It is time to reclaim democracy

7/24/2007

In a democracy, it has been said, people should not be afraid of their governments, governments should be afraid of the people. Surely that is what our Founding Fathers thought when they set up this American government. Today they would weep at what it has become.

We have a group of thugs that has taken over the leadership of our government. They do not represent the people, as they have sworn to do, but, rather, the arms industry, the oil industry, and corporate America. They are agents, pure and simple, masquerading as patriotic leaders.

Do the American citizens realize that these agents are selling out the middle class to foreign agents in China and India? It's about the money, it has always been about the money. Traitors camouflaged as patriotic Americans. Con men. And, boy have we been conned.

I think there ought to be a Million American March on Washington this summer with citizens each carrying a simple sign: "We the People." No kooky speakers on the podium, no radicals attacking the police, just honest, fed-up American citizens demanding that their elected leaders represent the people for a change.

Demand action from Congress and the White House. Give them 30 days. If they don't act, these million Americans will go home and begin erecting barricades in the streets of their hometowns to disrupt the complacency, to wake up the slumbering citizens. Call them to the same action that our first patriots did in 1776. It's time to reclaim our democracy.

Denis Eble

Westcastle Drive

Many people who follow the mainstream media and Al Gore groupies are having anxiety issues over global warming. They have been told that scientific studies have proven that it is their carbon footprints that are responsible for global warming.

What they are not being told is that the scientific studies they relate to are politically and monetarily motivated and, as scientists like Freeman Dyson said, "are full of fudge factors." Also, the well-intentioned studies are mostly done with land-based computer models incapable of factoring in the necessary parameters to obtain accurate temperature readings.

They also are not being told that the real cause of global warming is solar activity or solar flares, or that all the planets around the sun are warming.

They are not being told as well that both temperatures and carbon levels were higher before automobiles and during the Eocene Era, which was before man.

The main thing they are not being told is that wars, both hot and cold, have been the most effective government program for transferring wealth and power, and it was during the 1980s, with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the lack of war, that another program was sought out as a back-up program for transferring wealth. That program is global warming.

Today, billions of dollars are being transferred through taxes, regulations, and foreign aid in the name of global warming. It's time Americans wake up.

H.L. Mencken explained it best when he said, "The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."

Jim Boehm

Drummond Road

It is time to use the technology I am sure must be available to develop an implantable national ID micro-processing chip into every U.S.-born citizen.

The chip could be implanted at birth through a simple procedure. It would contain the person's name, age, Social Security number, medical information, even an identifier that would serve as a signature for legal documents.

I'm sure by now we even have the technology to include a tracking sensor (much like OnStar) on the chip to protect us from kidnapping, identity theft, escaping the law, failure to pay, etc. The possibilities are endless. No more passports or Social Security or Medicare cards to lose.

I also think it would be very difficult to forge an illegal chip, thereby securing our borders. No chip, no entry. I haven't figured out where to place the chip yet, but I'm sure the government will have a suggestion.

Dave Suter

Park Forest Drive

I have worked part time as a barista in a coffee shop for two years. I love working there and my co-workers are wonderful people. Generally I enjoy helping customers, but incidents of inappropriate customer behavior have been rising. I can't count the times when a customer has come up to my counter and, in a condescending tone and without looking at me, barked, "Get me a grande latte." They throw a bill at me across the counter and don't bother to thank me. One customer wouldn't condescend to pay her $3.75 for coffee and a brownie before berating me for its high cost, a cost set by a corporate office in another state.

Clerks at stores are paid (however meagerly) to assist customers, but no one is paid well enough to take verbal abuse. The following are suggestions when patronizing local businesses: Frustrated when an item isn't available? Discuss your disappointment with a manager. Paying too much? Ask politely for a customer comment card and take it up with corporate. When you come up to a register, make eye contact with the employee. "Please," "thank you," and "take care" are still magic words. Charged too much at the register? Politely tell the employee. Do not accuse her of incompetence. Line too long? You may be in a hurry but you don't know the situation in the store. Patience is key.

It seems like so little to ask, but a moment of courtesy toward the person making your latte goes a long way toward making everyone's day better.

JoAnna Studer

Waterville

Democrats have been in power for over six months and the only thing I see happening is an ongoing struggle to be "king of Capitol Hill." Rather than work with the current administration to straighten out the mess of illegal immigration, Social Security, and other important issues, they seem to think that refusing to fund the war effort will solve the problems in Iraq and Afghanistan. I say, how about we, the taxpaying public, withhold funding for all their pork-barrel projects until they get to work and resolve the issues we sent them there to take care of?

Robert Kelly

Ottawa Lake, Mich.

Once again, The Blade has written an editorial (July 6) about the dreadful state of public schools. I would like to remind The Blade that Ottawa Hills, Sylvania, and Perrysburg have public schools that are doing just fine. If The Blade meant to say that schools in Toledo are failing, I would disagree; most Washington Local schools are rated effective or better.

It must have meant that Toledo Public Schools are failing. Ask the parents of students at Beverly, Crossgates, or Elmhurst if Toledo schools are failing their children and I believe most would say no.

Toledo has many neighborhoods, and many of them are not doing so well, what with high crime, drugs on the streets, fatherless families, and unwed, high-school moms. Many have high unemployment, no grocery stores or gas stations, and the only new stores are selling pay-day loans.

After 18 years of working for Toledo Public Schools, it has become obvious to me that most teachers work hard to teach their students, and that most parents want the children to succeed. Schools are like a mirror. They reflect the neighborhood where they are located.

Craig Frantz

Comet Avenue

The City of Toledo is anti-business. Toledo has the highest municipal tax rate in the region, and a mayor who will try to shut you down if you disagree with him. And don't forget the unions, which protest the creation and construction of all nonunion jobs. A 30 percent rebate on new income taxes generated? No thanks. There are friendlier business climates elsewhere in the region.

Eric Shreve

Holgate, Ohio