Slogans no substitute for facts

Many of Mike Gossett’s claims (“Out with the old,” Letters, May 24) are absurd. We rely daily on government workers – police, emergency workers, road crews, teachers and, yes, bureaucrats – to maintain the order of a system Gossett fails to understand in its basics. Gossett recommends voting against every incumbent, apparently not realizing that every elected newbie becomes an incumbent.

Intellectual integrity in civic engagement demands we reject slogans such as “big government” and “tax and spend.” Government needs to be the right size to efficiently govern. Government collects taxes and spends that money. All legitimate criticisms need to focus on specific problems. Slogans are merely smoke and mirrors.

We should vote and choose our causes on the idea of a common good, embracing a wider picture in which our personal interests may not always come first. This is not “socialism.” It is the founding idea of a commonwealth. If we’ve lost faith in many politicians, it’s because they act out of the realization that they can only successfully appeal to us on the basis of narrow self-interest these days.

Kevin S. Decker

Spokane