IT TAKES A COMMUNITY OF CITIZENS TO RESOLVE DEMOCRACY ISSUES

Then they said, "Let us start building!" So they committed themselves to the common good. -- Nehemiah 2:18

After more than two centuries of constitutional self-government, Americans are still searching for ways to perfect the democratic system envisioned by our Founding Fathers. To say we are closer to this vision today than a quarter of a century ago may be stretching the point, but there is no denying we have, indeed, made considerable, if not total, progress over the past 217 years.

Evidence that we are still in need of systemic correction is at hand as we enter this year's important campaign season, searching for proper leaders to direct our national and state governments for the next four years. Thanks to the innovations of modern science, this task is seemingly more difficult than it was a half century ago when the process at least had the appearance of seeming more democratic and less influenced by special interests and their vast treasuries. One's view of today's political process is assuaged somewhat by reading of the excesses of America's first century which must have driven the then moralists up the wall.

Still, today's detachment from the political process by millions of citizens, whose only solution appears to be dropping out, is disturbing not only for the moment but for the long run as well. At the present rate of detachment, political leaders from the nation's capital down to our city halls will be chosen by merely a handful of partisan pariahs and special interest groups. Paying lip service to governance by the majority is insufficient assistance to the reality of creating and implementing public policy that serves the common welfare. As long as we choose candidates whose demonstrated skills consist of raising huge sums of cash to finance their campaigns and as long as we select leaders on the basis of their appearance and acting skills, we either need to address and resolve the problem or abandon the dreams of our forefathers.

The optimists among us believe that many of the pejorative features of today's campaigns will eventually be resolved, and they are probably right since the current misdemeanors of the system will become felonies, at which point total and complete public disgust will mandate correction. It is regrettable we must look to virtually total degeneration to resolve this important point, but at this moment both optimists and pessimists will settle for any solution. Even this is better than holding elections in which no one votes.

A more serious problem, however, and one that is kin to the one discussed above, is the absence of a system in which the governed may take part in the decision-making process beyond merely choosing candidates willing to endure the vicissitudes of a disassociated democracy. Here is the area in which we face serious obstacles, so serious in fact that without monumental systemic reforms, no solution appears workable. We have yet to address it, except with peripheral remedies, because many citizens can see no connection between their everyday lives and the way in which they are governed. An overdue note payment at the bank is certainly more important to the vast majority of us than any of the banking policy decisions facing state or federal legislatures. Yet neglect of the latter will sooner or later impact far more on our personal lives than we imagine.

Here in Missouri we have a new legislative session that will address such problems as how to spend a $6.7 billion windfall to how to improve the quality of education for our children. Our legislators must decide how we can reverse the deterioration of our highways, how we can overcome the illegal drug nightmare, how we may extend the most effective assistance to such troubled constituencies as farmers, victimized women and children, the undereducated and the mentally ill.

The problem rests in the obvious fact that, for the most part, those we have chosen to resolve these critical issues will often deal with them by applying bandages that significantly hinder or make impossible permanent resolutions. A portion of this failure can be traced to the concern of public officials who have few solutions to offer as individuals and have little knowledge of how their constituencies want the problem handled. The imponderables now on the languishing public agenda could be addressed effectively if our elected representatives knew the courses of action favored by those they supposedly represent.

In several of The Federalist Papers written by James Madison, perhaps the most underappreciated of our founding fathers, he refers to the desirability of creating a "community of citizens" in which the governed would have an opportunity to participate in resolving communal problems. Today's citizens feel no part of any community, save the one in which they reside. Contemporary leaders, whether president or governor or state legislator, live in their own communities without input from the vast majority. Unfortunately, these leaders have no hard evidence of how their constituents want to be governed, no evidence of interest or lack of it on the day's most critical problems. Worse, the only questions these officials ask will be during a campaign when they solicit the public's votes.

We can reverse our democratic lethargy only when we involve all citizens in seeking solutions and soliciting their counsel to met the very real problems they are facing. Let us revisit Madison's community of citizens for the common good. It may be the only acceptable means of preserving our democracy.

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