To the editor:

When Harry Truman took the nomination he said his opponent would put government in control of special interests and bring back the boom/bust cycles that led to the Great Depression. Twelve years later, when Dwight Eisenhower left office, he warned of special interests he called the “military industrial complex.” Recently, Chinese parents marched past schools that collapsed, killing thousands of children. Offices and schools nearby stood, better built, the parents claimed, for special interests. Some argue Iraq and Afghanistan were invaded to benefit special interests.

Justice is balance. Lady Justice chooses the blindfold; she cannot see whose special interest lies on her scales. She is blind to special interest. Four hundred years ago, in the infancy of both democracy and its handmaiden, capitalism, Thomas Hobbes wrote that a society which encourages the full free expression of self-interest needs the balance of a powerful government. He said it takes a Leviathan to stand up against economic self-interest, to keep special interests in check.

Democracy and capitalism allow citizens to express their own self-interest, but only if Lady Justice is blindly doing her job. Will self-interest curb itself? Does greed curb itself? Look at our Constitution. Our founding fathers did not think so; they had read Hobbes carefully.

What happens when special interests take control of government? What happens when Lady Justice peeks beneath her blindfold, or when she throws it off altogether? In the coming election we would be wise to keep Harry’s 60-year-old warning in mind.

William Skepnek,
Lawrence