From the lessons that grew out of the Great Depression and from the causes of World War II, the western world developed a social democracy. Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan broke with that past, in stressing that the role of government was to help the individual.

In fact. Margaret Thatcher once famously said, ” there is no such thing as society, there are only individuals and families.”

What we have seen recently is the ultimate ideological confrontation in a divided America between two ideas and belief systems. The conservative right wing would have you believe that we can live without government, that we individuals can be self governing. Their perception of what they call a civil society, calls for individual liberty and for a reverence for private property. They seek to privatize most current governmental functions and seem to only find value in government when it comes to having a military.

On the other side of the political coin we find those who embrace the idea that we do live in a society, in a community where we are dependent or interdependent upon each other. 

We don’t want to turn into a Banana Republic. Self governing does not work. It is a fiction to believe that self governing is possible. The reality is that you would have the wealthy have their very own police force protecting them from the rest of us, while they live behind walled communities.

What we have now is a country de Tocqueville eloquently predicted. He said, ” I cannot help fearing that men may reach a point where they look on every new theory as a danger, every innovation as a toilsome trouble, every social advance as a first step toward revolution, and that they may absolutely refuse to move at all.”

I believe we have arrived at that point where we are refusing to move at all. 

As Madison warned factionalism kills Republics, and we see the potential death of our Republic right before our eyes.

If honest compromise is no longer viewed as an option, we have no future as a country, we will become a house permanently divided against ourselves. Beware of dishonest compromise, when our elected officials are willing to give in to hostage taking and extortion. We can not give in to these authoritarian acts of coersion for the sake of making the trains run on time.

So the question is do we choose to have a government of and by the people or will we choose to not have a government, but instead a nation with 300 million individuals out for themselves? Sorry, but the latter choice will amount to anarchy and division, our country would only be a nation in name only.

The death of Margaret Thatcher, conjured up deep feelings of resentment from individuals and families that she negatively affected. In negatively impacting transportation she in effect killed towns and villages. Some individuals benefitted but the nation as a whole became less cohesive and the disparity of income increased between the haves and the have nots. 

We see that happening in our country where the disparity of income has grown to pre-Depression levels. The top 1 and 1/2 percent of the country has done extremely well. One would have thought the logic of all boats rising together would have been a goal of the super wealthy, but no it has been all about me, to all of our detriment.

We are either one nation under God and indivisible or we are a place with 300 plus million individuals only in it for their own individual power and maximizing their wealth potential. 

In the effort of the wealthy to gain more and more wealth they have bought and paid for politicians to make sure that their taxes go down and their property value goes up. In the process they are destroying the country. They have unleased the crazies who have no love of country, but they do love money and power.

Our country is at a critical crossroad. We can let the crazies run the asylum or we can regain control of our Republic by demanding that we have elected officials in Washington who are there to serve the people instead of serving themselves. Our democracy is on the line, facism is the alternative. I choose democracy and community over the selfish ends of a few who would destroy our country.