Governing Ourselves

THERE IS A GRASS ROOTS Initiative in the late great state of Florida to put the abortion question on the ballot, and let to electorate have a go at it. Liberal Democrats, as one might supose, are promulgating it; the slight conservative Republican majority staunchly opposes the plan. Humans by nature and commmon sense embrace democracy when they believe that it will result in public policies which they approve of and support, and prefer authoritatianism or even dictatorship when they conclude that democracy has failed them by making popular choices with which they disagree. That is the poistion in which the conservative Republican community presently finds itself. The Americna people, by a significant majority, support a woman's right to choose, within reasonable limits, and conservative pro choice Republicans are aware of this, despite any of thier claims to the contrary. Even the myopic evangelical Christian community knows, or sould know, that they are in the minority on this an many other issues. For decades their strategy,formulated by the Heritage Foundation and other right wing organizations, have successfully implemented a strategy of packing the court system, state and federal, with conservative judges, to implement their agenda, on abortion and everything else, implementing it from the bench rather than the ballot box, bypassing the democratic process. My father once said, strangely but astutely, that, counter-intutive though it might seem, the best, most efficient form of government might well be a benevolent dictatorship. True enough. Dictatorshps "get things done", to paraphrase a quote from the late Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Conner.Democracy is inefficient,cumbersome, messy, and requires effort on the part of many people, with the presupmtion and unrealistic expectation that the general population has the capacity to govern itself. The founders of the United States knew full well that it does not, and thus, established a representative, plutocratic republic, rather than a more direct form of demoracy. Kansas, among the most conservative states in these United States, voted by a huge majority to legalize abortion. If the same choice were given to all the other states, it would almost certianly yield the same result, and abortion would once again be legal nationally, effectively restoring Roe v. wade. Trump and his fellow gangsters, with their nefarious "Project 47", and "2025 Plan", or whatever they're called, clearly lays out their agenda, an authoritarian one, with Trump the authority, governing by executive decree, installing the far right wing agenda without any trace of democratic process. Its alarming. Trump, as president, in their more perfect world, would have the power to fire all government bureaucrats, dismantle the meritocracy, and replace it with a government of federal employees chosen based on one qualification; loyalty to Donald Trump. Trump would want and maybe gain the power, with the stroke of a pen, to eliminate federal agencies such as the EPA, OSHA, and numerous other federal regulatory agencies. Authoritarianism, fascism, Hilter-ism. The conservative Chrisitian community would encourage Trump to install the Christian religion to the status of official, the official national religion. Freedom of religion, gone. Der Fuhrer, Herr Trump, would gladly accede to this heinous scheme, since religion is of no ocncern to him one way or the other, other than as a tool for his personal advancement. AS film maker Michael Moore pointed out, America is fundamentally a majority progressive country. A majority of the American people support equality for LGBTQ people, abortion rights for women, and higher pay, benefits,and workplace democracy for workers, governemnt regulation of the economy, and socialism in general, among other progressive values. Trump and the conservative evangelical community want to criminalize homosexuality, detain undocumented immigrants in concentration camps, and summarily execute drug dealers, without due process. All this is cearly written, spelled out on Trump's website. Thus we the American people are presented with a choice between fascism and democracy. We must trust that the American people will choose democracy and an emmpowered elecorate, and cast the fascist conservative agenda into the proverbial dust bin of history.