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What
have you done for your education recently?
Melvyn D. Magree Originally published in the Reader Weekly September 4, 2008 You know the old expression, "Never too old to learn." And I might add "to relearn." Do you know we have a king of the United States? True, we don’t have a hereditary king (sort of) but an elected king who can serve a maximum of eight years and must be re-elected to serve the second four years. If you don't think we have a king, reread the Constitution of the United States. Also read some of the Federalist papers. The Founders were very wary of giving too much power to one person. Now we see presidential candidates who promise in their administrations to solve long laundry lists of problems from education to poverty, environment to energy, and trade to terrorism. To do this they probably have staffs larger than the number of people elected to Congress. Unfortunately, the tendency has been to hire staff that agrees with the president rather than hire staff for their expertise and independence. One could call these people the royal court. “Throughout the 20th century more and more Americans looked to the central government to deal with highly visible public problems, from labor disputes to crime waves to natural disasters. And as responsibility flowed to the center, power accrued with it. If that trend continues, responses to matters of great public concern will be increasingly federal, increasingly executive, and increasingly military.” – Gene Healy, “The cult of the presidency”, Reason, June 2008, excerpted from his book with the same title. No matter who wins this November (or might have won), we’ll be stuck with someone with royal inclinations. Let’s hope that we will learn to press Congress to reassert its authority and we will have a more “to scale” president in 2012. If you would like to do your part to restore balance to government, spend some time studying civics, politics, and history. You’d be surprised at the sins we complain about in other governments that we’ve done ourselves. ©2008 Melvyn D. Magree |