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Show Lets Talk Sense! The Chronicle has never been much on science fiction, fic-tion, but let's take a brief look into the future that today's politicians have been arguing about since the summer conventions. The year is around 2000 and our grandchildren are dutifully studying their History 76: "The American republic lasted for more than 175 years under a constitution ratified in 1789 by represne-tatives represne-tatives from political subdivisions called states. The turning point came when Lyndon B. Johnson was reelected re-elected to the presidency in 1964 and immediately established es-tablished the Socialistic-Dictatorship under which we now live. Historians today are now agreed that this was not a violent shift but a logical result of the gradual developments that had been taking place for a number of years. The abolition of the states and the dissolution dissolu-tion of economic free enterprise was a natural consequence conse-quence of the Johnsonian revolution and the eventual elimination of democratic elections was only a formality." for-mality." Or : "By 2050 it is expected that most of the nations of the earth will achieve at least partial recovery from the nuclear holocaust of 1965. The United States, according ac-cording to most expectations, will be far ahead of Europe and Asia in political recovery but will lag behind in industrial recovery due to the high level of industrial maturity that had been reached by the 1960s, The war, touched off by President Goldwater when he declared "conventional war" on the USSR, is now regarded re-garded as one of the unnecessary conflicts that the United States could have avoided except for the dogmatic dog-matic approach to foreign affairs taken by the President." Presi-dent." No one with a reasonable degree of sanity would accept either of the proposed hypotheses; both of -them belong in the realm of pure fiction. Yet if one were to project some of the '64 campaign material into the future, fu-ture, he could construct an equally pessimistic, if not a more horrendous view of the future. If we were to accept the charges and counter-charges of the politicians, politi-cians, no matter who is elected the country is in deep trouble. We can account for part of the basis behind this year's campaign by taking two factors into account. First the fact that political campaigns are not generally waged on a rational basis but that invective, inuendo and smear are to be expected in any political battle. The second is that the candidates for the presidency are at definite odds this year as far as political philosophy philoso-phy goes. Goldwater admits that his political stand is much different from that of the Republican candidates since the advent of the moderate domination under Wendell Wilkie. Johnson has also given the impression of a modern day Robin Hood with "take from the rich, give it to the poor" tendencies. Given this wide difference differ-ence in ideology, it is no wonder that the campaign has been pretty lively. But that is no reason to resort to scare tactics to try to convince the American public of the truth or falsity of any position. This seems to be the crux of the problem; both parties, not just the candidates but partisan adherents throughout the country, have shown a lack of faith in the citizenry to choose between the two political value systems presented this year. Instead In-stead they have resorted to unrealistic accusations of what the future might bring if so-and-so is elected in November. Instead of presenting a reasonable discussion discus-sion on issues and philosophies, they have chosen to lambast personalities. Rather than carefully define the roads down which they would like to lead America, they have painted a sordid picture of the roads their opponent would leead us to. Both parties have decided that we are more easily scared than pursuaded. The ballot on Nov. 3 will offer a meaningful and reasonable choice, whether the politicians choose to recognize it or not. We must all decide whether conservative con-servative economics, a restricted federal government, and a broader view of states rights is our choice of values; or does an expanded view of the function of government, its ability to guide the economy toward prosperity, and an acceptance of the view that most of today's problems are national in character better represent repre-sent our own philosophy. As a Democratic candidate once said, "Let's talk sense to the American people." Goldwater and Johnson, take heed. |