Letters to the Editor

You have to stand for something

To the Editor:

Do we want to be a country where opinion is more important than fact? How is it that some people proclaim that Christians are being oppressed, when there has been no instance of anyone being denied the ability to worship as they see fit? It's misinformation designed to rile people up. 

If we relied on some basic knowledge (facts), we would understand that a former president is not being persecuted by our current president, but is being lawfully prosecuted by ordinary citizens who found his actions to be offensive and illegal. Once again, more misinformation designed to incite.

Do we want to be a country that continues to be the beacon of knowledge, technology and human rights, or do we want to continue to whine that life’s not fair, and it’s all Biden’s (or Obama’s) fault? See the pattern?

Do we want to be a country where liberty and justice for all is a real thing, or continue to allow the wealthy and corporations to have more rights than the rest of us?

Do we want a country in which we need to choose one candidate (incumbent president), experienced and diplomatic, who speaks of ways to unite us toward positive goals, and invites discussion to work together to achieve a "more perfect union,” or another candidate (and entire party) whose campaign only consists of calling the other candidate (without evidence) old, feeble, corrupt, radical, flatulent or whatever the insult of the day happens to be?

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I hear so many people trying to simplify the situation by saying that we just need to converse with each other. Sounds like a wonderful idea, but what do we talk about when one presidential candidate, and a huge chunk of one political party who worships him, wants to insist on a cognitive test for his opponent, and then can’t remember the name of his own doctor, and who rants about possibly being electrocuted by a sinking electrically powered boat, or eaten by nearby sharks? Why is it not important that the potential leader of the free world be able to speak in coherent sentences? How do you converse with an entire political party that rejects a big step forward to solving our immigration policies, and instead uses the confusion at our southern border as a campaign issue to blame the current administration? More misinformation.

A popular Republican former Ohio Governor, John Kasich, once said "you have to stand FOR something."

Currently, there seems to be a very large portion of the electorate that stands for nothing, and has no specific policies for us to consider, but would rather claim to be victims, and blame some or all of our country's ills on the current administration, or anyone who is not straight, white, or Christian.

Please prove me wrong.

Mark Ballinger

Sylva 

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