(Regarding Jeff Jared’s May guest column, “Economy half socialist, half capitalist.”) Bullseye! I would add though, that the disintegration of our country, from the breath of fresh air that Jefferson et al gave the world to the cesspool that is now Washington DC, was brought about by the refusal of our citizens to hold their elected officials to the highest standards. Vigilance must be exercised in direct proportion to power granted. All too often, a vote is cast for the lesser of two evils – what then can we expect?

Our Senators and Congressmen vote for their colleagues legislation often without reading, let alone understanding, what they are endorsing. They swear an oath to defend, uphold and protect the Constitution as their first act of office, and then proceed as if that never happened.

The first is a suicidal game of “I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine” without any apparent consideration for our future. The second points to so profound a lack of understanding of the context of the Constitution and the Bill Of Rights as to beggar belief. How difficult is it to understand that the Constitution is a document defining what government will do, and the BOR a document of what it will not do?

President Obama himself is on record as stating that he believes “the Constitution confers an individual right to bear arms”. If the best of the Democratic Party thinks that the BOR grants citizens rights, what hope do we have that the rest of that party understands it differently? The situation is no more hopeful in the Republican camp, where the restrictions placed on government mischief in the first amendment are routinely attacked.

When an elected official shows by their actions, that they lack the capacity to understand the Constitution, or the honesty to be guided by it the only response of a citizen that values the future of their country is to withdraw their support.

Mark Hanley, Kirkland