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Gun idea; educating public
From Carol Dickson
Cave Junction

Why is our mayor wasting time and taxpayer money drafting an ordinance requiring every business and home owner in the city limits to have a firearm and ammunition?

First, our Constitution guarantees us the right to bear arms; it doesn’t mandate it. Secondly, who is going to decide if I’m physically or mentally handicapped so as to be exempt from the ordinance? Thirdly, how will such an ordinance be enforced when the ordinances against drinking and/or urinating in public can’t be enforced? 

I think the mayor’s and the council’s time would be better spent ensuring that grant requirements are met so the city taxpayers don’t lose another $500,000.

On the county-front, a note of interest was Curt Bynum’s comment regarding county budget issues; that 80,000 residents have “checked out” and are “clueless.” I disagree with that assessment.  I think most of the voters understand that O&C funds are a thing of the past and that we are going to have to pay for the services we want. 

The issue may be what services we want and will we get what we are promised. It was suggested that the taxpayers need to be educated.  That education process has been going on for decades, but it’s a bit one-sided.

Maybe it’s time that the politicians, all the way from the lowest county politician to the highest office in the land, should be educated as to the fact that voters aren’t ignorant, but they don’t trust their politicians. The last two boards of county commissioners have done more fighting among themselves than working.

The latest example of breaking our trust was when the commissioners took two-thirds of the $300,000 earmarked for the library and gave it to the sheriff.  I support the library and law enforcement, but it’s wrong to promise the library group $300,000 if it raises its share and then pull out the rug halfway through. Let’s start the educating by recalling Raffenburg.

Obama ‘danger’ outlined
From Nancy Hook
Cave Junction

Ken Blackwell, who is black and a columnist for the New York Sun, recently wrote about Barack Obama. Here are some of his observations:

It’s an amazing time to be alive in America. We’re in a year of firsts in this presidential election: the first viable woman candidate; the first viable African-American candidate; and, a candidate who is the first front-running freedom fighter older than 70. The next president of America will be a first.

We won’t truly be in an election of firsts, however, until we judge every candidate by where they stand. We won’t arrive where we should be until we no longer talk about skin color or gender.

Now that Barack Obama steps to the front of the Democratic field, we need to stop talking about his race, and start talking about his policies and his politics.

The reality is this: Though the Democrats will not have a nominee until August, unless Hillary Clinton drops out, Obama is now the frontrunner, and it’s time America takes a closer and deeper look at him.

Some pundits are calling him the next John F. Kennedy. He’s not. He’s the next George McGovern. And it’s time people learned the facts. Because the truth is that Obama is the single-most liberal senator in the entire U.S. Senate.

He is more liberal than Ted Kennedy, Bernie Sanders, or Mrs. Clinton.  Never in my life have I seen a presidential frontrunner whose rhetoric is so far removed from his record. Walter Mondale promised to raise our taxes, and he lost. George McGovern promised military weakness; he lost. Michael Dukakis promised a Liberal domestic agenda, and he lost.

Yet Obama is promising all those things, and he’s not behind in the polls. Why? Because the major media have dealt with him as if he were in a beauty pageant. Obama talks about getting past party, getting past red and blue, to lead the United States of America. But let’s look at the more defined strokes of who he is beneath this superficial “beauty.”

Start with national security, since the president’s most important duties are as commander-in-chief. During the summer, Obama talked about invading Pakistan, a nation armed with nuclear weapons; meeting without preconditions with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who vows to destroy Israel and create another Holocaust; and Kim Jong II, who is murdering and starving his people, but emphasized that the nuclear option was off the table against terrorists -- something no president has ever taken off the table since we created nuclear weapons in the 1940s.

Even Democrats who have worked in national security condemned all those remarks. Obama is a foreign-policy novice who would put our national security at risk.

Next, consider economic policy. For all its faults, our health-care system is the strongest in the world. And free trade agreements, created by Bill Clinton as well as President Bush, have made more goods more affordable so that even people of modest means can live a life that no one imagined a generation ago.

Yet Obama promises to raise taxes on “the rich.” How to fix Social Security? Raise taxes. How to fix Medicare? Raise taxes. Prescription drugs? Raise taxes. Free college? Raise taxes. Socialize medicine? Raise taxes.

His solution to everything is to have government take it over. Big Brother on steroids, funded by your paycheck.

Finally, look at the social issues. Obama had the audacity to open a stadium rally by saying, “All praise and glory to God!” but says that Christian leaders speaking for life and marriage have “hijacked” Christianity. He is pro-partial birth abortion, and promises to appoint Supreme Court justices who will rule any restriction on it unconstitutional. He espouses the abortion views of Margaret Sanger, one of the early advocates of racial cleansing.

His spiritual leaders endorse homosexual marriage, and he is moving in that direction. In Illinois he refused to vote against a statewide ban on all handguns in the state. These are radical left, Hollywood, and San Francisco values, not Middle America values.

His vision of “bringing America together” means saying that those who disagree with his agenda for America are hijackers or warmongers. Uniting the country means adopting his liberal agenda and abandoning any conflicting beliefs.

In an election of firsts, let’s first make sure we elect the person who is qualified to be our president in a nuclear age during a global civilizational war.

According to Revelations, the anti-Christ will be a man, in his 40s, of Muslim descent, who will deceive the nations with persuasive language, and have a massive Christ-like appeal. The prophecy says that people will flock to him, and he will promise false hope and world peace, and when he is in power, will destroy everything. Is it Obama?