Saturday, July 17, 2010

Mutual Contempt

Government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed; that is a foundational principle of our republic. To a stunning degree, however, Americans don't believe that their own government meets that standard. Scott Rasmussen finds that only 23 percent of voters believe that "the federal government today has the consent of the governed." A remarkable 62 percent of voters say that our government does not enjoy that consent.

The immediate cause is the fact that the Obama administration and its Congressional allies have embarked on an ambitious, left-wing program that seeks to transform America into a country quite different from what most Americans want.
I think the more significant cause, however, is the general one--a growing conviction that America is governed by a political class that has its own agenda, involving its own enrichment as well as the endless expansion of its own power, and that this political class is contemptuous of the opinions of ordinary Americans
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