The votes are in — now what?
To the editor:
Before too many more Republican faithful begin wringing their hands in anger and frustration -- over what, I am not sure -- let's think about this:
Less than 200 years ago, the difficult circumstances of anyone of mixed race in this country was beyond imagination. (Frederick Douglass' "Slave Narratives" describes the brutal conditions of an American slave and is good, informative reading.) The fact that Americans have elected a president of mixed race says as much about the quality of Americans as it does about the person elected. The majority of the electorate was able to look beyond race, and that is, it would seem, what America is, in part, really all about.
Insofar as the issues go, those ever-consuming policies regarding the war, taxes, medical care, the environment, personal choices regarding abortion, marriage, and so on, everyone understands that the president, Democrats and Republicans will have to work together to make our country stronger and greater in the years ahead. This election has proved we are capable of doing so.
John Esperian
LAS VEGAS
Stop, listen, serve
To the editor:
Well, it is over. In my 60-some-odd years of crawling and walking on this planet, I have never seen nor endured a more aggressive presidential election.
Each side pulled out every weapon in the arsenal -- investigative reporting, innuendos, qualifications, friends and associates, religion, race, gender, age -- and then the race got dirty. At the end of Tuesday, we had a new president.
Congratulations. However, no matter who won, no matter whom you might have voted for, perhaps beginning today we all understand that this country was founded for all of us.
Can we put the heated contest behind us and stop -- and listen? If we listen with the intent to hear all voices, we just may find that like exhausted warriors at the end of the battle, our elected officials and our neighbors could join together and make the battle worth the fight for everyone.
America, let us be Americans and move ahead for a cause that is bigger than all of us could ever imagine.
Mr. President, how may we be of service?
James T. Medick
LAS VEGAS
A doomed party
To the editor:
Well, well, well. The Republicans got stomped Tuesday, and rightfully so.
I had been a member of the GOP most of my adult life. As far as I'm concerned, the real Republican Party died a few years back. Now it is run by an assortment of opportunists, incompetents and arrogant fools. They completely ignored the traditions of the party and instead played politics -- and lost.
Until the rank and file removes this current crop of self-important, useless big shots, the party is doomed.
BRUCE FEHER
LAS VEGAS
GOP is DOA
To the editor:
The Republican Party, with its inability to pick a respected, popular candidate to run for president and its lax and pathetic performance in the House and Senate for years, has now lost to a Democratic Congress that had accomplished less in two years than any Congress in modern history.
You can't get a bigger defeat that this, and I believe we shouldn't try to bring the Republican Party back. Drop it and start over with a new party that has a backbone and a constitutional, pro-American attitude.
BRUCE ADDIS
ST. GEORGE, UTAH
Formula revealed
To the editor:
President-elect Obama is now set to implement his new tax plan. I just implemented mine.
My family has never made more than $250,000 in a year. But we've paid plenty of taxes nearly every year for the past 16 years. We already figured out that we can cut our income by half and only take home about 10 percent less.
First, we stop using the service that supported our efforts to earn that additional 50 percent more. That immediately means one more person in Las Vegas will lose his job, and it means I won't be paying taxes on that income any longer. In fact, I'll get a nice "refund" check every year President Obama is in office.
Not only am I sure that President Obama didn't anticipate people such as me being offended by his notion that we didn't contribute enough already, I'm also sure he didn't consider we'd figure out the formula above. We'll be spending more time with our kids.
Meanwhile, the teacher who really makes far too little now will suffer even more. Why? Her landlord's taxes will go up 4 percent. So will her rent. Her grocer's taxes will go up 4 percent. So will her groceries. And so on.
Further, I and others will be spending far less. Which means less sales taxes collected. Further state budget cuts will mean she may not even get her fraction of a cost of living pay increase next year because there will be no funds to pay for it.
Maybe her recently unemployed husband will have an even harder time finding a job, because small businesses will have to cover their increased tax bill by making further labor or hiring cuts.
Trust me, middle- to lower-income Americans will not be helped by this. They'll be economically devastated. Just watch it all unfold.
Cyndy Jezzard-Gonzalez
LAS VEGAS
Red to blue -- to red
To the editor:
It is unfortunate that the election of the first African-American president will coincide with the largest expansion in the size of the federal government in the history of the United States, with the accompanying reductions in personal rights and freedoms as well as a deepening economic depression with the miseries of unemployment, inflation and diminished world standing.
Historians will look back on this event and note it to be the critical point at which the country moved from a representative republic toward communism.
John Buehler
HENDERSON
Parasite in chief
To the editor:
A striking difference between the liberal and conservative mind-set came to my attention on the day after the United States elected Sen. Barack Obama as our 44th president.
Liberals around me talk freely about how the whole world changed Tuesday night. They talked of African-Americans dancing on street corners as they drove into work, and of news coverage from around the world depicting peoples of all nations dancing and celebrating.
I, on the other hand, felt like it was Wednesday. This is not a gloomy reflection of despair on my part. It's just an acknowledgment that life goes on.
I came to realize that liberals actually base their day-to-day happiness to some extent on whether the government is red or blue. It is a mind-set I cannot fully understand. These ecstatic people are not suddenly going to get free gasoline, and their grocery budget will not suddenly be less expensive. An Obama administration will not make state-sponsored terrorists suddenly love us.
Government does not produce anything. It does not create. The only thing government can do is impede the progress of the productive. Government does this by taking under penalty of jail from the productive and using the bounty in a bureaucratically wasteful process.
Sometimes the spending is necessary, such as defense and infrastructure. Other times it is not. Either way, government is a parasite. And to base your happiness on the party of the head parasite is delusional.
I know in my heart that I am responsible for my own success and my own happiness. FDR, JFK, LBJ, and BO (we can't call him BHO because we are not allowed to refer to his middle name) have no effect on my happiness. John McCain would not have affected my happiness. And BO won't, either.
Perhaps BO's policies will make it harder for businesses to expand, more expensive to put fuel in my car or heat my home. Perhaps BO's policies will tax me for driving a pickup and funnel a nickel out of every dollar to pay people not to be productive members of society. But his policies will not affect my happiness.
And the BO administration will not make Parisians love Americans.
ROBERT Ketelle
HENDERSON
THE WRITER IS THE REVIEW-JOURNAL'S PHOTO ARCHIVIST.
Shame on the R-J
To the editor:
I have voted in 13 presidential elections, starting with John F. Kennedy. I have read countless newspapers throughout the United States of every political persuasion who have enjoyed the success and experienced the failure of their endorsed candidates.
In most instances, the editorial boards of the particular newspapers have shown through their editorials the mature and balanced assessment of the defeat or election of their endorsed candidates.
The editorial board of the Review-Journal has again disappointed me and many of my fellow avid readers with its juvenile and disgraceful editorial demeaning the historic election to the presidency of the United States of America a person of color.
Although we disagree politically, I have always respected and defended your right to dissent, but never -- never! -- have I read an editorial so full of negativity as the one published Wednesday. Not a single word of wisdom, not a single wish of good luck to the newly elected president of the United States.
Fortunately -- and I thank God for this -- the Review-Journal is not a microcosm of the newsprint media of this great nation of ours. It is truly a sad task on my part to have to say this about this old institution of the Fourth Estate: Shame on the editorial board and publisher of the Review-Journal!
Joe Beltran
NORTH LAS VEGAS
Here it comes
To the editor:
Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., has called for a 25 percent cut in military spending, saying the Pentagon has to start choosing from its many weapons programs. With Democrats soon in control of both houses of Congress and the White House, cuts in military spending are very likely to occur, as was the case with Democratic Presidents Carter and Clinton.
So, where should the funding cuts be made? Should the Air Force close a base? Should it be one that serves a military airlift, or should it be a base that supports fighter interceptors? Maybe the Air Force should reduce the number of F-22 Raptors it is purchasing to replace its fleet of aging F-15 air superiority fighters. By reducing the number of F-22 Raptors, they could also reduce the number of air-to-air missiles that would be needed to arm those interceptors.
But if they did that, would our Air Force still be able to control the skies over future battlefields and protect our ground forces on those battlefields?
Should the Navy scrap one of their aircraft carrier battle groups, or maybe cancel the new San Antonio-class of amphibious transport dock ships they are adding to the fleet? I am sure the Democrats would love to scrap the Navy's newest carrier, the USS Ronald Reagan. Or, maybe the Navy could scrap one or two of the nuclear attack submarines that protect the shipping lanes and deter a nuclear attack on the United States.
Should the Army disband one of its major commands? Perhaps it can disband the Southern Command because nothing much seems to be happening in South America ... for now. Or, maybe they can just eliminate a division, a group, or a few regiments and battalions. Do they really need all those Abrams main battle tanks and combat helicopters?
When Democrats threaten to drastically reduce military spending, they should first determine how those proposed cuts will affect our military's ability to carry out its missions. Funding cuts of about 25 percent most likely will have an adverse effect on military effectiveness.
Having such irresponsible people in control of Congress and our military does not make me feel very safe. Other than people such as Rep. Frank and his ilk, I am pretty sure the only other people who support his proposal are the sworn enemies of America.
S.G. Hayes
LAS VEGAS
