same page as economics is the troubling persistence of partisan disagreement on such vital questions as health, welfare assistance, care for physical and mental disabilities, taxation levels, human rights and, yes, such fundamental questions as the rules of income retention and expenditure. On this, and countless other subjects, the level of disagreement on many issues seems to escalate at the moment of election campaigns. These are periods when partisans consider the greater the disagreement, the more likely the question can be resolved by political fiat rather than national agreement and compromise.

Indeed, the very presence of disagreement is all that's required to stimulate a certain percentage of a party's constituency, thereby serving as a means of overcoming the opposition at the polls. Considerable irony can be attached to the enhancement of partisanship in order to awaken a lethargic, often cynical, constituency to stimulate the freedom to vote, a right which has long been taken for granted by Americans but which is often denied to millions and millions of citizens in other nations around the world.

The further irony is that the citizens who refuse to participate in debating and deciding vital domestic and even foreign issues is that, without this involvement, the challenging problems are seldom resolved, often they are not even approached again until it's time for another election campaign.

One would gather from both past and present campaigns in Missouri that one of the most controversial problems facing the state is the creation of a policy to construct new and improved athletic stadiums, a topic that attracted perhaps the greatest public interest during the recent session of the Missouri General Assembly. This topic, while not riddled with partisan division, was nevertheless a matter of serious public concern, attracting widespread support and opposition at the expense of countless other challenges that were far more vital to the well-being of Missouri's 5.6 million citizens.

At the moment officials were trying to decide whether the state could afford a multimillion-dollar professional sports complex Missouri had more than 200,000 children and youth who are suffering from varying levels of emotional disorder. And how many of this number received any service at all? The answer is 40,000 - 20 percent.

Thanks to political efforts to win voter approval for lower taxes, Missouri has lowered its commitments to the neediest of individuals and families, cut back its support for higher education, reduced its ability to replace crumbling highways and walked out of programs to reduce drug addiction, while cutting prescription aid for the aged. The list goes on and on in plain sight at the altar of partisan dogma.

The price we pay for politics is inadequate government.

Jack Stapleton is the editor of Missouri News & Editorial Service.