Federalist Rein on Rapid Change

Thanks for showing us (“GOP Changes Held in Check by Earlier Revolutionaries,” Dec. 31) how our system of government, designed to protect us from ourselves, actually works during a time of political upheaval. As the article clearly implies, our country’s greatness rests not so much on our elected leaders as on a Constitution that provides the necessary checks and balances to assure rational change.

An equal system of checks and balances surely would have tempered the outburst of public passions that gave us such disasters of haste as Propositions 13 and 187.

RICHARD N. TAYLOR

Desert Hot Springs

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* Your superb article regarding the difference between revolution and an enduring democracy is a lesson in government all students of political affairs should be required to read. I have been preaching its substance since the alleged “contract” was published.

It’s astonishing to me that the clever and supposedly educated elite of the Republican Party, in particular Newt Gingrich, who alleges a knowledge of history, can be so obtuse when it comes to making this republic work as it is supposed to work.

In the long run, blackmail cannot be a successful governmental device by any majority to obtain any goal, proper or otherwise. Such a state of affairs is tantamount to dictatorship.

Please suggest to Gingrich and his wet-behind-the-ears beginners that they do not vaguely resemble in thought or deed Madison, Jefferson, Sam or John Adams or the like.

MERLE H. HORWITZ

Los Angeles

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* I happened to see the piece on the GOP, contrasting them to the Federalists and anti-Federalists who framed our Constitution and Bill of Rights. The Constitution was the framework for the federal government and the Bill of Rights was the document presented to appease the concerns of the anti-Federalists that the government would become a threat to liberty. Both are documents of limitations on federal power. Most of the visible government today is far beyond the original intent of even the Federalists. They would be arch-conservatives in today’s world.

Most of the government today is grown off of the income tax (an evil and repugnant idea in those times, and specifically forbidden in the original document) in its various guises and schemes. All the great bureaucracies of the last century which are institutions today were alien to their thoughts back then. To imply that the GOP is trying to tear down a government the founders built is a flat lie. They are after the constructs of the last 100-150 years, which are leaching the prosperity out of the country. That they are thwarted by various powerful special interests is a scandal but no intention of the founders. Certainly the GOP is to be ridiculed for the preposterous and irrelevant constitutional amendments proposed. Most all of those issues are specific things already dealt with generally under the Bill of Rights.

While you vilify the Republicans, please don’t forget to mention that the Democrats sit even further from the founders’ ideals than the GOP. The Democrats are more responsible for bloating the government beyond intent than any other party, and that is what antagonizes the GOP and everyone else who believes in the Constitution and individualism.

JAMES G. MAPES

Redondo Beach