America can teach Russia and China a thing or two about a classless society. Most famous democracies of the past like Athens and Rome carried over some of the privileges of the wealthy from the past when the nation was ruled by the few rather than by the many.
But America abolished, with one fell swoop, any thought of an entitled aristocracy ever developing on this soil. They could do this in our Constitution because there was land here for everybody. The government could not shield the people from the benefits, skills, knowledge and wealth coming from land ownership, even if they wanted to.
In Rome’s democracy, the state held onto senatorial, equestrian class and status privileges stemming from various kinds of white slavery there. Those socioeconomic classes and statuses came with special powers and protections like voting, privileged office holding and military rank, and immunity from certain kinds of prosecutions. Any vestiges of social class specialness were either quickly or slowly erased in America with the advent of homesteading and new statehood, racial and gender civil rights.
However, the Republican libertarian folks today — those who advocate for an AR-15 in every home, free and liberal use of harmful substances and taking a bath in false advertising and pornography every day — have taken our fabulous American liberty too far. They have forgotten that there is one important class with considerable duties assigned to it still left in America.
That class, that status, that rank, is “citizen.” The designation of citizen in a democracy carries with it two huge and grave responsibilities along with all the rights it bestows. A citizen must be educated, and a citizen must participate. Those who go down the libertine/libertarian path today, whether on the right or on the left, have done an extremely poor job of both, as indeed have most Americans.
It’s not all about just exercising our classless freedom. It’s about being intelligent and protecting others in an active way.
Americans do not read serious books anymore, and don’t lift a finger to improve the community except to show up and mourn at the sites of AR-15 killing fields and offer “thoughts and prayers.” We have become an ignorant, slothful and laughable species of human beings no longer deserving of our rights or capable of our duties.
Kimball Shinkoskey
Woods Cross, Utah
Shootings
addressed
Our two senators had very few positive things to say about our citizens of Texas killing each other in Allen, Texas. Maybe they ought to get rid of assault weapons like we did before! One woman shot and killed had no face left from those high-powered bullets!
All the Republicans in Texas have been offering up prayers for the victims of these slaughters for years and God just keeps ignoring their supplications! I wonder why this neglect from our God is happening. Are these prayers from non-Christians and my God doesn’t hear them? Maybe their God is the NRA?
On another topic, why do the Republican men seem to have an obsession with sex, from our ex-president down to one of our state representatives? Even our attorney general was reported to be having an affair.
Bill Williams
Palmview
LETTERS — Limit letters to 300 words; all letters are subject to editing. Mail: P.O. Box 3267, McAllen, TX78502-3267; Email: [email protected]
