This is Viewpoints for Thursday, September 1, 2016

It can happen

Mainly because of the apathy of many in Middle Georgia and our unpreparedness about even the possibility of the closure of Robins Air Force Base after a Base Realignment and Closure Commission final report, we need to be ready for it. It would take several years for the base to close. Kelly Air Force Base in San Antonio and its closure would provide our own likely scenario.

What our community would likely experience after a base closure:

1. Loss of 23,000 civil service and military wages, retirement and health benefits.

2. Housing prices would drop radically. Vacant homes would be common.

3. Local and county government’s tax collections would be drastically reduced. Some employees would be laid off. Fewer police and firemen.

4. Malls and local stores and restaurants would experience mass closures.

5. Houston Healthcare would have to reduce its workforce.

The closure of RAFB could turn Warner Robins into a ghost town with many fewer residents and countless unsold homes. All the above sounds like doom and gloom and not even remotely possible, but it has happened all over America after base closures due to BRACS.

Ignorance is not bliss. A BRAC will be here in a few years, and there could be only two USAF depots in the DoD in the near future. Let’s hope that RAFB will not be one of them. Local apathy must be banished. Acronyms will not save us nor will patriotic water towers near football fields.

Free speech?

The fundamental transformation of free speech is well underway. Social engineering in our schools, colleges, news media and entertainment outlets has been the mechanism. The most notable is political correctness. It amounts to manipulation of our language to intimidate people into speaking and thinking in a particular way.

How about several college campuses banning conservative speakers? Everything now involves their judgment of what they deem hate speech. “Microaggressions” cause a run to “safe spaces.” What kind of dangerous, weak- minded people are being cultivated in these institutions?

In another example, the Bar Association wants to limit lawyers’ expression of viewpoints that it disapproves of. It has been characterized as being so broad it could mean anything. What country are we living in?

Hillary Clinton says she vows to shut down alt-right media sites. Google and Facebook and others are censoring certain words and phrases. Websites who have been reporting the leaked emails of Hillary Clinton are being blocked. Dr. Drew Pinsky is being released from his job at HLN for expressing his genuine concern over her health on an interview. Far worse has happened to others. Anyone who would want to stifle the viewpoint and ideas of people who don’t agree with them is clearly tyrannical. What don’t they want you to know?

If you don’t like what is being said, close the book, change the channel or if in person, walk out. But don’t deny others the right to write it, say it or hear it.

Core of the man

When asked what I have against the Republican presidential candidate, a squadron of neurons light up my brain. They zip from one anti-(name your minority here) comment to the next. The impulses fly over a phalanx of wafting yellow balloon-heads that mock the infirm, attack Gold Star parents, while some bulbous heads celebrate, “I called it! You go outside, you get shot.”

Eventually, the neurotransmitters gather around a big bubble of ignorance that contain the words, “He’s not a war hero,” then huddle quietly in front of a photograph of Capt. John McCain being dragged through the streets of Hanoi with broken bones exposed.

I’m an enlisted military veteran, so when a star varsity soccer, baseball and football player with a bone-spur deferment openly displays callous disrespect for the deeper-than-bone sacrifice of military servicemen, it gives me the ability to see straight through to the core of the man. Only after you’ve peered behind that curtain can you see the contemptuous soul that has been revealed to Hispanics, African Americans, the free press, believers in religious freedom and anyone else who the Republican presidential candidate thinks is the enemy.

Good luck

Being a Kentuckian, I must admit that I’m a little bit envious of the Democrats of Georgia this year. You’ve probably heard that during 2015 our commonwealth finally gave in to the relentless GOP domination of our nation’s southern states and elected a GOP governor. And, he’s a tea partier to boot. Kentucky Democrats fought off that turnaround for many years, and I’m proud of my party for its perseverance. As you know, all of our neighbors to the south have been ruled by GOP governors for 20 years or more. Democrats still control the Kentucky House of Representatives and we’re hoping to survive the expected Trump juggernaut here in November. We’ve got our fingers crossed.

Meanwhile, Georgia — like North Carolina and Virginia — is beginning to break free of GOP domination. You are gradually coming out of the regressive political cycle that Kentucky appears to be descending down into. I wish we would leap over it. For the time being, I’ll take some comfort in your prospects for an enlightened future. Best of luck on Nov. 8.

Take a lesson

Colin Kaepernick should take a lesson from the first lady. At least she got around to saying that for the first time she was finally proud of her country.

Disappointed in Sonny

I have been saddened that former Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue, the founder of the modern Republican Party in Georgia, has endorsed Donald Trump and is campaigning for him in Georgia. I have admired Sonny and voted for him.

Trump is a self-confessed adulterer. He is a draft dodger who got five deferments during the Vietnam War period. From his comments and positions on issues he doesn’t appear to be a Christian. Trump is leading the Republican Party away from its best principles. Is he even a Republican? Is he a conservative?

Trump has said “I will be flexible on the issues.” Now he is flip-flopping on immigration. I’m afraid that Sonny is putting his party before our nation.

This story was originally published August 31, 2016 at 9:00 PM with the headline "This is Viewpoints for Thursday, September 1, 2016."