can raise crops that the government hasrnto buy to keep consumer prices high.rnTaxes collected in other states pay for therncostly light rail that is supposed to makerncommuting easier for residents of Easternrncities. If your town needs a new highway,rna waste-water treatment plant, orrnmore teachers, ask the feds. After all, ifrnthe funds were raised locally, some politiciansrnwould have to put their jobs on thernline and raise taxes. But the politicians inrnWashington are farther removed andrndon’t get blamed if they take more localrntaxes to spend elsewhere. As a country,rnwe look to Washington to collect the taxesrnand then are surprised when half isrnkept for administration and strings arernput on the rest when it is given back.rn”Who pays the piper calls the tune.”rn—Stuart L. FaberrnCincinnati, OHrnDr. Watkins Replies:rnMr. Faber makes a good point that federalrntax dollars channeled to state programsrnwreak havoc on the principle of accountability.rnState officials do not have to raiserntaxes for highway maintenance; if localsrncomplain about the condition of thernroadways, officials can always point tornWashington and the myriad strings attachedrnto federal grants. In a federal systemrnwhere states are truly in charge of localrnmatters, there would be no questionrnas to whom the citizen should complainrnabout high taxes and poor roads.rnTo the extent that Mr. Faber sees a federalrnBAG standard as innocuous becausernCongress must be permitted to call thernpiper’s tune, I disagree. When operatingrnwithin its proper sphere of delegatedrnpowers. Congress is supreme. However,rnthe Constitution reveals no power delegatedrnover state highway constructionrnand maintenance. Hence, calling therntune in this case is nothing but a usurpationrnof power.rnOn PaleoconservatismrnAlthough I agree with most of the ideasrnexpressed in your round table “What IsrnPaleoconservatism?” (Views, January), Irnbelieve it is a serious mistake to call thisrnpersuasion by such a name. The liberalsrnmust love you for so hobbling yourselves.rnTo the average person, the name bringsrnone of two things to mind: either an imagernof a troglodyte or a high-soundingrnname that means nothing to them, andrnprobably turns them off. During the fightrnfor the Georgia flag in 1992-1993, a flagrnsupporter from one of those traditionalrncommunities we say we represent—arntown about as far from Athens and Atlantarnas it is possible for a Georgia town tornbe—met me in Athens. I expressed myrnviews with terms eloquently used by myrntraditionally minded friends of Athensrnand by magazines such as Chronicles andrnthe Southern Partisan. Folks in his town,rnhe informed me, would not even understandrnwhat I was talking about.rnMy friend’s comment points out thernmost serious weakness in the paleo position:rnWe are not heard or understood byrnthe people who should be our strongestrnsupporters. We have been reduced to irrelevancernin the decisionmaking of thernAmerican regime. Pat Buchanan’s showingrnin the recent presidential election—rnabout 0.4 percent of the overall vote, orrnabout one out of every 250 votes—is anrnapproximate gauge of our strength.rnSometimes, I think many in our camprnrather like the isolation —from our enlightenedrnperch we look down on the unlettered,rnunknowing masses in perfectrnconfidence that, if they would just listenrnto us, they would be far better off. Theyrndo not listen to us, first, because our messagernhas never even reached most ofrnthem —saturated, as they are, by thernmainstream media and the Americanrnregime every minute of their wakingrnlives. And second, they do not listen to usrnbecause we often do not speak their language,rneven when we do manage tornbreak through the regime’s monopoly ofrnthought and communication. They dornnot understand us. We do not connectrnwith their daily concerns. We are “paleos”;rnthey are real people.rnWe desire the return of our local communities,rnour states, our nation, our entirernWestern civilization, to the guidingrnprinciples that form the bedrock of ourrngreatness. A small band of knowing, intelligent,rndetermined people can keeprnthe flame burning until it rekindles thernold spirit and the old understandingrnamong nations. That is how many of usrnsee our role. At the same time, many ofrnus hold out the hope that our society canrnreturn, at least partially, to the “permanentrnthings” in our own day, or at leastrnwithin the next half-century. We knowrnour society desperately needs to do so—rnthe sooner, the better, for it and for ourselves.rnTo do so, however, there must a bernwide dispersion of our way of thinking.rnIn short, we must break out of our cocoonrnand communicate with the masses.rnDonald Davidson knew that the intellectual,rnthe artist, the leader, must be a partrnof his community; the works of intellectualsrnshould be familiar to the everydayrncitizen. Such an articulation of a veryrncommonsense principle was enunciatedrnin the 1850’s by William Gilmore Simmsrnof South Carolina, who, in his SocialrnMoral Lectures, urged his fellow Southernersrnto emulate the virtues and the wisdomrnof Periclean Athens, where the finernarts and the words of statesmen were arnpart of the life of the community.rnOur society can be raised to the standardsrnof our historic civilization only ifrnthe old virtues are reinstilled in a sufficientlyrnlarge number of our leading citizensrn—including educators, journalists,rnprofessionals, businessmen, and politicians.rnThis will be accomplished not byrnesoteric intellectual cliques—such as thernname “paleoconservative” implies—butrnby reaching out to the millions of “MiddlernAmericans” who long for a return ofrntheir societies to the old virtues that theyrnstill admire. They do not want a paleoconservative;rnthey want a living, breathingrnperson to whom they can entrustrntheir future. Somehow, a way must bernfound to connect the Chronicles clerisyrnwith the genius of the average American.rn— William L. Cawthon, Jr.rnAthens, GArnOn the DraftrnI was pleased to read Greg Kaza’s reviewrnof the fruitless campaign to end draft registrationrn(“Uncle Sam Still Wants You,”rnVital Signs, January). I remember wellrnwhy Ronald Reagan reneged on his firmrnpromise to end draft registration: AlexanderrnHaig convinced him that Brezhnev’srntanks would be stopped before Warsawrnonly by the terrifying knowledge that twornmillion American youths were marchingrnto their post offices to fill out cards.rnIn 1974, I cofounded the NationalrnCouncil Against Compulsory Service tornfight back against those who wanted to reinstituternthe draft or, in its place, compulsoryrnnational service. It was easy to recruitrna half-dozen libertarians to serve onrnits board. We naively thought that werncould get a bunch of antiwar lefties torn6/CHRONICLESrnrnrn