APATHY, AGONY, ANXIETY: THE MARKS OF MODERN AMERICA

If constitutional government were a baseball game, it probably would have been canceled by now due to lack of public interest. The apathy so pervasive in today's America was not the reaction anticipated by the Founding Fathers, who expected resistance to the republic they had created to come in the form of overt rejection, even armed revolt from some.

The men who gathered in Philadelphia to write the 1787 Constitution cold not have anticipated the citizen apathy that now manifests itself in what has become the world's greatest superpower, although this achievement is less attributable to the intellectual strength of our population than to a set of circumstances that understandably escaped recognition during the first two centuries of U.S. history.

In a period of less than half a century, the once indomitable American spirit has dissipated, replaced by an intolerance of government that is frighteningly revolutionary in its degree and an intellectual unwillingness to learn the essential fundamentals of democratic self-government.

Evidence of this angst is not hard to come by. The right of franchise, so prized in colonial times and even up to the early decades of the past century, is now regularly ignored by at least half of all Americans, most of whom seem blissfully unaware that countless lives were lost in pursuit of this single, highly cherished right of citizenship.

The payment of taxes, which the Founders accepted as part of the cost of democracy, is constantly under fire form at least a majority, despite the fact Americans pay a smaller proportion of their earnings in taxes than in most of the world's constitutional nations. We view as economic punishment sanctioned by leaders whose principal purpose, it is charged, is to harass the successful. When was the last time you heard anyone suggest that taxes are the price for living in the most advanced nation ever created? Even if someone ventured this idea, angry shouts of dissension would stifle the message.

Our political process is approaching ruin. Once envisioned as a nationwide town meeting, elections have become frightening marathons, lasting months, in which the winner is most often the candidate who has raised, begged or extorted the most contributions. The news media devote more space and time to how much a candidate has raised than in examining a candidate's beliefs. Partisans have gained such control over our electoral process that the most valuable component of state and federal campaigns has become finding an experienced staff that can devise new ways of discrediting the opposition. Voting has become such a nightmare that each election produces fewer and fewer citizens willing to exercise one of the most important functions in a republican form of government. We are repeatedly more divided after an election than before, an indication the future of the franchise may soon become even more dismal.

There is little common knowledge about how our nation is ruled, and there is hard evidence to prove the point. At the beginning of each class on state government I teach at Southeast Missouri State University, I ask students certain basic questions on how our representative government is organized and how it works. While hope springs eternal that these wannabe Phi Beta Kappas will demonstrate some comprehension of political basics, my disappointment seldom varies. Keep in mind these are upper-classmen, but one of these scholars recently identified the three branches of government as "Democrat, Republican and Reform." Come to think of it, this senior may have been more accurate than he thought.

The conception of how government should work has changed almost completely since the 1780s, when Washington, Madison, Hamilton and Sherman envisioned a framework of separation of powers and checks and balances that would foster deliberation and debate on matters of governance, not political power and domination. The ideologies of democratic governance and political ascendancy are virtual opposites with opposing goals and ideals. The nation's first constitutional convention could not have predicted the decline of the former and the frightening ascendancy of the latter, nor could delegates have realistically prevented the change since they were willing to bank on strong public opposition to partisan excesses.

One of America's most insightful observers more than 150 years ago was the French writer and historian Alexis de Tocqueville. His often-quoted book entitled "Democracy in America" remains even now one of the most positive pictures ever painted of America in the early to mid-1800s. At one point he writes, "I have already observed that the principle of the sovereignty of the people governs the whole political system of the Anglo-Americans. ... Every individual possesses an equal share of power, and participates alike in the government. ... Every individuals is, therefore, supposed to be as well informed, as virtuous, and as strong as any of his fellow-citizens." Surely few of us today would quarrel with Tocqueville's concepts but many would question their validity in today's take-no-political-prisoners environment.

Indeed, the fact the French historian found Americans to be well informed in the 1830s bespeaks a communications system and a set of citizens virtually unrecognizable today. Far too many today exhibit either little or no interest in the affairs of government, and an even smaller percentage pursues information in an effort to meet the expectations of our founding fathers. We seem only intent on winning elections, besting the opposition and pursuing exclusive interests.

Lest we forget on this Independence Day, this is the warning our admiring visitor from France left as he departed: "I am not so much alarmed at the excessive liberty which reigns in America, as at the very inadequate securities which exist against tyranny." This Fourth of July, light a firecracker for Alexis.

~Jack Stapleton of Kennett is the editor of Missouri News and Editorial Service.