Dear Editor
Thank you for publishing Paul Flentge’s written-from-afar letters to the editor. Our former resident demonstrates that Show-Me skepticism is a portable quality. Paul flashed back on the more bipartisan era of his youth when Republicans and Democrats agreed that no one is above the law.
Flentge mentioned a World War II hero, JFK, and it is helpful to remember that Republicans and Democrats stormed the beaches of Normandy side by side, as brothers-in-arms. The chief cynical success of the Republican Echo Chamber, demonizing the loyal opposition, was not possible when Paul was growing up. Our society was too firmly interwoven with a shared sense of success borne of sacrifice.
Paul correctly asserted that there is no accountability among 21st-century Conservatives, but he did not explain how that came about. When one party, in a two-party democratic system, successfully demonizes the loyal opposition, there will cease to be accountability among the demonizing group’s leadership because their followers can forever go to the polls saying to themselves, “Things would be worse if the other side was in charge; they’re evil.”
Proof? Democrats didn’t lie to Republicans about Saddam Hussein’s non-existent WMD in 2003. Liberals didn’t force isolationist Conservatives to stomach Muslim suffrage as a justification for the tragic loss of American lives. Conservatives voted for a “no-nation-building” candidate who, with full-blown support from the Echo Chamber, chose to launch not one, but two nation-building boondoggles. Republicans went to the polls saying to themselves, “Things would be worse …”
We link efficiency with brevity in virtually every realm of our lives, and that correlation is a conceit when it comes to the responsibility of moral and civic decision- making.
If Paul had remained among us, he would know that local Conservatives continue to apply their Christian sense of right and wrong to their personal lives. You don’t have to travel far or long in our little town before you see the poet’s ideal of virtue, “the unremembered act of kindness” (the gesture of mutual respect so second nature that a pat on the back will not ensue).
The greatest indictment of Conservative governance at the national level is the responsiveness of Republican local government. An endangered species, the balanced budget, is alive and well uptown. Reelection would not be likely if a former Perryville mayor ran off to Florida with important, stolen municipal documents.
If a salesman lied about the quality of a major purchase, or a teacher lied to parents about an incident at school, practical local Republicans would take the deceit as a gesture of disrespect. If Conservatives applied that single down-to-earth tendency of their personal lives to our civic concerns, progress — not promenade — would once again be the primary goal of our federal government.
Sincerely,
Jesse Laurentius, Perryville
