Your Opinion: Is our democracy sustainable?

Bert Dirschell

Centertown

Dear Editor:

The presidential election will be an important turning point in the history of the United States. Libertarians and Conservatives recognize that President Trump has done a lot that they appreciate; his originalist Supreme Court picks, his tax cuts, his renegotiation of NAFTA, his push to make us energy independent, his getting us out of deal that guaranteed Iran would have nukes and out of a one-sided Paris climate agreement. In spite of this, I fully expect Joe Biden to win the election. Many voters in the U.S. have devolved into simpering snowflakes who are either unwilling or who believe themselves unable, to be responsible for their lifestyle choices. To them, government's primary purpose is to redistribute from the responsible to the irresponsible. When you lump these folks with the masses currently dependent on big government for their livelihood (government workers, teachers, AMTRAK employees, etc.), you end up with a majority of voters.

A quote often attributed to, perhaps incorrectly, to Alexander Fraser Tytler is full of common sense, "A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship."

The words of our Constitution are being twisted to include the right to free health care, the right to a free university education, the right to a free phone, etc. Once the Democrats "pack the Court" by adding more justices whose goal it is to twist the Constitution to mean whatever liberals desire at the time, the collapse of the U.S. will be nearer.

The U.S. will never be great when the goal of the majority of voters is for the U.S. to become a Land of Equal Outcome, rather than a Land of Equal Opportunity. In our decidedly post-Christian nation once the lure of personal gain is removed, what reason is there to be responsible and productive? We saw how well that worked for the Soviet Union.