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Show A7 The Emery County Review, Tuesday, October 21, 2008 VIEWPOINT Opinion and Letters to the Editor My View Candidate Choices Made Me ‘Undecided’ C. Josie Luke For nearly two months I have been troubled. Since Senator Barak Obama elected not to select Hilary Clinton, picking Joseph Biden as his vice-presidential running mate and Senator John McCain chose Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, I have become what the media refers to as an “undecided voter.” Since a history class in junior high, I realized my political views did not fit the Emery County stereotype. College proved to move me even more to the left, compared with many of my fellow Emery High School graduates -- though I would still call myself a moderate -- but lately, I find myself considering supporting the Republican ticket. Why? Their views do not normally fit my own. One reason is that Senator Obama is much more liberal than I am -- that bothered me even before he won the nomination -- but the real reason is: I like Sarah Palin. Palin could move into Emery County and fit right in. Socially and fiscally conservative, she’d be a local hit. She hunts and fishes, rides four-wheelers and snow mobiles, is pro drilling and even has five kids. She’d be universally loved and accepted. She even reminds me of my sister. The last statement is probably at the core of my undecided-ness. Gov. Palin is, like me, a woman. Obvious, one might point out, but for me it carries so much significance. I grew up wishing for a time when a woman would be president. Heck, in Utah, even an elected female governor would be nice. I bristled at the sexist comments used to rationalize the U.S. never having a female leader. When Palin’s name was reported, I wanted to cheer. When she blew people away with her acceptance speech, I was elated. I had been so disappointed when Obama didn’t pick “Hilary.” I would have voted for her without hesitation. I may have even campaigned for her. For a woman I agree with on most issues to be president, it would have been a dream come true. But that dream was crushed by Senator Obama. Yet I would have still voted for him heartily until McCain chose Palin. Now, I am left wondering what I will do as I walk to the voting machine on Nov. 4 to make my selections. I can go with my political views, or I can support a dream I’ve had since I was a young girl. I know many would consider my predicament unfounded or even silly, but I am still “undecided.” So, just before beginning writing my editorial, as I read about Colin Powell endorsing Barak Obama, and some questioned if the selection was “racially motivated,” I was drawn in, wondering if it was really a fair basis on which to make such an endorsement. But after considering the subject and taking into account my affection for Palin, I understood a little better. I do not think the endorsement was purely motivated by race, although it does seem odd though that a republican many have wished would run for president, would endorse one of the most liberal presidential candidates in history. It seems contradictory. But I can understand. For a member of a historically brutalized minority to support another member of that minority is reasonable to me. A New York Times article possibly explains the racial issue away, citing Mr. Powell’s disagreements with the Bush administration over the war in Iraq among other things and stating, “Mr. Powell’s support of Mr. Obama was not a surprise to people who know him well and within Washington’s foreign policy establishment.” But, if like me, a part of Mr. Powell’s motivation is personal or even selfish, I can understand. I really want a woman to be president. Why Obama didn’t pick Clinton, though, is beyond me. It sure would have made life easier. The Pursuit of Wealth - Obama Style books to those who had no self discipline, who couldn’t say no to an emotional appeal that if they owned the vacuum they would be like the well-to-do. They felt you could sell them anything just by getting them to think they would look like or be like those who were better off. That concept is alive and well today. The liberals like Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi are constantly promising us that we will have what the well-to-do Jerry Stotler One of the first jobs I ever had was selling vacuum cleaners. The other salesmen had a name for people who were looking for something for nothing. They called them mooches and considered them easy targets. They were the people who were usually trying to get others to give them something, like part of their lunch at work. The salesmen would go into the lower income areas and sell their Established January 2, 2007 James L. Davis, Publisher & Editor w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w Colleen A. Davis, Co-Publisher, Office & Advertising Manager Josie Luke, Assistant Editor Lyndsay Reid, Advertising Design Paige Motte, Advertising Sales Kathy P. Ockey, Staff Journalist Casey Wood, Webmaster Our Vision To be a valued member of the communities we serve and to be trusted as an honest, truthful and reliable source of news. w w w Our Mission To inform, entertain and provide a public forum for the discussion of events impacting the people of the Emery County area and to inform with news and features relevant to those who call the Castle Valley area home w w w Our Principles We will be ethical in all of our efforts to provide information to the public. We will be unbiased in our reporting and will report the facts as we see them and do our best to focus on the good news of the county, its people, history and way of life. We will be strong and active members of the community and assist in any way that we are able. We will strive to provide the best quality product possible to our readers and advertisers...always. We will verify the details of news we are reporting and if a mistake is made on our part we will correct it immediately. We will always listen to suggestions on how to do our job better. Editorial Submission Guidelines The Emery County Review welcomes and invites letters to the editor and guest opinion articles on public policy or current events. We welcome letters of thanks to individuals who have helped make our community a better place to live, work and play. The editorial staff reserves the right to edit all submissions for space constraints, clarity and errors in fact. Submissions must include author’s name and contact information. Contact information will not be published. Letter’s and opinion articles can be sent to jldavis@theemerycountyreview.com, mailed to The Emery County Review, P.O. Box 487, Orangeville, UT. 84537 or faxed to 435-748-2543. have and that they are going to take it from those who have so much (bigger businesses or bigger bank accounts) and give it to the less fortunate. (I am very sure that most of you cannot even define the socialism that they are promoting. Remember this: Socialism has no redeeming social value that cannot be better achieved in some other way.) Obama would have you believe that he is going to take from the rich (tax them) and share it with you (after he and his ilk skims a nice percentage off the top.). Are you so naive as to believe that? The socialists have been claiming that for 150 years, yet the number of people living at or below the poverty level keeps growing in spite of the increased welfare programs. The common result of such thinking is people with their hand out saying, Gimme, Gimme, Gimme some too. (There are basically two kinds of people that embrace socialism: those who secretly or openly want to be taken care of, and those who want power over people, who want to tell you how to run your life.) The total federal spending in 1908 was $763 million. The population was 90,490,000. If the liberals are right and there is a huge pot of wealth that we all share in and their job is to redistribute it, we are all in serious trouble. The population increased by roughly 3 1/3 in the last 100 years, but the budget increased by more than 4 times. If we all lived out of one huge pot of wealth we all had to share, where did all the extra wealth come from? We should all be sharing in the same pot of a hundred years ago ($763 million). But there is more money available today ($3.1 trillion), more wealth must have been created and the big pot keeps getting bigger. It is, therefore, evident that wealth is created, not accumulated in a big pot and not shared from some finite pot that we/they need to redistribute. As students come out of our schools ignorant of basic finance principles, they are easily manipulated into thinking that they can’t get ahead because the others guys have taken all the wealth and there is not enough left for them to live well. They are broke because someone else has some of their share. It is, therefore, OK for government to take it back (steal it) from them for redistribution to those unable to get their fair share. Wealth is manifested in material goods. If you don’t think wealth is created, just go to a landfill and note the amount of worn out wealth that has been discarded. While all that old wealth was being discarded, an abundance of new wealth was being created to take its place. Thus we have far more wealth today then we ever have had in the past. A quote from The Richest Man in Babylon written by George Clason says: “A portion of all you earn is yours to keep, therefore, pay yourself first, one tenth of all you earn.” In that way, at the end of 10 years you will have one full year’s income in the bank, plus all of its children’s children’s children (compounded interest). While you are at it, get out of debt. (Stotler resides in Ferron.) Liquidating the Empire Patrick J. Buchanan “Liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate the farmers.” So Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon advised Herbert Hoover in the Great Crash of ‘29. Hoover did. And the nation liquidated him -- and the Republicans. In the Crash of 2008, 40 percent of stock value has vanished, almost $9 trillion. Some $5 trillion in real estate value has disappeared. A recession looms with sweeping layoffs, unemployment compensation surging, and social welfare benefits soaring. America’s first trilliondollar deficit is at hand. In Fiscal Year 2008 the deficit was $438 billion. With tax revenue sinking, we will add to this year’s deficit the $200 to $300 billion needed to wipe the rotten paper off the books of Fannie and Freddie, the $700 billion (plus the $100 billion in add-ons and pork) for the Wall Street bailout, the $85 billion to bail out AIG, and $37 billion more now needed, the $25 billion for GM, Chrysler and Ford, and the hundreds of billions Hank Paulson will need to buy corporate paper and bail out banks to stop the panic. As Americans save nothing, where are the feds going to get the money? Is the Fed going to print it and destroy the dollar and credit rating of the United States? Because the nations whose vaults are full of dollars and U.S. debt -- China, Japan, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf Arabs -- are reluctant to lend us more. Sovereign wealth funds that plunged billions into U.S. banks have already been burned. Uncle Sam’s VISA card is about to be stamped “Canceled.” The budget is going to have to go under the knife. But what gets cut? Social Security and Medicare are surely exempt. Seniors have already taken a huge hit in their 401(k)s. And as the Democrats are crafting another $150 billion stimulus package for the working poor and middle class, Medicaid and food stamps are untouchable. Interest on the debt cannot be cut. It is going up. Will a Democratic Congress slash unemployment benefits, welfare, education, student loans, veterans benefits -- in a recession? No way. Yet, that is almost the entire U.S. budget -- except for defense, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and foreign aid. And this is where the axe will eventually fall. It is the American Empire that is going to be liquidated. Retrenchment has begun with Bush’s backing away from confrontations with Axis-of-Evil charter members Iran and North Korea over their nuclear programs, and will likely continue with a negotiated peace in Afghanistan. Gen. Petraeus and Secretary Gates are already talking “reconciliation” with the Taliban. We no longer live in Eisenhower or Reagan’s America. Even the postCold War world of George H. W. Bush, where America was a global hegemon, is history. In both relative and real terms, the U.S.A. is a diminished power. Where Ike spent 9 percent of GDP on defense, Reagan 6 percent, we spend 4 percent. Yet we have two wars bleeding us and many more nations to defend, with commitments in the Baltic, Eastern Europe, and the Balkans we did not have in the Cold War. As U.S. weapons systems are many times more expensive today, we have fewer strategic aircraft and Navy ships than Ike or Reagan commanded. Our active-duty Army and Marine Corps consist of 700,000 troops, 15 percent women, and a far higher percentage of them support rather than combat troops. With so few legions, we cannot police the world, and we cannot afford more. Yet, we have a host of newly hostile nations we did not have in 1989. U.S. interests in Latin America are being challenged not only by Cuba, but Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Honduras. Brazil, Argentina and Chile go their own way. Russia is reasserting hegemony in the Caucasus, testing new ICBMs, running bomber probes up to U.S. air space. China, growing at 10 percent as we head into recession, is bristling over U.S. military sales to Taiwan. Iran remains defiant. Pakistan is rife with anti- Americanism and al-Qaida sentiment. The American Empire has become a vast extravagance. With U.S. markets crashing and wealth vanishing, what are we doing with 750 bases and troops in over 100 countries? With a recession of unknown depth and duration looming, why keep borrowing billions from rich Arabs to defend rich Europeans, or billions from China and Japan to hand out in Millennium Challenge Grants to Tanzania and Burkina Faso? America needs a bottom-up review of all strategic commitments dating to a Cold War now over for 20 years. Is it essential to keep 30,000 troops in a South Korea with twice the population and 40 times the wealth of the North? Why are McCain and Obama offering NATO memberships, i.e., war guarantees against Russia, to a Georgia run by a hothead like Mikheil Saakashvili, and a Ukraine, millions of whose people prefer their kinship to Russia to an alliance with us? We must put “country first,” says John McCain. Right you are, Senator. Time to look out for America first. (Copyright 2008 Creators Syndicate Inc.) Correction A letter to the editor by Terry Seely of Ferron that appeared in the Reader’s Forum in the Oct. 14 edition of The Emery County Review was missing the author’s name. During the copyediting and corrections process the author’s name was mistakenly removed from the article. We apologize for the mistake. |
