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PAGE 4A BARROW NEWS-JOURNAL WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 19, 2016 Opinions “Private opinion is weak, but public opinion is almost omnipotent. ” ~ Henry Ward Beecher ~ A new beginning and thoughts on the election The past six months have been somewhat of a whirlwind for me. In early April, Debbie Burgamy, publisher of the now former Barrow County News, called and offered me the opportunity to become the newspaper’s new editor. It was the next logical step for me: a chance to start a path toward an editing career and a chance for my wife, son and me to get back to her hometown of Athens. I was learning new things every day about a wonderful small, but bustling, Barrow County. Three months after I started that job, we were acquired by this compa ny and merged with The Barrow Journal. It was a challenging transition for everyone involved, but I think we’ve all come out with a healthy perspective and been able to blend together the strengths of both papers. I will always be proud of the work we were doing with the old paper, and now I’m excited to continue building on the award-winning tradition set forth by this publi cation. We may have undergone some personnel changes, but our commitment to providing one of the most essential public services to this community remains unchanged. I am grateful to Mike and Scott Buffington for trusting me to lead this paper when Chris Bridges, the man who built it from the ground up, announced he was leaving to pursue other professional opportunities. Chris himself was a tremendous help in get ting me ready for this latest transition. Believe it or not, newspapers still have a vital role to play in society. We seek to be the eyes and ears of a commu nity and a watchdog to make sure the decision makers are doing right by you and your tax dollars. “The media” often gets a lot of flack from the public — some legitimate, some not so much. But it’s worth repeating that media is needed to ask tough questions in order to ensure a healthy society. I believe that newspapers have an especially strong future in smaller communities like this one, and we will remain committed to provid ing you with necessary journalism while also celebrating the stories of the everyday people who make this community special. Election time is coming If you want to talk about a media circus, we’re now less than three weeks away from Election Day, and it can’t get here soon enough. This year’s presidential election, which I saw the first half of up close and personal as a reporter in South Carolina, has long been a mind-numbing exercise where celebrity, gos sip, bombast and mostly empty promises have invaded the country’s conscience, and what should be the real issues of the campaign have largely taken a back seat. I’ve always considered myself political and engaged, but not partisan. So, it probably shouldn’t come as a surprise that I have a gen uine distaste for the way politics work a lot of the time and how both our major parties are constantly being usurped by partisan hacks who can’t stand to have their worldview chal lenged on anything. The election between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton has angered many people but also, unfortunately, made Americans angry at each other. The choice seems like no real choice at all, and the only substantial argument I hear for either of them on a regular basis is they’re less evil than the other one. I’ve written before that it’s time for Americans to move beyond the “lesser of two evils” com plex. We need to demand new leadership and new vision, an entirely new way of thinking and doing things. We need to vote for people with honesty and integrity and who uphold a commitment to country over political party. Sure, that’s easier said than done, but we all can do better than the choices we now have in front of us. Even if you’re completely disgusted with the entire process like I am, it’s still important to get to the polls on or before Election Day. Early voting here in Barrow County is now open, and we have three locally contested races along with other state-level races that will help dictate our future. The more local the decision-making is, the more it will affect your day-to-day life. Your vote will still count. Scott Thompson is editor of the Barrow News-Journal. You can reach him at sthomp- son@barrowjournal. com. / scott thompson Experience doesn’t count anymore in politics If you learned you had cancer, what would you do? You’d try to see a physician who has lots of experience treating this dreaded disease. You wouldn’t see a plumber or an insurance adjuster - you would see an oncologist who knows what they are doing and is licensed to practice medicine. If you were charged with a seri ous criminal offense that might mean jail time, what would you do? You’d try to retain an attorney who has years of experience trying criminal cases. You wouldn’t hire an insurance salesman or a short order cook - you would hire someone who knows what they are doing and is licensed to practice law. That’s what people do in the real world, anyway. In the world of Georgia politics, as we saw last week, experience and pro fessional credentials often don’t mean much of anything. For example, there was the decision by the Board of Regents to appoint Attorney General Sam Olens as the new president of Kennesaw State University. It’s obvious why Olens wanted the job. He only made $140,000 as attorney general and the president’s job at KSU pays more than twice as much. Olens has been a county commis sioner and the state’s highest legal offi cer, but he has never held any type of administrative position at any campus. In appointing Olens, the regents vio lated several of their own longstanding policies. In other cases where a college needs a president, the regents appoint a search committee that spends several weeks interviewing and assessing candidates from across the country. The search committee typically for wards the names of three finalists to the board, whose members then vote on the one they want for the job. None of that was done in this instance: no search committee, no national search, no list of three finalists to choose from. Olens was the only name considered. That did not sit well with either the faculty or the students at Kennesaw State. They held campus protests and gath ered thousands of petition signatures urging the regents to conduct a nation wide search. Students and faculty also objected to Olens’ actions as attorney general, where he opposed same-sex marriage and tried to keep transgender students out of public bathrooms. There are some LGBT students at KSU who don’t think their own presi dent should be discriminating against them. When asked why a person with so few qualifications for the job was being picked, the best that Chancellor Hank Huckaby could come up with was this: “He knows Cobb County so well and he’s been a very dedicated citizen of this community.” Write a Letter to the Editor: Let us know your thoughts: Send Letters to Editor, The Barrow News-Journal, 77 E. May Street, Winder, Ga. 30680. Letters can also be emailed to sthompson@main- streetnews.com Please put “Letter to the Editor’’ in the subject line. Please include the city of the writer. There are thousands of people in Cobb County who fit that same descrip tion, but you didn’t see any of them being proposed as the new president. The real reasons for Olens’ appoint ment became clear a few minutes after the regents confirmed him as the new presi dent. Gov. Nathan Deal - who appoints all the members of the Board of Regents - called reporters to his office to announce the appoint ment of Chris Carr, the state’s economic devel opment commissioner, as the new attorney gen eral. The title of Carr’s new job implies that the per son is at least a practicing attorney. The Georgia Constitution also has something to say about this: “No person shall be Attorney General unless such person shall have been an active status member of the State Bar of Georgia for seven years.” Until the day before his appointment was announced, Carr had been on inac tive status with the State Bar and hadn’t practiced law since 2007. During that long-ago period when he did practice law, Carr was an attorney who never saw the inside of a court room. “No, I’ve never tried a case,” he admit ted in response to a reporter’s question. But not to worry, Deal assured every body. “We checked with the State Bar,” the governor said. “The State Bar verified that he did (meet the constitutional requirement).” Carr may not be exactly up to date on the practice of law, but he meets two very important qualifications: he was a loyal Deal department head and was formerly chief of staff to Sen. Johnny Isakson. In the world of politics, things like experience and education and ability don’t count for very much. Connections are really all that matter (Tom Crawford is editor of The Georgia Report, an internet news ser vice at gareport.com that reports on state government and politics. He can be reached at tcrawford@gareport. com.) The Barrow News-Journal Winder, Barrow County, Ga. www.BarrowJournal.com Mike Buffington Scott Buffington Co-Publisher Co-Publisher Scott Thompson Editor Jessica Brown Photographer Susan Treadwell Advertising Sharon Hogan Office & Reporter Also covering beats is Alex Pace. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to: The Barrow News-Journal 77 East May Street Winder, Georgia 30680 Published 52 times per year by Mainstreet Newspapers, Inc. Periodicals postage paid at Winder, Georgia 30680 (USPS 025-132) Email: chris@mainstreetnews.com Phone: 770-867-NEWS (6397) SUBSCRIPTIONS: $25.00/yr. Trumpite: Muslims are ‘rats’ who need to be killed The United States is fraying. This elec tion cycle has unleashed an angry flood of hate that this nation hasn’t seen since Bull Conner sent attack dogs on black chil dren in Birmingham during the Civil Rights movement. As the election heads into its final three weeks, there is open talk of violence. Some Donald Trump sup porters have called for an assassination if Hillary Clinton wins. Others speak of “revolution” if Trump doesn’t win. Trump himself has only fed the frenzy by claiming the elec tion is “rigged.” Never before in modern his tory has a major pres idential candidate sought to undermine the nation’s democratic election system in such a manner. All of this was predictable. For over a year, Trump has whipped up fear and hatred among his diehard followers. From calling Mexican immigrants “rapists” to threatening to ban people from the U.S. because of their religion, Trump has paint ed a dark picture of America that is far removed from the reality. His propaganda has frightened many of his followers who now believe the world will end unless Savior Donald gets elected. Still, I was shocked over the weekend during a Facebook exchange with a local community man who is a huge Trump supporter. During a back and forth about the arrest of three men in Kansas who planned to blow up a housing complex of Muslim Somali immigrants, my Facebook corre spondent said the three wouldn’t be con victed because they were “entrapped” and that “they are the shock troops for things to come.” I replied that he couldn’t justify murder ing people just because of their religious beliefs. He responded with the following, quoted in full from his Facebook comment: “Mike why not debate in an open public forum. I have first hand dealings with mus lins and can tell you what they think and how they will act when they reach a critical mass. You were raised in a rural county , but not in the country. If you ever heard of having a rat killing??? Well when rats are in numbers to be a problem you have to go out and get rid of all of them, that includes males females and all little rats, because we all know a little rats grows up to be a big rat and then the problem starts again.” I had to read that three times. I couldn’t believe this man actually compared Muslims to “rats” and that they should be murdered. That children “little rats” — should be murdered. Vile. Disgusting. Deplorable. I will only identify this man as “LP” here. He’s known in the community, a former military man and a self-proclaimed Christian. And yet he openly calls for murdering men, women and children who have done nothing wrong simply because they have different religious beliefs than he does. In a follow-up comment, LP doubled down by saying Muslims in America have four choices: “1) disavow 2) convert to another belief system 3) leave 4) die....” In other words, the U.S. should ethnically cleanse Muslims from our soil, religious freedom be damned. This is how Trump is “going to make America great again?” LP’s comments sound very similar to how Hitler felt about Jews: “Nature is cruel; therefore we are also entitled to be cruel. When I send the flower of German youth into the steel hail of the next war without feeling the slightest regret over the precious German blood that is being spilled, should I not also have the right to eliminate millions of an inferior race that multiplies like vermin?” The first thing you do when you want to murder people because of their religion or ethnic background is to dehumanize them. Call them vermin, or rats. Make them appear as animals, not as human beings. Hitler did that to Jews and the German people went along. Trump is doing that today. He is dog whistling to people like LP that it’s OK to See Buffington on Page 5A mike buffington