The writer Robert Heinlein once said: “Political tags — such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth — are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire. The former are idealists acting from highest motives for the greatest good of the greatest number. The latter are surly curmudgeons, suspicious and lacking in altruism. But they are more comfortable neighbors than the other sort.”
So it is where we find ourselves under single party rule?
No difference between Republicans or Democrats. I think I can mark the official slide into serfdom after the repudiation of Ron Paul.
I guess being a serf isn’t so bad. Many Medieval serfs had good life under their aristocratic masters. But if you don’t like that and wonder what to do remember that Article V Constitutional Convention I once mentioned?
Silly, huh? Except that states are already asserting themselves. Thank you, Gov. Corbett of Pennsylvania, for stalling on the health care exchanges, the key component, without which there can be no Obamacare.
Pennsylvania joins 21 other states, perhaps more now, in refusing to start the exchanges.
Now to be sure, the Department of Health and Human Services can send in federal employees to do what the states won’t.
Good luck with that, we’re broke and even Conceder of the House Boehner would have a time selling the employment of tens of thousands of new federal workers.
So I pose this thought: If the states can nullify Obamacare what else can they do? Term limits? Neutering the Supreme Court? Shut down the IRS? Those are a few fine ideas.
It isn’t pie in the sky, because the states are already doing it.
Let’s help them out, because I’d like nothing better than to stick it to those trying to control others for the greater good. I guess it is the surly curmudgeon in me.
James Parsons, former resident
Carlisle, Pa.
Editorials
Controlling others for the common good is not good
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Editorial Cartoon - 05/18/2013
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Maryland has stopped being “The Free State”
I am a lifetime member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Disabled American Veterans and, last but not least, the National Rifle Association. I am a yearly member of the American Legion.
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Outrageous
Distrust of government secrecy has been elevated to an exceptional level with the disclosure the Justice Department covertly examined two months of Associated Press phone records to determine who leaked details to the AP about a foiled terrorist plot.
This amounts to spying on an American news organization — common practice in dictatorships but scary conduct in a democratic system that prizes the public value of an independent watchdog press. -
Prevention
The Allegany County Board of Health on Tuesday heard some alarming numbers involving overdoses involving drugs and alcohol. Fortunately, the group already has a plan to ease the situation.
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Financial gutting will damage school system
I am writing in response to the Allegany County Commissioners’ efforts to cut local education spending to the lowest possible level allowed under state law.
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Cemetery organization plans events to mark Memorial Day
This upcoming Memorial Day marks the 30th anniversary of the Cumberland Historic Cemetery Organization (CHCO).
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Better fix it
The West Virginia Division of Highways should not give up on improving safety at the intersection of U.S. Route 220 and Stoney Run Road in Keyser merely because the intersection does not meet the state’s criteria for a traffic signal.
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That many?
Only about one in every four people trust the federal government, according to a recent Pew Research survey.
We’re surprised that number isn’t close to zero. -
It’s time to ratify Equal Rights Amendment
I have three words I want to say: “It is time.”
By those three words, I am referring to passage of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). -
Preserve these things for future generations
This is an open letter to the mayor of Cumberland and Allegany County commissioners:
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