To the editor:

I write this in response to Mr. Woell’s Jan. 26 column. I have read the elitist, arrogant rants of Mr. Woell in many of his columns in the past. Until now, I have simply tried to dismiss them as the misinformed babblings of a student from the pretend world of suburban Chicago where people think the destruction of society and the environment of rural America is a small price to pay so they can buy milk and bread cheap. Wednesday’s column took the cake.

Mr. Woell suggests that our presidents should be picked and appointed by “political and economic elites” rather than by popular election by the “uneducated and illiterate.”

Speak for yourself, Mr. Woell. Views like this seem to be just barely to the right of Stalin and Castro, and we all know what “benevolent” dictators they turned out to be.

I will admit that too few Iowans practiced their civic responsibility to take part in the caucuses. However, among those people who did take part, two out of three voters actually met at least one of the presidential candidates, according to a recent article in the Des Moines Register.

The truth is that the people who do participate in the early states of Iowa and New Hampshire take these opportunities very seriously and are quite likely the most well-informed voters in the entire nation.

Because the caucus results didn’t turn out the way the self-proclaimed “experts” thought, they accuse the public of poor judgment and ignorance.

It couldn’t possibly be because certain candidates’ views and stances were not commensurate with the opinion of the public, and their campaigns therefore didn’t catch fire.

No, it simply must be that the people as a whole are a bunch of uneducated Neanderthals, unwilling and unprepared to accept what the expert elites know, without a doubt, to be so.

Maybe I should remind Mr. Woell of the sentiments of our founding fathers, expressed in the words of Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence, that “governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” Yes, I have read the Declaration of Independence. Quite an accomplishment for someone as uneducated and illiterate as I am, isn’t it? It is policies like the ones espoused by Mr. Woell that this young nation of 13 states revolted against over 200 years ago.

But then again, I’m no expert.

Jeremy Dea

Senior

Agricultural studies