This is Viewpoints for Saturday, March 5, 2016
Better system
In response to Charles Lewis' letter March 2. I think the best way for the electoral college to be set up would be to award electors according to the popular vote in each Congressional District. The two senatorial votes would go to the candidate who wins the popular vote statewide. This would return the vote closer to the people. Rural districts wouldn't be overruled by major population centers in a state. In California in 2012, Romney would have gotten 13 of the 55 electoral votes instead of nothing. This system would also make a candidate have to focus on all of a states' districts, instead of just the heavily populated ones. Nebraska and Maine already do it. Just something to think about.
—John Daugherty
Gray
White folk's burden
A few years ago former NAACP President Benjamin Jealous hit the nail squarely on the head when he said, "There's sort of a persistent misperception that talking about race is black folk's burden. Ultimately, only men can end sexism, and only white people can end racism." African-Americans have been willing to dialogue with whites on race for some time. America's white community is the drawback keeping inter-racial talk from occurring.
The Republican Party is primarily made up of white people. Like it does with poverty and economic inequality, the GOP rarely, if ever, acknowledges racism still exists in our country.
With the ball in their court, Republicans should take the initiative to promote and begin to engage in long-overdue dialogue on race. The white church also has a big responsibility, morally and spiritually, of contributing to the dialogue process. We need many white Martin Luther King Jr.'s today.
I agree with a statement written over 50 years ago by author James Baldwin in one of his books, "The Negro is the key figure in his country, and the American future is precisely as bright or as dark as his." Talking about race in America is white folk's burden.
—Paul L. Whiteley Sr.
Louisville, Kentucky
Devil in the garden
Nearly every county and some urban homes in the South use to have a garden overseen by a mother or Grandmother to add flavor to the meals they prepared for the family. There was a weed that had beautiful small blooms that invaded the garden earning the old name "devil in the garden." Once there, it was the devil to get it out.
Citizens have been forced to suffer through "political correctness" to the point that one wondered if it would ever end. The ongoing presidential campaign leads me to possibly believe that PC could very well be replaced with what I describe as "lack of specificity" by those with a "R" or "D" after their names
LOS is defined as, vague promises lacking specifics, implementation schedule, method of payment and failure to answer questions posed. We have endured the political "devil in the garden" in Washington for seven-plus years and the potential replacement could be equally bad, even worst although we have yet to enter the last month of presidential pardons and clemency season. Can it reach the level of President Bill Clinton's total of 456 pardons and clemencies during his administrations, 140 people in his final hours. Now, will we hear the "what does it matter" question?
That answer could be found in the comparison of the names of those individuals involved in the Clinton pardons (not the person pardoned) with the pardons to be made by President Obama.
—Arthur D. Brook
Macon
This story was originally published March 4, 2016 at 5:26 PM with the headline "This is Viewpoints for Saturday, March 5, 2016 ."