LETTERS: A BLESSED REPUBLIC

To the editor:

Now that the dust is settling after an election in which there was much ado about entering the new century and millennium, it is timely to consider some of the factors impacting our national attitude and psyche to effectively move into the future. Two prevailing national attitudes are having a profoundly inhibiting effect on how we may constructively live together in this most singly blessed democratic republic in human history. The rampant anti-government and anti-tax syndromes flavor everything we do and think.

To depict government leaders as simply having a ravenous appetite to spend as much of our money as possible is grossly unfair, while demanding every possible goodie for our home district and ourselves. So is espousing that there is no free lunch while pressuring for every possible grant possible and crunching all of the numbers to make the something-for-nothing fantasy seem true. We are extracting more resources from the planet than can be replaced and expecting it to process the sludge from what we use without regulation by government as the agency protecting the public interest. In times of human dilemma and disaster, the demand for immediate government response promptly arises.

We are beset by leaders implying that the government is taking money that is rightfully ours, while not being able to pay bills without borrowing money on a continuing basis without repayment. Each of us owes a share of paying the bill for programs and services that are part of national life. It is a privilege and responsibility to participate in the political process to facilitate equitable use of our tax money.

When Christ issued the enjoinder to "render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's," Caesar was an empire-building, militaristic and arbitrary regime. Today our Caesar is a benevolent democratic republic that returns virtually all of its income to our citizenry through a broad spectrum of payments and programs. (One of every five Cape Girardeau countians receives a government check regularly.) What may be waste in the eyes of one person is the livelihood of another. Government finances and processes will not stabilize by some painless magic. Our society will be hard put to effectively address the next century viewing our government as our adversary, stealing money by listening to the merchants of confusion. Better to hear the voice of the Prince of Peace in this season and behave in his temperament.

GILBERT DEGENHARDT

Cape Girardeau