William McKenzie’s article in Thursday’s Times, “Moderates must outwork the far right,” is a classic and should be read and studied by every conservative voter.

The reason that Mr. McKenzie thinks that compromise is the right way to be involved with politics is because he either does not know the history of our country and its Constitution or he believes the Constitution should be reinterpreted based on new ideas, values and mores.

Lanier Tea Party Patriots, like most tea parties, believe in constitutionally limited government, fiscal responsibility and free markets. That is what puts the tea party at odds with moderate republicans like McKenzie. The federal government is authorized at no place in our Constitution to be involved with education. Its involvement has accomplished nothing toward the goal of improving education, but it has increased the cost of education. Education is a state issue, and the feds should not be involved.

McKenzie apparently believes based on his statement the center-right should get involved with modernizing Medicare that this, too, is an area for the feds. The Founding Fathers would have never accepted this federal program. It is ideas like this that have been accepted by the people, the Democrats and Republicans that have put our country in the financial hole in which we find ourselves.

Many like to complain that the free market does not work in health care, but they forget that we have not had a free market health care system since 1965.

But the crowning point of McKenzie’s article, after touting throughout that government has the answers to our problems, is his call for moderates to support all the government programs while proving they believe in limited government, and making the core functions of government work. He obviously does not understand, based on our Constitution, what the core functions of government actually are.

Mike Scupin
Gainesville