We are entrusted with no more serious decisions than those we make, as individuals, in the voting booth and those we make, as a nation, in the halls of Congress.
And so we resist any initiative that could trivialize or misuse that decision-making process, as will the resolution to be presented to Missoula voters on November's city ballot.
After considerable and spirited debate, the Missoula City Council decided late Monday night to place the war referendum on the Nov. 6 ballot, with the intent of influencing Congress.
Advocates of the vote are frustrated that our nation's leaders seem not to hear their voices. Maybe if whole communities of people spoke out, they would hear. Maybe if we took a vote.
Of course, we already have a vote - and have had opportunities to cast our ballots. For president and for the U.S. Senate. For the leaders given responsibility for the declaration of war by our nation's Constitution.
To Congress, in Section 8, are given these powers:
To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water;
To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years;
To provide and maintain a navy ...
At the same time, our city's charter begins by observing that Missoula's leaders have only those powers of self-government “not prohibited by the Constitution of the United States of America.”
In other words, decisions on military action taken by this nation against another nation are reserved to the representatives we elect and send off - on our behalf - to Washington.
Not to City Council members. Not even so far as to place an anti-war referendum on the municipal ballot.
It is the duty of our city's leaders to conduct this community's business, and there is more than enough of that to more than fill their days. We are a community overwhelmed by the challenges of growth: To what standards should we hold developers? How do we accommodate all the various modes of travel on roads constructed in different, quieter times? How do we hold onto the very qualities that made so many people want to conduct their lives and businesses in this valley?
That is the work of Missoula's elected and bureaucratic leaders. Those should be the questions posed on our city ballots.
To Congress and the presidency, then, must we turn with our concerns about the war in Iraq. To Jon Tester and Max Baucus. To Denny Rehberg. To President Bush.
Each in our own way, we can and should let these leaders know our concerns about or support for the war. We can call. And write. Or show up on their doorstep.
And come November 2008, we can tell them in the most direct of ways, as we cast our votes for Congress and the presidency, whether they've done our bidding.
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