A Wednesday letter, “Will of the people has been usurped,” touting a list of ultra-conservative values, began with the question “Is this a democracy or not?” The answer is that it is not, nor has it ever been. The United States, by charter of its Constitution, was created as a constitutional republic. This distinguishes it from a democracy in several important ways.
By subjecting the will of the people to the restrictions of the Constitution, we are assured a government of laws, thus protecting the people from the passing excesses, passions and abuses of an over-zealous majority. Those who created this system had suffered mightily at the hands of a majority controlled by a church gone mad with its power and had seen with the clarity of great suffering that a moral government must shield its minorities against persecution that could rise to the level of great suffering and even death in the heat of dissolute fervor.
One of the benefits of this system is that it protects us from the misguided plunderings of mobs incited to idiocy by the distortions, lies and deliberate incitements of little would-be Hitlers like Rush Limbaugh and his ilk.
Harold R. Pettus
Everett
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