Letter: U.S. government no longer run by citizens

Saturday, April 7, 2007 | 7:19 a.m.

When I read the comments in Gene James' April 2 letter headlined, "Don't forget, people are the government," in which he criticized Fred Bilello's letter of March 28 relating to " government staying out of our lives," I felt it necessary to respond to Mr. James.

In reading Mr. James statements, it appears that he objects to the possibility that his tax dollars would be used to pay the medical expenses for a person maimed or injured because of not wearing a seat belt. If taxpayer dollars should be used for this purpose, it presupposes that the injured individual failed to provide monetary protection for himself in case he committed an irresponsible act.

I couldn't agree more with Mr. James, in that we, the taxpayers, should not be "on the hook" for expenses incurred by people behaving in an irresponsible way. However, Mr. James, I would ask where were you when the government was implementing the policies that pay for such redistribution of your taxes?

If the people are the government, as you suggest, and we dislike this use of our tax dollars, why did it happen and why does it continue?

The answer is that we, the people, dropped the ball the founding fathers handed us, giving us individual liberty, sovereignty and limited government.

Lastly, I would remind Mr. James that this country was founded on the very principle that Mr. Bilello states - government should stay out of our lives. That is what our Constitution is about. We fought the imperial English government for these rights.

The problem today is that we as a nation have failed to protect those rights and we have now evolved to the type of government (imperial, centralized) that does not respond to the will of the people.

If we are the government and 70 percent of the American people wish us to be out of Iraq, then why are we still there? Answer: We, the people, aren't the government anymore.

Joseph M. Grimm, Las Vegas