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The ADVANCE, January 6, 2021/Page 6A (51?e Ahumtce A free press is not a privilege but organic necessity in a great society. —Walter Lippmann COMMENTARY out of CONTEXT A compilation of quotations on a variety of issues by national, state and regional writers, well-known personalities, just plain everyday people and from various publications collected by the editors of THE ADVANCE. Quote for our Times: "We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end." George Orwell, 1984 Mark Andrew Dwyer, writer for Ameri can Thinker: What denying election fraud accomplishes. So, on the one hand, there is plen ty of evidence strongly suggesting that the widely observed election fraud took place during the 2020 presidential elec tions. On the other hand, all we have are assurances of the election fraud-deniers that there was no election fraud, which were later changed to admissions that although election fraud did take place, it wasn't large enough to sway the re sults. No verifiable facts that would clearly invalidate the specific election fraud al legations were presented to the public as of the time of this writing, while quite a lot of obstruction of investigations, like denials to subject the vote-counting software and hardware to examination by independent experts, took place. Some of fhis obstruc tion had all appearances of a cover-up. Jerome Michaels, journalist for Ameri can Thinker: A Supreme Court in hiding is dangerous for our country. With the 2020 election, there will be grave consequences following the Su preme Court's insistence on being left alone. Earlier, I focused on the beginning section of the Declaration of Indepen dence, the part saying a just government only exists with the consent of the People through free and fair elections. The next part of the Declaration has a much darker side which the Supreme Court may bring into play if it stays in its rabbit hole. The Declaration is plain: The People have a duty to overthrow the gov ernment if it is not justly based on their col lective consent. That duty reaches a criti cal stage when all the institutions fail them. The Supreme Court may have been our last hope. So far, the justices have utterly failed us. Leah Barkoukis, online features edi tor at Townhall.com: Perdue responds to leaked call between President and GA Secretary of State. Earlier on Sunday the Georgia Repub lican made clear his support of his Senate GOP colleagues in challenging the elec tion. "You know when I first saw the magni tude of the irregularities back in Decem ber, early December, about our Novem ber race, I called for the resignation of our secretary of state, I repeatedly called for a special session of the General Assembly to investigate," Perdue told Fox News 1 "Sun day Morning Futures." "None of that hap pened, and so I started calling out that the only thing left for the president is for us to object and I agreed that I would do that." Write Us A Letter Have you a gripe? How about a compliment for someone for a job well done? Lef us know abouf if wifh a leffer fo fhe editor. We urge anyone fo wrife us abouf any subject of general public interest. Please limit all letters to 250 words double spaced. All letters must by signed, but we may withhold the writer's name upon request. Please write to us at The Advance, P.O. Box 669, Vidalia, GA 30475 or email: theadvancenews@ gmail.com (Subject Line: Letter to the Editor). Behold, the Delivery Revolution „ THE RICH LOWRY COLUMN It’s been a terrible year for the American worker, with a notable bright spot courtesy of one of the tech firms in the crosshairs of regulators and lawmakers. If someone had said early in 2020, “A company is going to hire hundreds of thousands of non-college-educated workers during the pandemic at well above the minimum wage,” you’d think there’d be huzzahs all around. That’s what the online retailer Amazon has done, but it still gets brickbats for how it pays and treats its workers. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said the other day that Amazon jobs are a “scam.” If so, a swath of the American workforce is falling for the grift. Since July, the online retailer has hired 350,000 workers, and now employs 1.2 million people globally. This is a historic hiring binge. According to The New York Times, “The closest comparisons are the hiring that entire industries carried out in wartime, such as shipbuilding during the early years of World War II.” On top of this, the company provides work for roughly half a million truck drivers. It overwhelmingly hires high school graduates. It doesn’t ask for a resume, gives its workers about a day of training, and then puts them on the job in its fulfillment centers. The difficulty of the work shouldn’t be underestimated — it is taxing, repetitive and highly regimented. Yet, we’ve long complained about losing assembly line jobs for non college-educated workers. Amazon is hiring people for what is the 21st-century equivalent of such jobs. Amazon began paying its workers $15 an hour in 2018. If that rate rings a bell, it’s the number for the federal minimum wage that Sen. Bernie Sanders and AOC have long been lobbying for, to little effect (it remains $7.25 an hour). It’s hard to review what Amazon has done over the last year and consider it the work of a corporate monster. The company had an unlimited unpaid time off policy for its workers when the pandemic began. It hired temporary workers to replace them and deal with the surge of business, then kept most of them on and began hiring on top of that. It’s been offering signing bonuses of up to $3,000, and hiring in places in the country where no one else is. According to the research of Michael Mandel at the center-left Progressive Policy Institute, Amazon fulfillment center jobs pay 31% more than retail jobs at brick-and-mortar stores, where pay has basically been stagnant for three decades. Mandel points out that it’s wrong to simplistically think of Amazon and other e-commerce outfits as replacing brick-and- mortar stores. What they are really replacing is the labor that consumers undertake on their own to shop for goods — driving to a store, walking up and down the aisles, making the selection, loading it, and taking it home. Someone making a purchase through Amazon essentially hires a network of workers to do all of that for him. What Amazon, and e-commerce more broadly, is doing is selling goods to consumers at low prices, while giving them more convenience than ever before (rapid delivery to their doorsteps, with the possibility of easy returns) and creating new jobs in the process. By all means, jawbone the company to treat workers better, but don’t lose sight of the scale of its achievement — and how many Americans are employed because of it. Rich Lowry is editor of the National Review. (c) 2020 by King Features Synd., Inc. GRITTY One-Legged Tap Dancer “That fellow was as busy as a one- legged tap dancer!” Several years ago, I heard a preacher use that phrase to describe an act that appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show many years ago. The act involved a fellow with 12 plates, 12 sticks (24” long) and a long table. I actually remember the act, and I’m sure that some of you who remember the Ed Sullivan Show may also remember it. The act started with the fellow standing a stick on the table and placing a plate on top of it. He then started spinning the plate and continued until it stayed there by itself. He continued this procedure until he had all the sticks standing with plates spinning on top of each one. The most difficult part of the act was keeping the plates spinning while he continued to set up additional plates. After he had all the plates spinning, he had to run from plate to plate to keep the plates from falling. That’s why he was said to be “as busy as a one-legged tap dancer.” Finally, the preacher used that story to describe our lives today and how we tend to get so many worldly things going at one time. I’m sure you know how easy it is for us to get so busy and concerned over something that’s not even worth worrying about in the first place. And while we’re talking about worrying, I’m reminded of something a friend told me a few years ago. He said his mother was a chronic worrier, and when he told her she shouldn’t worry so much, she said, “Well, I can tell you one thing - it must work, because 90% of the things I worry about never happen.” When you think about it, folks, you’ll probably agree that we all worry about things that never happen - which, I suppose, has nothing to do with the fact that we were worrying in the first place. You know, folks, I actually think that most Please see Nitty page 9A COMMENTARY Lessons Georgia Voters Can Learn from California One of the many beauties of freedom is there is always surprise. Georgia voters might consider what is happening in California as the nation’s blue- state poster child turns purple. Why? When the left seizes power, they don’t know when to stop. But voters know how to say, “Whoa, enough.” As British nobleman Lord Acton noted, “Power tends to corrupt.” California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, started this difficult CO- VID-19 period early in the year by imposing in his state the most draco nian shutdown measures in the na tion — abridging individual move ment and shutting down schools, businesses and churches. While coming down hard on California’s citizens, Newsom lived the life of privilege and was discov ered dining maskless at a $l,200-per- person dinner party at a tiny Napa Valley restaurant. Now he’s facing recall with re portedly more than half of the 1.5 million signatures needed by next March already gathered. In November’s elections, Repub licans in California regained four of the eight House seats they lost in 2018. And amid the refrain of the left accusing our nation of systemic rac ism, two of the recaptured Republi can seats were won by Asian Ameri cans — Young Kim and Michelle Steele. Kim and Steele became two of the first three Korean American women elected to the House. An other victory went to Mexican Amer ican Mike Garcia. And David Valadao recaptured his seat in a majority His panic district. Republicans captured these seats by campaigning against defund-the- police calls from the left and warning against the threat of socialism. And each of these Republican seats was won in districts that went for Joe Biden in the presidential election. Three ballot initiatives pushing to the left — one raising property taxes; one that would have restored racial preferences in government hir ing, contracting and education; and another expanding government power to control rents — all were defeated. Another ballot initiative allow ing app-based transportation compa nies such as Uber to employ their drivers as independent contractors was approved. A victory for capital ism. In the beginning of December, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled to sup port the challenge of Pasadena Har vest Rock Church against Newsom’s restrictions on indoor church wor ship. Harvest Rock argued that first amendment religious freedom guar antees were violated by Newsom’s restrictions and that restrictions on churches were more severe than those on secular entities such as hair Please see Guest page 9A