October 31st Letters to the Editor

Dear Edi­tor,

Issue 2 – the pro­posed con­sti­tu­tional amend­ment seek­ing to reform our redis­trict­ing process – is
not the right solu­tion. As a mem­ber of the Ohio com­mu­nity, I rec­og­nize that the redis­trict­ing process needs change. But as a mem­ber of the legal com­mu­nity, I am vot­ing No on Issue 2 for one sim­ple rea­son – it inap­pro­pri­ately involves Ohio’s judi­ciary in one of the most high-stakes polit­i­cal processes we undergo – redistricting.

Judges were never intended to be part of a polit­i­cal process like redis­trict­ing. The judi­ciary must remain fair, impar­tial and inde­pen­dent to inter­pret the laws and the con­sti­tu­tion. Their job is to be the umpire, not the player on the field. Let’s keep it that way. On Novem­ber 6, Vote No on Issue 2.

Sin­cerely,

Belinda S. Barnes, Esq. Ohio State Bar Association,

Board of Gov­er­nors, Dis­trict 7 RepresentativeDear

Edi­tor,

The Mor­row County Board of Devel­op­men­tal Dis­abil­i­ties is the Indi­vid­u­als that the board serves and the indi­vid­u­als on the wait­ing list. They are our neigh­bors and we need to show com­pas­sion for them. We need to take the time to meet them and extend our hand to them. To look them in the eyes and tell them Yes. Show them we do care and are will­ing to help. Don’t hold against the indi­vid­u­als that need ser­vices deci­sions that were made by pre­vi­ous admin­is­tra­tions. The Board is ask­ing for money to help keep their doors open. The staff mem­bers work very hard to give some of our com­mu­nity mem­bers a chance to make a dif­fer­ence in their own lives and the com­mu­ni­tyin which they live.

The Repub­li­can and Demo­c­ra­tic Par­ties both have given their endorse­ment for this levy. You can make a real dif­fer­ence in someone’s life. Vote Yes for the Whet­stone. Board of Devel­op­men­tal Dis­abil­i­ties replace­ment with an increase levy.

Sin­cerely,

Car­olyn (Cookie) Arm­strong, Cardington

To the Editor,

So, in which state are you plan­ning to vote? Oh, that’s right, you do not have a choice. In 2008, I watched 3 coach busses park on the Ohio State Uni­ver­sity cam­pus to reg­is­ter stu­dents to vote. A cou­ple weeks ago, I watched a sim­i­lar bus on my university’s cam­pus to reg­is­ter col­lege stu­dents for the vote. I wrongly assumed the bus was after Ohio res­i­dents. The next day, an arti­cle appeared in the cam­pus news­pa­per encour­ag­ing all stu­dents to reg­is­ter to vote and encour­ag­ing them to give their cam­pus address if they wanted to vote in Ohio. I then stopped at one of the voter reg­is­tra­tion tables on cam­pus and asked, “What should I tell my out-of-state stu­dents about reg­is­ter­ing to vote in Ohio?” The nice woman man­ning the table told me to tell the stu­dents, “…they can vote in the state of their polit­i­cal concern.”

Fam­ily and friends have argued with me stat­ing that out-of-state-students can­not vote in Ohio or that some­one has to be a res­i­dent for 6 months. Nei­ther is true. One of my stu­dents from Vir­ginia has already placed her Ohio vote…the day after attend­ing Mrs. Obama’s speech on campus…and the stu­dent came to Ohio in mid-August. There is even a web site, www.countmore.org, designed to help col­lege stu­dents decide whether their votes are more valu­able in their ‘home’ state or their col­lege state. There are at least 69 colleges/universities in Ohio and at least 72,645 out-of-state stu­dents at these insti­tu­tions, based on data I cal­cu­lated from the Ohio Board of Regents and the Col­lege Tool Kit. No won­der some­one keeps pour­ing large amounts of money into coach busses to travel to Ohio campuses.

As for another con­cern, Pres­i­dent Obama claims that his exec­u­tive orders are needed because we have a ‘do noth­ing con­gress.’ The coun­try is split almost 50/50 based on vot­ing polls. In a rep­re­sen­ta­tive form of gov­ern­ment, this even divide should mean that our rep­re­sen­ta­tives are split and that no move­ment should be hap­pen­ing on con­tro­ver­sial issues. The con­gress is doing noth­ing because Amer­ica is divided.

I am tired of a party that con­stantly thumbs its nose at our rep­re­sen­ta­tive form of gov­ern­ment by this push to affect Ohio’s vote and the over use of exec­u­tive orders. The only way I can think to fight back is to be sure that every REAL Ohioan votes. We are the ones that have to live here, fac­ing the con­se­quences of this election—please do your part!

Tanya Kunze , Mt. Gilead

Dear Edi­tor,

Why I Am Vot­ing NO on Issue 2

This Fall Ohioans are vot­ing on Issue 2, a pro­posed con­sti­tu­tional amend­ment on redis­trict­ing. We join the Ohio State Bar Asso­ci­a­tion (OSBA), the Ohio Judi­cial Con­fer­ence and a host of orga­ni­za­tions and media out­lets in urg­ing peo­ple to “Vote No on Issue 2.” For us, there is a sin­gu­lar rea­son: Issue 2 inap­pro­pri­ately involves Ohio’s judi­ciary in the most high-stakes polit­i­cal process there is — redistricting.

Why is Issue 2 the wrong solu­tion? Issue 2 would require a group of appel­late judges to select a pool of 42 Ohioans from which a 12-member cit­i­zen com­mis­sion respon­si­ble for redraw­ing leg­isla­tive and con­gres­sional dis­trict maps would be drawn. This func­tion makes these judges more vul­ner­a­ble to polit­i­cal influ­ence and under­mines the public’s trust and con­fi­dence in a fair, impar­tial and inde­pen­dent judiciary—a sacred and fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ple of our con­sti­tu­tional democracy.

Issue 2 would inap­pro­pri­ately involve the Ohio Supreme Court. Should the 12-member com­mis­sion be unable to agree on a redis­trict­ing pro­posal, our high­est court could be respon­si­ble for select­ing one of the plans this com­mis­sion has debated. And if the plan is later chal­lenged, it will be heard in the Supreme Court, the same Supreme Court that selected the very pro­posal being chal­lenged. The court’s job is not to pick the plan, but to inter­pret the law and rule on its constitutionality.

Issue 2 is a pro­posed con­sti­tu­tional amend­ment, and con­sti­tu­tional amend­ments are dif­fi­cult to change. They can only be changed by another con­sti­tu­tional amend­ment. This requires a great deal of time and money and could take years to accom­plish. That’s why it is so impor­tant to get the lan­guage of a con­sti­tu­tional amend­ment right.

Many agree that the cur­rent redis­trict­ing process is need of reform. So do we! But, there is a bet­ter way than Issue 2. The OSBA believes that the appro­pri­ate venue is the Con­sti­tu­tional Mod­ern­iza­tion Com­mis­sion. This com­mis­sion is made up of elected offi­cials and mem­bers of the pub­lic from both major polit­i­cal par­ties, as well as inde­pen­dents, with the sole pur­pose being to review our cur­rent state Con­sti­tu­tion and make rec­om­men­da­tions for change. I join the OSBA in urg­ing the com­mis­sion to make redis­trict­ing reform a pri­or­ity ini­tia­tive when it con­venes early next year.

The judi­ciary was never intended to be involved in a polit­i­cal process like redis­trict­ing. The judi­ciary is intended to be fair, impar­tial and inde­pen­dent, and to inter­pret the laws and Con­sti­tu­tion. Their job is to be the umpire, not the player on the field. Let’s keep it that way. Issue 2 is the wrong way to improve Ohio’s redis­trict­ing plan. It should be defeated so the peo­ple of Ohio have the time to get it right. Vote No on Issue 2, and pro­tect justice.

To learn more about why we need to Pro­tect Jus­tice, please visit www.protectjusticeohio.com.

Mark S. Floyd, Mem­ber, Ohio State Bar Asso­ci­a­tion Board of Gov­er­nors Keith A. Ash­mus, Mem­ber, Ohio State Bar Asso­ci­a­tion Coun­cil of Delegates

Richard W. Pogue

Dear Edi­tor,

I have been a res­i­dent of Mor­row County for most of my life. At this present time I am tem­porar­ily resid­ing in Cleve­land, Ohio while attend­ing grad­u­ate school for social work at Case West­ern Reserve Uni­ver­sity. I have spent a great deal of my time vol­un­teer­ing with the at-risk youth of Cleve­land, and have found many dif­fer­ent avenues that help that help these youth stay on the right path of life. As a youth grow­ing up in the Mor­row County area, I found that activ­i­ties in the area that were out­side of school were lack­ing, also to say that the num­ber of youths that are at-risk in Mor­row County is few would be a total under­state­ment, and these youth need a place to go where they may receive the guid­ance that can help them stay on the right path of life. That is why I am strongly urg­ing the offi­cials of Mor­row County to seri­ously con­sider the fact that a recre­ation facil­ity needs to be erected in Mor­row County. I would like to invite any Mor­row Coun­try­man who may have ques­tions as to how a recre­ation facil­ity could ben­e­fit our county to con­tact me, and I would be more than glad to answer questions.

Matthew Wick, mtwick07@gmail.com

To the Editor,

The upcom­ing pres­i­den­tial elec­tion likely will be decided based upon our view of the future of our eco­nomic system.

Social­ism is an eco­nomic sys­tem of social orga­ni­za­tion by which the means of pro­duc­tion and dis­tri­b­u­tion are con­trolled, man­aged or owned by the gov­ern­ment. If we believe that this is the cor­rect course of action for our coun­try, we should vote for Pres­i­dent Obama.

Cap­i­tal­ism is an eco­nomic sys­tem based upon the own­er­ship of land, fac­to­ries and other means of pro­duc­tion by pri­vate indi­vid­u­als who com­pete with one another, using the hired labor of other per­sons, to pro­duce goods and ser­vices for a free mar­ket for what­ever profit may be obtain­able. If we believe that this is the cor­rect course of action for our coun­try, we should vote for Gov­er­nor Romney.

James Duvall, Worthington

Dear Edi­tor,

In 1999 I became a Licensed Prac­ti­cal Nurse (LPN), from the school of prac­ti­cal nurs­ing at Tri Rivers Career Cen­ter. My skills and edu­ca­tion have lead me to a life of help­ing oth­ers at the bed side and as an edu­ca­tor for a state tested nurse aide (STNA) classes in Mar­ion, Oh.

Thir­teen years later I find myself back at Tri Rivers pur­su­ing my edu­ca­tion to become a Reg­is­tered Nurse (RN) in the LPN to RN tran­si­tion pro­gram for Adult Edu­ca­tion. I feel that Tri Rivers is not just a high school career cen­ter, but a life­long learn­ing cen­ter that gives back to the com­mu­nity in the qual­ity stu­dents that become the work­force of tomorrow.

Please sup­port the levy for Tri Rivers to keep the future work­force in Mar­ion and sur­round­ing coun­ties grow­ing strong with knowledge.

Angela High, Cardington

Dear Sir or Madam,

It is my opin­ion that allow­ing folks to vote as much as a month early is an asi­nine idea, on sev­eral levels.

First and fore­most, if you don’t think any­more of your right to vote, and are not smart enough to fig­ure a way to take the time out of your busy sched­ule to vote, con­sid­er­ing how many peo­ple over the years have fought and died to give you that right, you prob­a­bly aren’t smart enough to dis­tin­guish who would be the bet­ter can­di­date or which way to vote on any issue and you should prob­a­bly just not even bother to vote. The whole coun­try would ben­e­fit by that decision.

Then we have those folks who really are only con­cerned with being on the win­ning side, because by hav­ing early vot­ing, these folks who want to go with the flow, with their mob men­tal­ity, if you will, will lis­ten to the polls and put their fin­gers in the wind and vote, hav­ing no con­sid­er­a­tion as to what the issues are or what the can­di­dates stand for.

Then there are what I would call the Pseudo-Intellectuals who would have us believe they are smarter than you and I, whether they have drank the Kool-Aid of their Lib­eral Pro­fes­sors, or their sup­pos­edly smarter friends or the lib­eral media, have con­vinced them that it is the Polit­i­cally Cor­rect thing to do and they don’t really have to research the issues or candidates.

Last but not least there is the like­ly­hood that a can­di­date you vote for could be involved in a ter­ri­ble Scan­dal, between the time the bal­lot is cast and the actual elec­tion day (in which case his or her V.P. could become Pres­i­dent) which, if known about, could very likely have changed the whole para­me­ters of the elec­tion, or the Can­di­date could be deceased or dis­abled for any num­ber of reasons.

I would hope whomever is able to take us back to Elec­tion Day vot­ing, except for the con­ven­tional absen­tee bal­lot, would rethink this fiasco.

Sin­cerely,

Darl “Para­noid Pete” Mills, Mt. Gilead

Dear Edi­tor,

Smaller gov­ern­ment enti­ties, specif­i­cally town­ships, are an asset to Ohio and should remain in their cur­rent state with­out forced con­sol­i­da­tion. Ohio’s smaller local gov­ern­ments are more acces­si­ble and respon­sive, and they spend less. They are closer to the peo­ple and are bet­ter for Ohio.

A recent report by the Ohio Town­ship Asso­ci­a­tion indi­cates that town­ships spend less, bor­row less and have lower taxes per capita than other local gov­ern­ments. The report is in response to the claim that smaller gov­ern­ments dupli­cate ser­vices, costs res­i­dents more money and could be reduced by join­ing with other gov­ern­ment entities.

Accord­ing to the report, all of Ohio’s local gov­ern­ments spend a total of approx­i­mately $48 bil­lion per year. Munic­i­pal­i­ties spend 21.3 per­cent of this amount, while town­ships spend only 2.7 per­cent with the bal­ance of the spend­ing by school dis­tricts, coun­ties and spe­cial dis­tricts. And, in Ohio met­ro­pol­i­tan areas, cities with more than 100,000 res­i­dents spent more than five times the per capita rate of local gov­ern­ments with pop­u­la­tions of 1,000 to 2,500. The report also showed that per capita spend­ing of Ohio’s larger town­ships, with pop­u­la­tions as high as 60,000, is less than cities of com­pa­ra­ble size.

Town­ships have also entered the state’s Local Gov­ern­ment Fis­cal Dis­tress pro­gram less fre­quently than other gov­ern­ment enti­ties. Also, local taxes are less per capita in town­ships, both statewide and in met­ro­pol­i­tan areas. And, town­ships spend less per capita and have less per capita debt ser­vice pay­ments than vil­lages and cities in the same pop­u­la­tion category.

Town­ships pro­vide an attrac­tive busi­ness cli­mate and qual­ity of life for their res­i­dents. In fact, vir­tu­ally all of Ohio’s pop­u­la­tion growth between 2000 and 2010 was in town­ships, with the growth rate being four times the state pop­u­la­tion growth rate.

As res­i­dents of Canaan Town­ship for over 40 years we have enjoyed the ben­e­fits of a fru­gal and effi­cient town­ship gov­ern­ment that has pro­vided us with a well-maintained infra­struc­ture and a safe environment.

Town­ship gov­ern­ments are suc­cess­fully deliv­er­ing on the demo­c­ra­tic val­ues of supe­rior acces­si­bil­ity and respon­sive­ness, while com­pet­ing eco­nom­i­cally with lower taxes and spend­ing. Town­ships are an asset to Ohio and should remain in their cur­rent state with­out consolidation.

Sin­cerely,

Robert & Deana Detwiler, Edison

To the Editor,

”Democ­racy dies as soon as peo­ple real­ize they can vote them­selves money.” Alexis de Toc­queville. “It is incum­bent on every gen­er­a­tion to pay its own debts as it goes. A prin­ci­ple which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world.” Thomas Jefferson

My fel­low Amer­i­cans, We The Peo­ple of these United States are addicted to enti­tle­ments. Like all addicts we face the choice of wean­ing our­selves off of enti­tle­ments with a lit­tle pain or going cold turkey with a lot of pain. We can wean our­selves off of enti­tle­ments by ask­ing and then requir­ing our polit­i­cal lead­ers to take action. It requires lead­er­ship and courage, but we will need to do this to avoid hav­ing our chil­dren and grand­chil­dren pay­ing off the enti­tle­ment debt that we have accumulated.

Here are some things we can do. We can slowly raise the tax rates and end var­i­ous deduc­tions for every­one. We ran up this debt and we need to pay it down. Deduc­tions for var­i­ous busi­ness expenses, health insur­ance and health care, state and local taxes, char­ity giv­ing and mort­gage inter­est should be ended. Employee health ben­e­fits should be taxed as income. In five years fed­eral rev­enue should be 20% of GNP.

Then we need to wean our­selves off enti­tle­ments. By the way, tax deduc­tions and cred­its are enti­tle­ments. We should do a needs test for Social Secu­rity and Medicare. If we have over $500,000 in sav­ings and invest­ments at retire­ment we should pay our own way in life. We should also pay for our own health insur­ance. We should slowly end all farm sub­si­dies so that in five years they no longer exist. We should end sub­si­dies for energy from oil to ethanol over the next five years. We spend more on defense than the next 17 nations com­bined. We have 11 air­craft car­rier bat­tle groups and no other nation has one. We should freeze defense spend­ing at present lev­els and slowly lower it over the next five years. In five years fed­eral spend­ing should be 20% of the GNP.

That bal­ances our bud­get and pro­vides the politi­cians with plenty of money to pro­vide for the national defense and pro­mote the gen­eral wel­fare as well as pay down our debt. If we are truly a nation of self suf­fi­cient indi­vid­u­als then we should live like it. If we do this over the next five years we will have some pain. How­ever, if we put this off and kick the chal­lenges down the road the pain will be great and threaten the very fab­ric of Amer­i­can society.

Richard Jones, Chesterville

Are we headed toward Social­ism and away from the Constitution?

By Nel­son Hack

Why do so many hate our coun­try and our Con­sti­tu­tion? As a kid that grew up in the 1950s and early 1960s, where in school, in the news and movies, we were proud of our coun­try, the “best in the World”. How naïve I was! It was around the end of the Rea­gan years I began to wake up. I would won­der why, when “Con­ser­v­a­tives” were in office, none of the lib­eral (Pro­gres­sive) agenda was ever turned back. All of my life, no mat­ter which of the two main par­ties was in power, our gov­ern­ment grew larger and more lib­eral. As I started read­ing and seek­ing out the facts, I learned this has been going on for most of the time since our found­ing and espe­cially since 1912.

Edward Man­dell House was the chief adviser of Pres­i­dent Woodrow Wil­son. House was a Marx­ist whose goal was to social­ize the United States. In 1912 House wrote the book, “Philip Dru – Admin­is­tra­tor”. In it, he said he was work­ing for “Social­ism as dreamed of by Karl Marx “. The orig­i­nal edi­tion of the book did not name House as its author, but he made it clear in numer­ous ways that he indeed was its cre­ator. In Philip Dru: Admin­is­tra­tor, House laid out a fic­tion­al­ized plan for the con­quest of Amer­ica. He told of a “con­spir­acy” (the word is his) which would gain con­trol of both the Demo­c­rat and Repub­li­can par­ties, and use them as instru­ments in the cre­ation of a social­is­tic world gov­ern­ment. This book called for the pas­sage of a grad­u­ated income tax and for the estab­lish­ment of a state-controlled cen­tral bank as steps toward the ulti­mate goal. Both of these pro­pos­als are also planks in “The Com­mu­nist Man­i­festo”. In addi­tion, both became law in 1913, dur­ing the very first year of the House-dominated Wil­son Admin­is­tra­tion. Dur­ing that same time, the Sev­en­teenth Amend­ment to the Con­sti­tu­tion was passed destroy­ing the check and bal­ances the framers of our Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Repub­lic built in. Yes, a Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Repub­lic, not a Democracy.

House and his friends then formed the Coun­cil on For­eign Rela­tions, whose pur­pose right from its incep­tion was to destroy the free­dom and inde­pen­dence of the United States and lead our nation into a world gov­ern­ment through a world orga­ni­za­tion. The first try “The League of Nations”, failed. The CFR con­tin­ued and, to this day, their mem­bers are active in both Demo­c­rat and Repub­li­can Par­ties. Yes, it is Demo­c­rat, not Demo­c­ra­tic. As a Marx­ist Social­ism believ­ing orig­i­na­tion, their beliefs and plans are right up front for any­one to see if they would only look for it. “The Com­mu­nist Man­i­festo”, writ­ten by Karl Marx and pub­lished by the Com­mu­nist League Feb­ru­ary 1848, listed as follows;

Abo­li­tion of prop­erty in land and appli­ca­tion of all rents of land to pub­lic purposes

A heavy pro­gres­sive or grad­u­ated income tax

Abo­li­tion of all rights of inheritance

Con­fis­ca­tion of the prop­erty of all emi­grants and rebels

Cen­tral­iza­tion of credit in the banks of the state, by means of a national bank with state cap­i­tal and an exclu­sive monopoly

Cen­tral­iza­tion of the means of com­mu­ni­ca­tion and trans­port in the hands of the state

Exten­sion of fac­to­ries and instru­ments of pro­duc­tion owned by the state; the bring­ing into cul­ti­va­tion of waste­lands, and the improve­ment of the soil gen­er­ally in accor­dance with a com­mon plan

Equal oblig­a­tion of all to work. Estab­lish­ment of indus­trial armies, espe­cially for agriculture

Com­bi­na­tion of agri­cul­ture with man­u­fac­tur­ing indus­tries; grad­ual abo­li­tion of all the dis­tinc­tion between town and coun­try by a more equable dis­tri­b­u­tion of the pop­u­lace over the country

Free edu­ca­tion for all chil­dren in pub­lic schools, abo­li­tion of children’s fac­tory labor in its present form, com­bi­na­tion of edu­ca­tion with indus­trial production.

How many of the 10 points have been enacted in the United States of Amer­ica since the time of Woodrow Wilson?

The point is the con­stant enact­ment of the Progress agenda through­out almost every admin­is­tra­tion since.

David Rock­e­feller, the long­time chair­man of the CFR, acknowl­edged their role in try­ing to lead the U.S. in the one world direc­tion in his book “Mem­oirs”. In it, he stated, “Some believe we are part of a secret cabal work­ing against the best inter­ests of the United States, char­ac­ter­iz­ing my fam­ily and me as inter­na­tion­al­ists and of con­spir­ing with oth­ers around the world to build a more inte­grated global polit­i­cal and eco­nomic struc­ture —- one world, if you please. If that is the charge, I stand guilty, and am proud of it.” As we vote the ras­cals out of the office of Pres­i­dent, the play­ers behind the scene stay the same. Almost every admin­is­tra­tion since FDR is or was filled with CFR mem­bers direct­ing the poli­cies of our gov­ern­ment. These peo­ple believe that gov­ern­ment con­trols We the People’s rights. Our Found­ing Fathers believed in GOD given rights.

As stated in the Bible, 2 Tim­o­thy 3:1–5 “But know this, that in the last days per­ilous times will come: For men will be lovers of them­selves, lovers of money, boast­ers, proud, blas­phe­mers, dis­obe­di­ent to par­ents, unthank­ful, unholy, unlov­ing, unfor­giv­ing, slan­der­ers, with­out self-control, bru­tal, despis­ers of good, trai­tors, head­strong, haughty, lovers of plea­sure rather than lovers of God, hav­ing a form of god­li­ness but deny­ing its power. And from such peo­ple turn away!” Does this remind you of any­one today?

The answer to our nation’s con­di­tion today is also in the Bible, 2 Chron­i­cles 7: 14 “if My peo­ple who are called by My name will hum­ble them­selves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will for­give their sin and heal their land.”

Posted by Taylor Kaser on Oct 30 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.