I recently took a trip to Potomac, MD, outside Washington, D.C., for training with the Postal Service. It had been many years since I had been to Washington and as I flew into Ronald Reagan National Airport I felt a lump in my throat as I look across the Potomac River and saw the Capitol dome, the Washington Monuments oblisk and the top of the Lincoln Memorial.

Those of us who love our country and have a sense of the history of it find these architechitural homages to the great men and the seat of our government inspiring and comforting. They provide a sense of continuity that is often missing in todays world of video games, faster internet and loosening moral standards. By many standards our country is still young at 230 years old, but by the standard of free democracies, we are the elder statesman.

Before the US came into being the standard was monarchy and feudal states. Those far sighted men of the original colonies wanted more for themselves and their children. And more they got. While the United States is not a pure democracy, that is by design. The founding fathers did not want the tyranny of democracy to overtake their fledgling nation.

Pure democracy has been described as akin to chaos. If you truly consider the basis of democracy, you have to agree. A nation ruled by a mob majority would have never approved the Civil Rights Act, nor would it have elected John Kennedy, a Catholic, president. Of course, at least up to 10 years ago, it would not have voted to allow abortion while at the same time would have opened the treasury of the government to the people and bankrupted her long before any of the above had chance to come about.

The genius of this Republic is that while the voter population gets to elect those who represent them, it is the elected who, hopefully, after serious study and debate, decide not in a moment of emotion but on fact and forward thinking what is best for the nation and her people. Well, that's what's supposed to happen.

Sadly, as we have moved further away from our founding roots, those elected have become more self-centered and aggrandizing, choosing to often political expedience over the needs of the nation and the moral condition of her people. Politicians have crafted an entitlement system unimagined by the founders. A system that encourages dependence on government and penalizes self-reliance.

That flies in the face of those early pioneers who coveted limited government and strong individuals who sought and forged their way through life's struggles, and were the better for it. As individuals became stronger, so became our nation. Her strength is not in the government but in her people. The same people who learn and improve themselves, who work and succede, who struggle and overcome, who's diversity is their strength.

Sadly, our government is filled with men and women who while giving verbal homage to those concepts, legislate to the contrary. Certainly there are some who still believe in their core those principles, but they are increasing becoming harder to find and even now, with Republicans in a slight majority, conservatism is loosing ground in the halls of Congress. And "We the People..." are the worse for it.

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