Incomprehensible events ...

KENNETT, Mo. -- Perhaps the only rational response to the puzzlement of why a nation as large and as diverse as ours has only two major political parties is that governing is really not a bona fide native sport and we have more or less adopted the two-party feud that existed between Thomas Jefferson and John Adams.

After all, in that most sacred charter of our government, the Constitution of the United States, there is no mention of political parties nor any allowance for their existence. Most of the important rules of the game have merely been enactments by unelected representatives of the people. Indeed, if historians are correct in their interpretation of the various reports and minutes of the First Continental Congress, most of the members opposed the formation of parties, and when the process first made itself evident refused to join or participate.

But observing them from this side of history, it is only natural to conclude that parties were inevitable, even without the Jefferson-Adams disputes, since some force outside the official confines of the District of Columbia would be needed as the colonial economy expanded into a significant part of the world economy.

Persons knowledgeable in the arcane and sometimes messy details of business, other than those who hoped to write the laws of the land, were obviously needed to provide both the experience and the planning for the commerce of a nation with natural resources unmatched in any other part of the globe.

Thus, it's no surprise that the earliest economic decisions of our emerging nation should revolve around the question of high and low tariffs, a dilemma that baffled our central government for years, even up to this moment. It was a problem that would eventually become enveloped in post-revolutionary administrations and congresses and one which was usually resolved by the adoption of individual tariffs for individual products and foreign imports that varied from zero on favored-nation imports to levies twice their product value.

And it is also no surprise that the never-ending tariff decisions should be subjected to the views of the presidency and Capitol Hill as to whether home-country corporations deserved the political protection promised by high tariffs on products of their competitors or whether such protections impacted economically on those least able to afford them. Thus we devised the formation of today's two major parties and their interests, concerns and agendas for the future.

One of the most avoided subjects of governance in Washington today is whether government's first purpose is to decide questions of economics or to adopt the causes of capital and labor. Although politicians on both side continue to deny the demarcation, one party's essential tenet is the advocacy of business while the objective of the other is representation of workers and their organizations, namely unions.

This oversimplification of today's politics is made much more complex by the appearance of members in both Republican and Democratic ranks who disagree completely with the original divisions of national interest and concern. Democrats have multimillionaires who are pillars of support for the cause of workers, while Republicans have those who advocate broadly liberal programs for the huddled masses. Indeed, it is this commingling of backgrounds that most trouble those who find no reassuring answers in either party. And, indeed, it is this group, which by the way is gaining far more advocates than both parties combined, that has adopted an increasing skepticism about the sincerity and dedication of all partisans regardless of their philosophical residence.

Before adopting any personally rational approach to today's political scene, it is wise to consider the issues that produce the principal objectives of governance:

1. Taxes and how they affect the constituents in each party.

2. Trade laws and the raising or lowering of tariffs to favor one or the other constituency.

3. Federal programs designed to compensate those who have been left behind.

This latter category involved such politically induced programs as minimum wage laws, the environment, health-care access and such contemporary questions as corporate fiscal reporting and bankruptcy abuse.

Once upon a time, before World War I, when times were supposedly simpler and hemlines were much longer, Americans usually arrived at their personal political beliefs by the preferences of their ancestors. We were Republicans because our great-grandfather once supported the Whig Party or we were Democrats because our ancestors defended the right of the founding fathers to count, and consider, blacks as only three-fourths of a human being. Back then elections were not surprising because we knew which party we intended to support regardless of their selections. We are different animals today.

For today, Americans seem happiest when power in Washington is divided between the two parties, just as our personal preferences are separated by logically questioning the wisdom of politicians who hold fast no philosophy or belief more than 15 minutes after the last opinion poll is announced. Today's zealots are shunned because of their extremism, serving only to produce derision or disgust among those who, like so many others, avoided even going to the polls August 6.

We have found the enemy, and though he remains as elusive as Osama bin Laden, his opposition could destroy us before we can defend ourselves.

Today we are evolving, more swiftly than many of us realize, into a land of indifference and antagonism that pose greater threats of dissolution than the Civil War a century and a half ago. It is the separation of our beliefs on responsibility, duty and the division of power that continues to divide us more than we recognize or realize.

We are still a nation divided, with each side seeking dominance, only occasionally experiencing a unity that stems from foreign opposition and attacks.

Jack Stapleton is the editor of Missouri News and Editorial Service.