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OPINION
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gainesvilletimes.com
Friday, November 23, 2018
Shannon Casas Editor in Chief | 770-718-3417 | scasas@gainesvilletimes.com
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The First Amendment: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right
of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
LETTERS
Only 2 things
really divide us
A recent writer to this paper, Dick Biggs,
bemoaned those things which divide us, number
ing his list at 10 and invoking the wispy specter
of long dead men, some of them, authors of the
Constitution, and all, in the opinion of that writer,
fathers to this country. That writer rightfully said
that those men would not recognize or understand
our central government. In the moody days fol
lowing the recent elections, we remain divided,
but not by 10 things but only by 2: That which
we refuse to understand and that which we must
learn and understand.
The men, contemporary to the Constitution’s
ratification, would not mentally grasp the finan
cial instruments, such as credit default swaps or
mortgage-backed securities, which created and
destroyed trillions of dollars in wealth in less
than a single generation without the production
of so much as a single brass button. Who would
attempt an explanation to those men of a govern
ment which just borrowed more than a trillion
dollars from China and Europe and gave away
that money to those who do not fight in wars,
fight crimes in our streets, or bandage our social
wounds?
Thoughts of those men and what they could or
could not understand of our times waste as much
of our time and energies as refusing to understand
the revelations of science. Some demand recogni
tion of human life as starting at conception when
60 percent or more, of fertilized human ovum
fail to produce a viable, human life. To prevent
a teenaged pregnancy should be thought as great
an ideal to pursue as preventing a teenaged abor
tion. Those who refuse to understand the science
of global warming mightily damn the born and
unborn to suffering, neglect and death.
We are surrounded by a worldwide conspiracy,
monolithic and ruthless, which buries its mistakes
and can only be known as ignorance. What we
must understand as we forever face this chal
lenge: our boundless learning abilities can defeat
or at least hold back ignorance better than blind
patriotism, nationalism or any other “ism.” Unless
we seek for ourselves the peace of the grave,
we must confront inherent human weaknesses,
affirm reason as the tool, stronger than law or
force, to secure survival, a full and free life, and
what justice one human can provide to another.
Michael W. Parker
Flowery Branch
Really want The Times 7 days
Keeping it short: Agree with Terry Gabriel’s
letter in (Thursday’s) paper. It’s going to be hard
Mondays and Tuesdays! Hate reading online.
But love your paper.
Sheryl Miller
Dawsonville
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Your government officials
U.S. government
President Donald Ihimp, The White House, 1600
Pennsylvania Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20500,
202-456-1111,202-456-1414, fax, 202-456-
2461; www.whitehouse.gov
Sen. Johnny Isakson, 131 Russell Senate Office
Building, Washington, DC 20510,202-224-
3643, fax, 202-228-0724; One Overton Park,
3625 Cumberland Blvd., Suite 970, Atlanta
30339, 770-661 -0999, fax, 770-661 -0768;
isakson.senate.gov
Sen. David Perdue, 383 Russell Senate Office
Building, Washington, DC 20510,202-224-
3521, fax 202-228-1031; 3280 Peachtree Road
NE Suite 2640, Atlanta 30303, 404-865-0087,
fax 404-865-0311; perdue.senate.gov.
D.S. Rep. Doug Collins, 1504 Longworth House
Office Building, Washington, DC 20515,202-
225-9893; 210 Washington St. NW, Suite 202,
Gainesville 30501,770-297-3388; dougcollins.
house.gov
D.S. Rep Rob Woodall, 1725 Longworth House
Office Building, Washington, DC 20515,202-
225-4272, fax 202-225-4696; 75 Langley Drive,
Lawrenceville 30045, 770-232-3005, fax 770-
232-2909; woodall.house.gov
Georgia state government
Gov. Nathan Deal, 203 State Capitol, Atlanta
30334; 404-656-1776; www.gov.georgia.gov
Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle, 240 State Capitol, Atlanta
30334, 404-656-5030; www.ltgov.ga.gov
Secretary of State Brian Kemp, 214 State Capitol,
Atlanta 30334, 404-656-2881, fax 404-656-
0513; www.sos.state.ga.us; Elections Division,
2 MLK, Jr. Drive SE, Suite 1104, West Tower,
Atlanta 30334-1530, 404-656-2871, fax, 404-
651-9531
Attorney General Chris Carr, 40 Capitol Square
SW, Atlanta 30303; 404-656-3300; law.ga.gov
School Superintendent Richard Woods, 205 Jesse
Hill Jr. Drive SE, Atlanta 30334; 404-656-2800;
www.doe.k12.ga.us; askdoe@gadoe.org
Lessons learned from debate
over election irregularities
Now that all of the contro
versial elections, recounts
and re-recounts are over, let
us review some of our lessons
learned.
Florida is the Jaguar of
vote-counting, and I’m not
referring to the animal or the
Jacksonville NFL franchise.
I mean the car. For decades,
part of the “charm” of hav
ing a Jaguar was how often it
broke down. (That’s no longer
the case.) It was the kind of conspicuous
consumption that economist Thorstein
Veblen used to write about, with owners
bragging about how much they paid for
repairs.
The spectacle of sweaty election offi
cials poring over provisional ballots —18
years after the state became infamous
for such things — has now cemented
election incompetence into the montage
of images we associate with the Sunshine
State: beaches, rocket launches, Mickey
Mouse and the human menagerie of
freaks, weirdos, moperers, villains and
perverts that fall under the omnibus
internet meme “Florida Man.”
We learned (relearned, actually)
that a lot of people are very, very tense
about politics and quick to jump the gun.
President Trump, no doubt a bit insecure
that his “red wave” failed to material
ize, immediately claimed that voter
fraud was rampant and that elections
in Arizona and Florida were being “sto
len.” Florida Gov. Rick Scott followed
Trump’s lead and made similar allega
tions, as did a host of Republican pundits.
Meanwhile, in Georgia, Democrats led
by Stacey Abrams and Ohio Sen. Sher
rod Brown, as well as a chorus of liberal
pundits, insisted that the governor’s race
there had been “stolen” by Georgia’s
Republican secretary of state
(and gubernatorial candi
date), Brian Kemp.
We also learned that the
actual evidence for all of
these allegations fell far short
of the rhetoric.
There were indeed sketchy
irregularities in Florida, but
none that came close to rob
bing Scott of his 12,000-vote
lead. Brenda Snipes, Broward
County’s supervisor of elec
tions, had a 15-year record of incompe
tence that at times seemed very difficult
to distinguish from partisan skulduggery.
She finally resigned from her post this
week.
But in Arizona, there is no evidence of
wrongdoing, and the state GOP’s refusal
to go with Trump’s talking points was an
admirable example of Republican lead
ers, particularly Gov. Doug Ducey, buck
ing the partisan tide.
Georgia is a more controversial case,
but as the National Review’s Rich Lowry
documents, the evidence of theft through
voter suppression isn’t there either, no
matter how many Twitter memes say
otherwise. Kemp’s decision not to resign
from his job overseeing elections may
have been bad PR, but that’s the way the
law works in Georgia.
Kemp had run for re-election twice
before without stepping aside, without
any improprieties — as had Democrats
in that position in the past. Allegations
that he closed polling sites in black
neighborhoods leave out that those
decisions were made locally. Likewise,
claims that he purged black voters from
the rolls hinge on a tendentious read
ing of a law — passed by a Democratic
legislature and signed by a Democratic
governor — requiring that the rolls be
updated. Kemp enforced the law, he
didn’t undermine it.
The final lesson: There is a massive
double standard in the national conver
sation when it comes to election results
and irregularities.
When Republicans suggest Demo
crats are up to no good, it is universally
decried as a paranoid, craven or “openly
authoritarian” attempt to delegitimize
an election. When Democrats suggest an
election was stolen, it’s a grave warning
of a crisis that should require “interna
tional election monitors,” in the words of
Dan Rather.
When Republicans graciously concede,
as Rep. Martha McSally did in Arizona,
it’s an example of decency and civility. “I
give McSally credit for a graceful conces
sion. But let’s be clear: It only stands out
because of the moral sludge of Trumpism
in which any show of grace or honor
able conduct is shocking,” tweeted Josh
Marshall, the editor of the Talking Points
Memo. “When you lose, you don’t lie
about it or attack the voting process. You
concede & move on.”
But when Florida Sen. Bill Nelson, a
three-term Democrat, refused to con
cede and move on, insisting that Scott
was trying to steal victory, liberals didn’t
call him a sore loser. And when Abrams
refused to concede in Georgia and (still)
refuses to say that Kemp is a legitimate
governor, it’s hailed as heroic speaking
truth to power.
Such double standards are poisonous
and contagious. Which is why you can be
sure you’ll hear even more of this in 2020
— and not just from Donald Trump.
Jonah Goldberg is an editor-at-large of
National Review Online and a visiting
fellow at the American Enterprise
Institute.
JONAH GOLDBERG
goldbergcolumn@
gmail.com
DAN WASSERMAN I Tribune News Service
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USA BENSON I Washington Post Writers Group
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