The Editor:
America will never have a chance of being truly great if we don’t stop letting some of our fellow citizens (neighbors) die because they cannot afford the lifesaving medicine they need.
Thousands of people die every year in spite of the fact that our economy can afford to save them. This is inhumane, this is un-American and this is un-Christian. As a country we have decided to let them die. It’s nuts, don’t you think? You know, our politicians think that is the way we want it. We are really better than that, aren’t we?
Jim Thomson
Blaine
The Editor:
On behalf of the all the vendors and handcrafters at the Drayton Harbor Holiday Bazaar, we would like to thank some wonderful people. To the Imus family and Jacaranda Land and Development, Al Dahl, and Molly Ernst with The Northern Light, we extend our heartfelt gratitude. To all those who came and shopped, thank you for supporting our local businesses. We wish everyone a wonderful holiday season and look forward to next year.
Jessica Large
Kristi Shipp
The Editor:
It is interesting that much of the general public and many self-identified experts do not appreciate how uniquely effective the electoral college is in the selection of our President. Maybe it’s because of the term “college.” So here we will use the phrase electoral representatives. The other interesting misconception is that the United States is a democracy, and as such the popular vote should be the deciding factor.
First, the U.S.A. is not a pure democracy, it is a democratic republic – meaning the populace votes democratically for representatives, who then represent their entity at the next governing level. If we functioned as a pure democracy, there would be continual havoc and near-endless durations for issue resolutions – including the selection of the President.
Furthermore, the federal government was constitutionally established as a strong states’ rights entity. Sovereign states existed prior to our federal government. There was serious debate as to whether there should actually be a federal government. The constitution was written to identify the limits of the federal government relative to the sovereign states.
One noted federal component established and populated to enhance states’ rights is the Senate. Two senators represent each state, regardless of population. At first, to further enhance states’ rights, the selection of senators was done by state governors or legislators, and not to be voted on by the populace as house representatives are. That went by the way many decades ago. States’ rights are a core concept for the governance of our country.
The electoral representative concept provides balance between states’ rights and popular vote. Popular vote in each state identifies how their electoral representatives should vote, and the number of representatives for each state is based on its population. The total number of representatives in the federal government per state is two senators plus the applicable number of representatives.
Two components of this method are relative to populace – because the electoral weight is based on popular representation, not actual votes, even those who did not vote have impact. The only states’ rights aspect of presidential selection is that the state representatives Electoral College honor their state’s directive.
Peter Werner
Blaine
Comments
No comments on this item Please log in to comment by clicking here