MISSOURI WATCH: THE FRACTIONALIZATION OF PUBLIC POLICY

As Americans move from one crisis to another -- from school shootings to Belgrade bombings and from Y2K problems to farm bankruptcies -- we seemingly shift from one week-long crisis to another, seldom seeing the resolution of one before encountering a still more-terrifying one on the pages of our morning newspapers and the 6 o'clock newscasts.

What happened, we may well ask, to that 1630 promise of Governor John Winthrop that the Puritan nation soon to be created in America would become the world's "city set on a hill," as envisioned in Jesus's Sermon on the Mount and recorded so magnificently in Matthew's Gospel?

It is not that Americans have been denied a vision of that promised city, but its sightings seem to have become rarer by the year, by the month, by the week. The torment of watching what many characterize as being the decline of America is balanced by assessments that our country has become the "most powerful, richest nation in the history of the world."

Which are we, then? Rome in its final days or Europe at the time of the Reformation? The question raises a certain unease that defies a quick answer, although there are many who would supply one without hesitation.

Whether one subscribes to the fall or ascension of our nation and its people, there is agreement that we have increasingly become a fractured nation, with an unbelievable number of factions, groups, believers and non-believers, liberals and conservatives, rich and poor, young and old, majorities and minorities, haves and have-nots, urban and rural, bosses and workers, educated and uneducated, with categories to fit and characterize all of us.

Those who do not concern themselves with this fractionation answer that we have long been a nation of diverse populations and views, and that despite these differences, we have muddled through crisis after crisis, resolving problems with the best means available to us. But this leaves unanswered the nagging doubt that the solutions proffered for one problem have led to still more serious ones in succeeding years. It is not difficult to find examples for this, whether in the field of economies, politics, educaiton or societal structure. The rising tide of affluency, for example, often leaves a segment of our people in even-worse condition, while the expansion of educational opportunities dilutes the resources available to assure a broadly based learning group.

One of the most disturbing trends in our increasing fractionation can be found in the logical quest for our resolving public polity, or, if you will, the administration of our governing bodies by means of partisan factions. Although never envisioned by the Founding Fathers in Philadelphia, America has increasingly become a nation divided by two political parties that can find little common ground for public good.

Although our founders may have suspected that certain issues, such as a central bank for all political jurisdictions, would create division, such divisiveness was viewed as merely a temporary disarrangement, with permanence ruled out because of a rapid resolution of varying views. And this is how our political structure managed to remain, even up to and including the nagging differences that so divided our forebears over slavery. But even this horrific variance of public opinion was eventually resolved, hardly to the satisfaction of all, but resolved nevertheless, even as its sediments remain.

The above noted John Winthrop told his audience of Puritan followers that the promised city on a hill would require something from them. "There are two rules whereby we are to walk one toward another: justice and mercy," he said. He considered these qualities to be necessities if the society of poor and rich over which he presided was not to fracture into self-interest groups. Today some would argue that Winthrop's Puritan ideals are simplistic, suited for a religious utopia for the weak and simple-minded.

In reality what the governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony was saying was that there must be an honest realization that the seductions of self-interest and ambition are as dangerous as famine or disease. "What rule must we observe and walk by in cause of common peril?" he asks, then answers, "The same as before" -- justice and mercy -- "but with more enlargement towards others and less respect for ourselves." Finally, he summarizes, "The end is to improve our lives to do more service to the Lord ... that ourselves and posterity may be the better preserved from the common corruption of this evil world."

It is unclear at this moment that Winthrop's advice is even known, much less observed, in the wake of current and recent events, both at home and abroad. What seems to attract most of us, with both our immediate attention and an alarming degree of gratification, is each bit of cataclysmic news that comes by way of huge headlines or interrupted TV programs, even including the Jerry Springer show that seems to be a metaphor for the kind of nation that Winthrop's successors have made their legacy.

We are not a united United States, nor are we a state that observes its promise of making the will of the people the supreme law of Missouri. We have become, instead, a disunited nation and a fractious state, following our individual, self-absorbed voices that counsel neither justice nor mercy. At both levels, not surprisingly, we have become the victims of a corrupt political system which participants adamantly refuse to correct, much less offer a greater voice to fashion a more democratic reform.

Winthrop gave us enlightened advice for a new civil body politic ... a vision that still lives and awaits fulfillment.

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