Dear Marion,

Thank you for your letter. I hope it doesn't seem 
patronizing, when I write that your comments strike me as
thoughtful and humane. I very much agree with your sentiment
that the United States government is unique, and worth
strengthening and preserving. Yet, as a practical matter,
I don't know how to proceed with this project. Are bumper
stickers, letters to the editor, measured financial support
of favored causes and candidates enough? Or should I take the
money that I have saved for Margaret, Klemens, Laura, Rebekah,
Nathaniel, Benjamin and Leah and send it all to the U.S.
Treasury as an expression of my patriotism? The Treasury would
surely accept my contribution, though I'm not sure whether in
consequence I should expect a Thank You letter or an investigation
for possible criminal tax evasion. I understand that it's my duty
to vote, but it's also my duty not to pollute the atmosphere,
not to increase our dependence on foreign oil, not unnecessarily
to add to the congestion of the highways.  Is it my duty,
considering these conflicting obligations, on November 2, to
undertake the 1700 mile 34 hour round trip to Green Cove, Va.
where I am registered, and to vote there for our incumbent
congressman Rick Boucher, (whose grandparents were my patients
when I doctored in Damascus), who will almost surely win or lose
irrespective of my electoral contribution, vote for him not at
all because he represents my aspirations for the society, but,
to use a phrase from my childhood, "um Schlimmeres zu verhueten." 
I don't know.  You tell me.

The issue of the individual's assimilation into the group which
you discuss, is of particular poignance to me, because my failure
to assimilate has been the cause of my lifelong professional failure.
The reason for my not taking even today, a part-time or a full time
job as a medical ophthalmologist is that what my colleagues, - as
individuals and as a profession - are doing to their patients is
unconscionable to me, even though if it were a matter of paying for
the groceries, I could grit my teeth and join them in their mindless,
exploitative endeavors. I acknowledge, it's my fault. I'm to blame
for being unwilling or unable to adapt to the society. I can anticipate
your argument that I should try nonetheless, that if my "values" are
spurious, the world will be a better place if they are squelched,
and if my "values" were valid, they would, perhaps, have some small
incremental beneficial influence on the larger ophthalmologic society.
That's o.k. in theory; but in practice it won't work.  Even if I
got hired in the first place, I'd be fired in no time. I don't know.
You tell me.

"[Self-interest] is a doctrine not very lofty, but clear and sure.
It does not seek to attain great objects; but it attains those it aims
for without too much effort. ... [It] does not produce great devotion;
but it suggests little sacrifices each day; by itself it cannot make
a man virtuous; but it forms a multitude of citizens who are regulated,
temperate, moderate, farsighted, masters of themselves; and if it does
not lead directly to virtue through the will, it brings them near to it
insensibly through habits." [Alexis de Tocqueville, "Democracy in America"] 

By definition, democracy is government by (all) the people, aristocracy
is government by the best, or in modern parlance, by the beautiful people;
plutocracy is government by the wealthy, meritocracy is government by
the most competent, and bureacracy is government by officialdom. Consider
the objective absurdity of democracy. A democratic orchestra open to all,
no matter how unmusical, would produce no music.  An airplane piloted by
a pilot selected democratically irrespective of his knowledge of flying,
could never take off.  A democratically programmed computer would
never boot. Objectively there's no justification for democracy. If 
democracy is compelling, it's because as Kierkegaard said, subjectivity
is the truth. Democracy doesn't claim that paranoid schizophrenic or near
imbecile voters are objectively rational or capable of government. It's
their subjectivity on which democracy places as high a value as the value
it sets on the subjectivity of the most thoughtful and sensitive of individuals.And properly so. There is "that of God in every man". We are all "Children
of God." None the less, not all of us can play the French Horn or solve
differential equations or speak four languages. Objectively, a truly
democratic government would be far from optimal. Arguably it would be
incapable of functioning at all; and perhaps it's the "wisdom of nature"
which in effect transforms democracy into aristocracy, plutocracy,
meritocracy, bureaucracy and monarchy: into all of them.

A few comments on the auto-transformation of democracy into other forms
of government. The circumstance that the voter in a democracy votes
for a person entails the emergence of aristocracy.  If, as is unavoidably
the case, the candidate is selected because of his qualities, then it
is inevitable that a class of elected officials should emerge, better
(aristoi) than the class that selected him. The appearance of the
"Kennedy Clan" in American politics is to me a persuasive example;
and quite generally elected officials come to constitute a class by
themselves which if only by virtue of the fact that it has been (s)elected,
is different, superior, hence aristocratic.

The framers of the Constitution did NOT intend universal suffrage,
which they restricted to a landed plutocracy. The subsequent extension
of the franchise to the poor and to minorities has been neutralized to
a large degree by the de facto extension of the franchise to corporations
and by the de facto permission to wealthy individuals to purchase votes
in large numbers. I am referring, of course, to the function of "campaign
contributions" in purchasing advertising by which voters are swayed.
The susceptibility to advertising, it seems to me, is the most persuasive
evidence of voters' incompetence. I can imagine a political system which
nullified votes that were cast by irrational individuals, i.e. those whose
judgment was corrupted by advertising; and that indeed is the system which
now obtains, because logically, a vote influenced by advertising is not
a vote cast by the voter but by the advertiser, and as such reflects the
advertiser's wealth; a plutocratic scheme not too remote from what the
nation's Founding Fathers intended.

The larger, the more intricate and complex our society becomes, the more
it is dependent on individuals with specialized knowledge and with special
skills. The "Brain Trust" of Franklin Roosevelt, the Best and the Brightest
with whom Kennedy surrounded himself are obvious examples, as is the
President's Council of Economic Advisers. In the Treasury, in the Food and
Drug Aministration, in the Military, the tasks that are technical are 
performed by scientists; the tasks that are administrative, by bureaucrats.
Ideologically and hence politically driven decisions are unavoidably made
within a framework of technical expertise.

And finally the complexity and intricacy and size of our society makes
government by bureaucracy unavoidable. It is the officials, not "We the
People" who govern us.  Officialdom, as is well understood, thrives in
a separate environment and is only partially and incompletely responsive
to political influence. The army of lawyers, judges, tax advisers,
commissioners at every level, functions according to rules and customs 
in a world of its own. So much for "democracy."
Jochen