OK, I’ll admit it, I’m an outsider, but this is a rather universal subject, and since Alaska really is in the USA, I’ll bite the challenge.
We do not “live in a democracy” as Mr. Slone postulates in his letter (Homer News, Feb. 15, 2006). I don’t disagree with his definition (although hardly “bedrock”) of democracy. Indeed, democracy is the mess he describes. It is unfortunate that people have been brainwashed into believing that our form of government is a democracy.
Our Constitution guarantees us a republican form of government (Art IV, Section 4). It is, therefore, a constitutional republic in which we reside. Now, we do use some of the democratic process to elect our representatives, just as we use parliamentary procedure to run our legislatures and public meetings, but that doesn’t mean that we have a parliamentary system.
My old Webster’s dictionary describes a democracy thusly “government by the people, a form of government in which the supreme power is lodged in the hands of the people collectively, or in which the people exercise the powers of legislation. Such was the government of Athens.”
I admit there are those that believe that this is indeed our form of government, but they are misled. Using that form of government to reach “consensus” is the old Soviet form of “governance” of council and stakeholder, now referred to as communitarianism. Communitarianism (also known as “the third way”) comes from the artificial Marxist dialectic, the synthesis of capitalism (thesis) and communism (antithesis). There is an excellent Web site on this subject by two of your fellow Alaskans at http://nord.twu. net/acl/.
I visited Homer in 1968 and met some wonderful people there. Actually, wish I had moved there, because Homer was one of the most beautiful, friendly individual-minded communities I have ever seen. I hope you have managed to hang onto that spirit.
Pete Remington
(An Alaskan at heart who lives in Washington)
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