By BETHANY J. DOUGLASI would like to express my thanks to Mr. Wiggins for his letter submitted April 16, 2014 in response to the editorial submitted April 13, 2014 by Mr. Chiravalle. These gentlemen present a wonderful opportunity to the community of Los Alamos to reexamine the purpose and significance of our government.
Mr. Chiravalle exhorted our state government to “get out of the way of job creators.” Mr. Wiggins quickly rebuked Mr. Chiravalle by passionately claiming,” … in the United States, the people are the government.” Such a sentiment is about as accurate as: In Michigan, the engineer is the Ford Mustang.
Our nation’s leaders of the past were quite explicit about the relationship between the people and their government. Key phrases such as “instituted among men” and “of the people, by the people, for the people” clearly define and delineate the roles of the people and their government. People create, institute, and empower governments just as engineers innovate, design, and fabricate automobiles.
Like a Ford Mustang, the government is a vehicle for getting us from Point A to Point B. When we carpool we choose one among us who is qualified to drive the car because we can’t all be behind the wheel at the same time. Likewise, we select qualified individuals from our community to represent us in our government. When the transmission in our automobile is worn out, we replace it. When laws and regulations are ineffective, we repeal them.
Mr. Chiravalle is purely suggesting that our Mustang could use a tune-up.
