TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Hernando Today

'We The People'

ADVERTISEMENT

The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 5, 2008

Updated: 10/05/2008 10:59 am

'We The People'

I've stood by and watched for years, decades, even generations as special interests and stridently vocal minority groups have assailed our common decency, and our way of life.

Examples include creationism vs. evolution, separation of church and state, Roe vs. Wade, gay marriages and the general decline of morality in this country. The recent financial crisis is also due in large part to mismanagement and outright felonious fraud committed by thieves and aided and abetted by our politicians, our elected leaders.

Our elected leaders from local, state and federal arenas seem to be concerned with nothing more than lining their pockets and having a sense of power and entitlement. They consistently disregard common sense and morality in favor of graft and corruption.

Our strength as a nation has been in what we produce and ship to the rest of the world. Since the 1960s, our output has shrunk year by year. This has come about due to CEOs have outsourced jobs and money to other countries in the name of profit. Our people struggle to make ends meet, while CEOs and leaders pocket millions of dollars. These people have no regard for fellow Americans or the United States; and most of all, they have no regard for God! And therein lies the problem.

"We the People" have remained largely silent in the face of all of this; only now, there is an impending sense of "doom" that permeates the talk of "We the People." Our silence has been, and still is, deafening. It is time now, before it is too late to speak up and effect a change.

Our elected leaders, and those who clamor to be our leaders, lie through their teeth so bad it's impossible to choose. They say what they think you want to hear and do whatever suits them when they assume office. Our elected leaders fudge the numbers to skew things to their benefit; hence the current housing, economic and financial crisis.

A large percentage of our jobs are now in the service sector. We need to increase the production sector with more skilled people and put our abilities to better use. We don't need to outsource our national defense contracts.

Our power grid should be revamped, and alternate fuel sources explored and put to use, thereby stopping the stranglehold foreign oil has on us. Most of this is simply common sense, yet our elected leaders show a serious shortage of this quality.

This brings me to the abysmal deficiency of our educational system. We teach our children to pass a multiple choice test, but not how to think for themselves. Good teachers are castigated or simply retired in order to perpetuate the system. Our young are being wasted. No wonder they turn to drugs. Gas prices are getting so high that people have to make a choice between gas and food. How are we all going to feel when we do go to the store and it's closed or services cut back because the employees can't afford the gas to get to work?

As usual, it's the middle class that is being squeezed. These are the people that are being ignored and crushed.

Now, since we have in effect as a people rejected his teachings, these blessings are being withdrawn. I don't believe we have consciously rejected him, but in our silence, we condone it. It's time to change that or suffer the consequences. Perhaps it's already too late. However, I live in faith and hope that it's not.

I'm not perfect, never have been, but yet it really does not matter whether you are Republican, Democrat or Independent. The bottom line is we're American. The majority of us are hard-working, decent people who have been silent too long.

I don't claim to know how to solve our nation's huge problem, but I do know this - if "We The People" don't make ourselves heard and unite for common-sense approaches to these problems, then we have no one but ourselves to blame when this country falls. I'm not a particularly smart person, yet I fear what is coming; and I can see the writing on the wall. Can you?

May God Bless America, again.

Doug Harvey

Brooksville

Vote 'Yes'

On Independence

I am one citizen and taxpayer in favor of an independent fire district. I've lived in Hernando County for the past 28 years and have seen the tremendous growth that has occurred. The county fire service is adequate, at best, for county residents. I don't want adequate. I want what I paid for, a topnotch fire and rescue service with enough manpower to cover the 45 square miles Spring Hill encompasses.

Hernando County is about 500 square miles in area. The county has 129 certified firefighters and rescue personnel, according to the county human resource department, covering about 455 of those miles. Spring Hill Fire Rescue covers an area about 45 square miles and has 98 certified firefighters and rescue personnel. Spring Hill Fire Rescue is a highly rated fire department as rated by national fire standards, one reason being the number of firefighters in relation to the population. Spreading SHFR out to cover the county will only increase response times and reduce effectiveness, causing a possible down grade in rating, which could increase insurance premiums.

Here is another interesting fact. According to the records at the property appraiser's office, 74 percent of the homes in Spring Hill pay less for fire and rescue protection than if they lived in the county. So all the naysayers haven't checked the facts.

I don't want the county taking assets that I helped pay for and use them outside of Spring Hill. You all have seen the waste in county government over the years, the clean up at DPW, the slowness of paving roads, the Elgin Road fiasco. Our fire department is working fine. There's an old saying, "if it's not broken, don't fix it." People of Spring Hill, don't let the county take our fire district from us. Vote 'yes' on Nov. 4.

Bill Koenig

Spring Hill

Independent Fire

District? No Way

Wow, four weeks paid leave for drug abuse!

Just one more of several reasons why we need to vote "no" for an independent Spring Hill Fire Rescue district. I sure hope most of the Spring Hill population is reading the Hernando Today and learning the facts about what their tax dollars are being spent on. I sure wish that this Rob Giammarco would run for county commissioner instead of fire commissioner or better yet, both. He has my vote.

Just think of all the things this gentleman would uncover where our tax dollars are being spent and wasted. The other fire board chairman, Charles Rayborn, sounds like he promotes this type of behavior and will probably be one of those "yes" votes.

Walter Searle

Spring Hill

McCain-Palin Would

Continue Bush Legacy

According to the dictionary, maverick means "lost unbranded calf, nonconformist, unconventional person, eccentric, rebel, odd one out. Sen. John McCain speaks with pride of being a "maverick" and brags that Gov. Sarah Palin is also a "maverick," which he says is one of the reasons he selected her as his running mate.

Well, people, with the problems facing the United States today, the last thing we need is a pair of mavericks running our country. There's an old saying "people don't change, they just get older." If that's true, then McCain is still the same rebellious prankster he was at the Naval Academy where he graduated fifth from the bottom of his class of 899. Just think about that for a minute: He graduated 894th out of a class of 899. One has to ask why? Is he really that dumb?

According to his biography, his low grades were due to the fact that he wasn't a good student, but it was also because he was often "in conflict with higher ranking personnel and didn't always follow the rules." Is that a polite way of saying he was constantly breaking the rules and thumbing his nose at authority?

For the last eight years we've had a "bring 'em back dead or alive" Texas governor who has been nothing but an embarrassment to the United States. Why would anyone want these mavericks to continue with the Bush legacy and not only be an embarrassment to our country but a laughing stock to the entire world?

Two mavericks, one graduating fifth from the bottom of his class of 899, and the other with foreign affairs experience because she can see Russia from her house. What a joke!

Pat Hernandez

Brooksville

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT