Letter to the editor: Obligations to fellow citizens, not government

Regarding the letter “Government a virtue, not a burden” (March 27, TribLIVE): “Government is a virtue” might apply to Marx or Engels, but not lovers of liberty. We understand that it’s a necessary evil. But our obligations to our country are to our fellow citizens. Our obligations to government are to comply with the rules ordained by the legally sanctioned majority.

John Adams believed in a bigger government than his cohort and dear friend, Thomas Jefferson, who feared big government. Jefferson’s views, extracted from “The Real Thomas Jefferson,” Part II, Maxfield, Richard, et al., National Center for Constitutional Studies, Seventh Printing, 2009, are enunciated below:

“… concentrating these (powers) in the same hands is precisely the definition of despotic government …”

“I do verily believe that … a single consolidated government would become the most corrupt government on earth …”

“What has destroyed liberty and the rights of man in every government which has ever existed under the sun? The generalizing and concentration all cares and powers into one body …”

Lastly, the wise and patriotic Jefferson revealed an unequivocal perspective of government as follows: “It is to secure our rights that we resort to government at all.”

Louis F. D’Emilio

Irwin