Goodwin on Alienation

Goodwin, assistant special counsel to President Kennedy, was correct in his recitation of America’s problems but wrong about the cause.

The decline started with the massive intrusion of government into personal lives and business, with the New Deal programs of the ‘30s. The decline accelerated with the Great Society programs of the ‘60s, and the nihilism and weakening of national will during the Vietnam fiasco.

This nation was built on the initiative, pride and freedom of the individual, fused into a national purpose and identity unsurpassed in human history. In the ‘30s, we joked resentfully about government projects where four men leaned on shovels while the fifth man worked. Our creeping socialism has institutionalized this concept in the broad sense, and we simply cannot comprehend the damage wrought.

Initiative has turned to greed, or energy expended to beat the system of confiscatory taxes.

We either regain a balance of individual responsibility vs. individual freedom, and the perspective of common-sense government and law that made this country great, or we continue our decline. Think about those who lean on shovels!

MAURICE E. CONNOR

Aptos