Editor,
There is an often-quoted statement attributed to the Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville: "America is great because she is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, she will cease to be great." If, in fact, Tocqueville made that statement, he did so a few centuries ago.
My take, for what it is worth, is the reason America was good, and therefore great, is because it was founded on the principle that its citizens would prevent it from ever becoming anything other than a nation ruled by their will. Stated another way: There would never be a modern-day Nero who would be allowed to fiddle while America ceased to be good, because the citizens of America would pay close attention to what their elected leaders were doing and take whatever action was necessary to prevent them from overstepping the rights afforded by the Constitution. This remained the state of affairs in America until recently.
As I have talked with people during the last few years and paid close attention to what is happening in America during this election year, the state of affairs in America seems to have changed greatly. The citizens of America now seem far more interested in attempting to satisfy their own personal, egotistical needs than they are with the policies being put into place by their elected leaders in Washington. Personal egotistical desires have taken over the stage of most peoples' lives, and the running of America has been delegated by the citizens of America to the elected officials in Washington.
The desire to experience personal pleasure today, this hour or even this minute, has replaced the desire to ensure that America will remain good, and therefore secure, for generations to come.
It seems to me that the most recent and most dramatic indication of this is the way the citizens of America are treating the election of their next president. It seems to me that this election has degenerated from what an election was intended to be by the Founding Fathers into just another form of entertainment for the citizens of America.
Get content from The Daily Lobo delivered to your inbox
If that is true, we the citizens of America have allowed that to happen, and we are the only ones who can change it. Yes, in my opinion, change is needed, and the nature of the change needed is not what either of the candidates are talking about.
Robert Gardiner
Daily Lobo reader
