EDITOR:This is scary. We're a month from the election and it appears that Michigan is poised to make the same mistake again by sending Democrats like Stupak and Levin back so they can dig a bigger hole to throw Michigan and America into.
It also looks like you are going to put Obama in office. Driving around the U.P., I see far too many Stupak and Obama signs.
I do hear words of encouragement from Iron County's Patti Ashcraft but that does nothing to mitigate my feeling of frustration that Yoopers, a race known for their rugged individualism and independence, would help put these socialists into office.
It's all the more depressing when you understand that if the Dems get control of government as predicted, we may lose rights that you can't get back except by force of arms. At the very least, these socialists will put the entire country into the same condition as Michigan is in; that is a depressed economy.
As a retired soldier, in the sunset of my life, I can only take solace that I lived my life in relative freedom. Since I'm totally retired now, I know that all my efforts are to make American life better for those who would carry on after I'm gone. So, I hope you will heed my warning when I assert that if you vote any Dem into office at any level higher than county, you are endorsing their position that only government drives the American condition. Our founders founded this country on the premise that the American people are the engine of this country. But, if you do really believe in a nanny state, vote Democrat.
I come to my conservatism honestly because I spent 43 years of my life in government service. My experience is in technical electronics, technical and general logistics and government contracting of goods and services.
During that time, I learned one unequivocal fact: the private sector does absolutely everything better than the government, except when the government is allowed to meddle with the private sector.
l have learned that, with the uncommon exception of a few dedicated employees, there is very little internal motivation of the employees who are expected to deliver services to the citizens. In government, delivering a service is incidental - almost accidental. The reason is because government competition is more geared toward how well the employee pleases the boss than toward how well a service is delivered to the public. Elsewhere, we call this brown-nosing but it's prized and encouraged in government service. While good service providers do exist at the public interface level, they are extremely rare in government management. Any employee who doesn't pay attention to this dynamic will remain at the lower levels of government unless he's extremely lucky in getting honest supervisors. Anyone who has gone to a government office to get real work done, can attest to the attitudes of most employees there - and now you know why.
And now, the Dems want to control health care, oil production, housing, and a myriad of other disciplines through government. And, they tell you anything to win.
Before Lyndon Johnson, Democrats worked to marshal the power of the American economic system toward raising the condition of the people, but now, they're not only trying to redistribute wealth but are trying to control our markets through controlling supervisory regulation, forcing social engineering on markets and actually taking over companies and entire sectors of the economy.
You should understand that when you introduce government into any sector of the economy, not only are you placing defective decision-making and inefficiency between you and the service, but, you're adding overhead to the service that either you'll pay for, or, everyone else will pay for in their taxes.
In addition to these handicaps to efficiency, you get a lack of imagination that only government is capable of.
So, vote for Stupak, Levin, Obama or any other Democrat above the county level and get $10 a gallon gasoline, inefficient government, lost jobs and lost liberties.
But, before you do vote, dig out and read your copy of "Animal Farm." Put yourself in the place of the horse and the Dems in the place of the pigs.
Maybe then you'll understand what you're dealing with. If you don't know what "Animal Farm" is, you know what the Dems have done to education.
Howard S. Madsen
Crystal Fall