To the editor:

A wise person is well-defined as “someone who knows the results of his or her actions.”

By this definition, we have the unfortunate circumstance of being governed by utter incompetents. Both the Democrats and Republicans share equal responsibility for this condition.

Just look at the results of their recent actions: an economy that has tanked, an environment that is collapsing, needless, immoral and expensive wars with no end in sight, a banking system in peril, unsustainable trade deficits, high levels of unemployment, skyrocketing gas prices and a Neanderthal supreme court that sanctifies the personhood of corporations.

How has this catastrophe come about?

The answer is simple: we voted for it. We voted for it because there was no alternative, since the Republicans and Democrats have erected almost insurmountable barriers to third parties in order to ensure their hold on power.

At the federal level, we have elected criminal incompetents and at the state and local level we have empowered well-intentioned incompetents.

There is also a common thread that binds all our current incompetent governance — fiscal insanity: spending money we don’t have and have little hope of acquiring; spending fortunes on bombing noncompliant foreigners; giving tax breaks to oil companies and billionaire speculators while millions of the common people sink into insolvency. We spend fortunes on things we don’t need like anti-missile systems, bridges to nowhere and subsidies for non-working farmers.

And the beat goes on.

In addition to well-meaning incompetence, criminal incompetence and fiscal insanity, we can add ignorance: ignorance of history, ignorance of science, ignorance of what it means to respect nature.

Then there is greed, which underlies it all, with its companion — fear —that is most fearful of being constricted in its greed.

We have come to this frightful point because we the voters have allowed it to happen. We have not adhered to the timeless virtues of humility, thrift, kindness, non-violence, self-sufficiency and just plain common sense.

We are one huge collective spoiled brat whose daddy we think has bottomless pockets and a monopoly on virtue. This gives us the license to kill anyone who disagrees with us.

It is time to grow up, to see the perilous reality of our situation and act like responsible adults, curbing our appetites, living within our means, being self-sufficient and at peace with the rest of humanity and with life itself. It is time for new people to govern.

It is time to shun the Republican and Democratic party labels and vote for candidates who stand for sanity and peace.

No matter what barriers are placed before us, we must not succumb to voting for the Republican or Democratic lesser evil if they are incompetents who lack wisdom. We must vote for candidates who are both wise and capable and not for incompetents wearing meaningless labels.

Herschel Sternlieb

Brunswick