Sometimes, the ‘mob’ knows what’s best

Rob Berry is correct in asserting that the Founders’ intent was to create a strong central government based on fears that “the mob” posed a threat to elite interests, so devising a Constitution with elaborate “checks and balances” designed to stymie popular will, including the indirect election of the President and the Senate (at the time) via the Electoral College; a Supreme Court, federal judges and cabinet positions appointed and confirmed by the same.

Omitted from this historical account is the strong discontent demonstrated by the majority of working-class Americans who had interests of their own; those small merchants, farmers, artisans, women, laborers, and yes, slaves, who were in fact greatly displeased with a Constitution that dismissed their concerns as “mob rule;” who have been pushing back since the “founding” to be included, starting with insistence upon a Bill of Rights entirely absent in the Founder’s “original intent;” continuing down through the centuries fighting for labor laws, women’s rights, the Civil and Voting Rights Acts of the ‘60s, right up to today, where now, in Our Town, developers again mask their personal financial interests with the same presumed superior intellect to know, better than the “mob,” what’s best for us; demeaning the majority of Chico residents who will suffer the long term impact and expense of their vaunted expertise.

We are all intelligent people: let the Referendum be an opportunity to pause, put our minds together, and create a sustainable, fiscally responsible, and equitable pattern of growth.