90 a day

Dear Editor,

Before every presidential election we always tend to say “this is the most important election in our lifetime.” This time this narrative might be true. I have been watching national elections since I was 10 years old. When other kids were watching cartoons and playing with crayons, I could identify the platforms of all the major candidates in the Republican and Democratic parties.

I was a nerd before we knew what nerds were. However, I cannot remember any election cycle as puzzling and possibly consequential as the present one we’re in now.

Not since 1968 has there been a bit more drama, propaganda and misinformation. In 1968 the country was dealing with was Vietnam War, which lasted more than 10 years. The assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the riots afterwards highlighted the intense racial divisions. Also, the assassination of Robert Kennedy prompted the first major anti-gun law.

Forty-seven years later in 2015, we are still wrestling with some of the same issues. A war in Afghanistan and the escalation of the war into Syria and Iran has lasted longer than Vietnam. Since 1968, more Americans have been killed by handgun violence than in all of the wars in our nation’s history.

Ninety people a day; high school, college students and even children in kindergarten have been killed. Those are the headlines. Today in Florida the state legislature is actually talking about having college students bring guns to school. With a permit of course.

Most murders are not political or the heartbreaking killings that went on this summer in Charleston, S.C., of people in attending church, most gun violence happens in the home between love ones or friends who got upset about something. For whatever reason, 90 people a day in the United States.

This is not a problem that can be solved by simply opposing the National Rifle Association; President Obama or Vice President Biden cannot preach at enough funerals. This is a moral issue whether you believe in carrying guns or not. Ninety people a day should be unacceptable.

Republicans like Donald Trump say they want to make America great again. As if somehow America went down in greatness under President Obama. The political pundits like Joe Scarborough say Americans don’t feel strong anymore. Why? Is it because President Obama tried to make healthcare better for more Americans?

Do Republicans only feel great when we have American soldiers policing the world? Maybe they would feel great about America if we had more soldiers dying in Iran and the Ukraine fighting against the Russians and the Iranians.

But when it comes to gun control, all they talk about is the right to bear arms. Somehow the Republicans don’t see the greatness of America is being civilized. You don’t see this gun violence in Japan, Britain or even Canada. Not even percentage wise.

Conservative thought, at least by the present crop, said you cannot spend your way out of social problems, but they cannot spend enough money fighting wars.

In this election cycle, one guy insults women, Mexicans and even prisoners of war and his poll numbers go up. One woman running for president fired 30,000 people while she was also shown the door. She hasn’t been hired since but she wants to be president. Dr. Carson, a brilliant neurosurgeon, gets his political street credit by insulting the president at a prayer dinner. He’s a Christian who conveniently forgets this is the United States and not Israel of the Bible.

Yes this may be the most important presidential election since 1968, and maybe for not all the right reasons.

– Rivers-Cleveland –