At a crossroads
Dear editor:
Our country is at a crossroads. Watching the news around the world and listening to Trump's responses is an extended course in Civics. Seeing a person advocate to be "ruler" for life and a Congress funded by the corporations our government was intended to protect us against arguing over who has the right to demand fealty has many people believing we are heading for another civil war. This time it won't be over slavery but who rules in Washington. Period.
Running a country is not a part-time job that one does when the mood hits you or the weather is too bad to play golf.
We're living in contentious times where technology is a factor that we've never experienced before in our history. The rules are not being implemented as fast as they need to be to keep up with those that would use technology to undermine and destroy our democracy. Hacking the voter polls and voter registrations nationwide while placing "trolls" in social media groups like Facebook and Twitter are all new to running a secure and free electorate. No one is stepping up to try and stop them because it helps the party in control while inhibiting the ones that are not.
Before we go to armed conflict because a group that believes its opinions are being ignored or they feel threatened by imagined or real groups that don't share their ideology and think the only response is taking up arms, we need to step back a pace and reconsider what it is we're fighting for or about. We are not a white supremacist or anti-Semite or anti-LGBTQ nation founded on the ruling class to be only those with the money to buy our representatives in Congress or the presidency. We are a nation of immigrants that took the land from the original owners. We need to recognize our past and start behaving like we want to be what the founders originally planned for us.
Judy Ladd
Hot Springs
Editorial on 05/09/2019