America's future doesn't look bright

Numerous recent polls reveal most Americans have the uneasy feeling about the direction our country is headed. This has no connection with what party is in power in Washington.

If we have become a dysfunctional society, why?

The United States was founded as a republic. A republic requires a strong system of checks and balances. Among the essential checks are those on idiotic popular uproars and curbs on demagogic politicians. Alas, the republican idea was gone even in George Washington's day

Another good idea was that of Thomas Jefferson – a democracy. What Jefferson had in mind was that the people would exercise their brain cells in the public interest. They would be highly educated. They would drive the car, so to speak, and politicians would execute the public will.

Unfortunately, this ideal never developed. The people turn political stuff over to politicians just as they turn their plumbing work over to plumbers. They use their brain cells in their own interest. Their knowledge of the national goals are derived from the gabble of the crossroads or the simplistic formulas of half-wit howlers on radio and television.

And, of course, we have demagogues or quacks running things. The politician here is mainly a jobber. He wants to stay at the public trough until the undertaker gets him. My own feeling is the kind of government we have offers us a very shaky and indeterminate future.

GEORGE H. DOUGLAS

Champaign