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^ Declare amoi
Opinions 4A
X: & EDITORIALS
among the nations, and publish, and set up a standard;
publish, and conceal not; Jeremiah 50:2
2018, 2017, 2016 winner: Editorial Page excellence
2018 winner: Best Headline Writing
2018, 2017 winner: Best News Photography
2018 winner: Best Sports Pages
2018 winner: Best Serious Column - On the Porch
2018, 2017 winner: Best Humorous Column - On the Porch
ON THE PORCH by Will Davis
Drivers must choose:
Is it fines, or phones?
W ill Monroe County drivers be hit with big
fines and citations if they’re caught on
their cell phones while driving next week?
Not yet, says Monroe County sheriff A1
Shackelford.
Shackelford said his road deputies will be meeting
this week with the Georgia State Patrol’s Brad Walker to
discuss enforcement of the new hands-free law, which
goes into effect Sunday, July 1. Shackelford said for the
first 30 days, his deputies will just issue verbal warnings
to drivers caught on their cell phones, unless it causes an
accident.
“Habits are hard to break,” said Shackelford.
Shackelford likened the new law against holding a
cell phone while driving to the law requiring seat belts
adopted 25 years ago.
“Like with seat belts,” said Shackelford, “it will take a
while to get everybody on board. Including me.”
Drivers who think they can get around the law by put
ting their phones in their laps may have another thing
coming. The law expressly bars drivers from using any
part of their body to hold up an electronic device.
The law will certainly turn a lot of Georgians into law
breakers overnight. Have you ever been driving down
the interstate and counted the number of drivers on
their phones? It’s well over 50
percent. For Christmas last
year my dad gave me a cell
phone holder that slides onto
I t my steering wheel. I guess
j C* j [ we’ll find out if it passes legal
muster.
Even though the law will be
severely tested, Shackelford
said he thinks it’s a good one
because of the number of
injuries and deaths caused by
distracted drivers looking at
their cell phones.
“It’s shocking when you bring
those numbers up,” said Shack
elford.
m. ‘ M
Three cheers for the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday
that upheld President Trump’s ban on the natives of
troubled countries from entering the U.S. Whether you
like Trump or not, he was elected president and he does
have the authority to take measures to secure our bor
ders. Remember that citizens of other countries do NOT
have the constitutional rights that we enjoy. That’s the
beauty of citizenship — it belongs to citizens. The court
also struck down a wicked California law that would’ve
forced crisis pregnancy centers there to tell their clients
about abortion providers. The scary thing is that both
rulings were narrow 5-4 decisions. Thus we can deduce
that four Supreme Court justices believe that we should
have open borders with no ability to determine who
comes into our country, and those same justices believe
states CAN force a Christian to encourage abortion. If
Hillary Clinton were president (gasp!), the court liberals
would have a 5-4 majority and these decisions would’ve
gone against us. Again, like him or not, thank God for
President Trump.
• ••
Two housekeeping notes from your friends at the
Reporter:
1) The Reporter has early deadlines for next week’s
edition as we aim to get your newspaper to you BEFORE
the July 4 holiday on Wednesday.
Thus next week’s Reporter should appear in your mail
boxes and local stores on Tuesday, July 3.
2) The Reporter has begun work on its annual Wel
come Home magazine. What stories would you like to
see covered? Email me at publisher@mymcr.net and
share your ideas. Thanks in advance.
is published every week by The Monroe County Reporter Inc.
Will Davis, President • Robert M. Williams Jr., Vice President
Cheryl S. Williams, Secretary-Treasurer
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Publication No. USPS 997-840
PEACH STATE POLITICS by Kyle Wingfield
Civic matters: America’s little platoons
O ne of the fun parts of my
new job is a carryover
from my old job: the
opportunity to speak
to groups of all kinds. I get asked
to speak to political groups and
activist groups, groups of teenagers
and senior citizens and everyone in
between.
I try to accept as many invitations
as I can, especially those from civic
organizations - Rotary, Kiwanis and
the like. They are one of the last,
best hopes for holding this nation
together when there’s so much trying
to tear us apart.
This has been true of Americans
for about as long as there have been
Americans. Alexis de Tocqueville
famously observed our tendency to
form “associations” when he visited
in 1831, including it in his famous
treatise, “Democracy in America.”
“Americans of all ages, all condi
tions, all minds constantly unite,” he
wrote. “Not only do they have com
mercial and industrial associations in
which all take part, but they also have
a thousand other kinds: religious,
moral, grave, futile, very general and
very particular, immense and very
small; Americans use associations
to give fetes, to found seminaries, to
build inns, to raise churches, to dis
tribute books, to send missionaries
to the antipodes; in this manner they
create hospitals, prisons, schools.
“Finally’ he continued, “if it is a
question of bringing to light a truth
or developing a sentiment with the
support of a great example, they as
sociate. Everywhere that, at the head
of a new undertaking, you see the
government in France and a great
lord in England, count on it that you
will perceive an association in the
United States.”
This is a crucial example of the
practical roles civil society ought to
play in a nation that fancies its gov
ernment as limited. But what I want
to point out today is we
get a fringe benefit from
it as well: literally, the as
sociating of people who
might not otherwise be
connected.
Many groups to which
we belong today have
a narrower common
basis: the same faith, the
same industry, the same
political philosophy, the
same alma mater. The
experience of participat
ing in them is likewise
bound to be narrower,
as like minds meet.
America’s great civic organizations,
on the other hand, have as their com
mon basis a few principles but, in
largest measure for most members,
the good of their local communi
ties. That means members not only
look out for a broader good, but
they interact with a broader slice of
society. People who disagree with
them politically, hold different reli
gious beliefs, and ply different trades.
People of different ages, races and
backgrounds.
That produces people who are
harder pressed to demonize The
Other when the club meeting is over.
Sadly, membership in these (and
other) organizations is on the wane,
as detailed by Robert Putnam in his
2000 book, “Bowling Alone.” That’s
particularly true in the lower levels of
American society, as Charles Murray
explained in his 2012 book, “Coming
Apart.”
Civic and social disengagement
not only yield less
understanding of one
another - and we see
this all too well in the
poor, digital facsimiles
of “community” found
on social-media sites.
Disengagement means
less social capital, which
is a particular problem
given that it’s happening
in greatest frequency
among the very low-
income Americans who
are already starved for
social capital.
This problem was
already so evident to Tocqueville that
he suggested there was a relation
ship in a democratic society between
association and equality, and warned
that without “the practice of associat
ing with each other in ordinary life,
civilization itself would be in peril.”
If you’re worried about America’s
future, stop writing that social media
post and join your local Optimist or
Civitan club - while you still can.
CEO of the Georgia Public Policy
Foundation, Kyle Wingfields column
appears in newspapers across Georgia.
JUST THE WAY IT IS by Sloan Oliver
Libs don’t really care about kids
L iberals, leftists, Democrats, and
the media (known as the leftist
cabal) go from one outrage
to the next. Every week the
leftist cabal finds something new that
outrages them. And everything that
President Trump does seems to out
rage them - trade sanctions on China
outrages them; Trump’s ‘America
first” policy outrages them; a cancelled
summit and a re-scheduled summit
outrages them; cancelling the Paris
Climate Accord outrages them; cancel
ling the Iran nuke deal outrages them;
and Trump’s daily tweets and text
messages outrages them. However, all
previous “outrages” pale compared to
their “outrage” over President Trump’s
immigration policy (Actually, it’s not
Trump’s. The leftist cabal isn’t smart
enough to realize that our immigra
tion policy consists of laws passed by
Congress.) For well over a week now
the leftist cabal (LC) has collectively
gone insane. Their latest “outrage” is
the immigration policy of separating
illegal alien children from their illegal
parents when the parents get arrested
for illegal activities to include cross
ing the border. The TC is throwing a
collective temper tantrum over this
policy calling it cruel, inhumane, and
traumatizing to children. Really? The
illegal immigrant family rips their
children from the only life they’ve ever
known, walks and rides on train roofs
to get across Mexico, lives in the open
- exposed to the elements for weeks on
end, hikes for miles across the south
west desert where they are often at
tacked and robbed (sometimes raped)
yet, it’s only when they get to America
and are detained by ICE agents that
they’re traumatized? I call BS.
RECALL THAT this “separation
of children” policy has been going on
for years. In my June 6 articJe (“Liber
als are Hypocrites”), I pointed out
that photos of “caged” illegal children
(taken in 2014) caused the leftist cabal
to go berserk because they thought the
photos were from 2018. It was only
when the media discovered the photos
were taken in 2014 (Obama was
president) that their outrage subsided.
Their anger subsided only until they
could gin up more outrage over illegal
immigrants and blame it on Trump,
which they have done yet again.
THE LEFTIST cabal can say what
ever they want about how they care for
children; it’s a lie. Don’t believe a word
they say Their pseudo outrage would
be humorous if it weren’t so disgusting
and disingenuous. The TC’s actions
toward children prove they don’t care.
They seem to care only about illegal
children and only when the illegals can
be used as weapons against conserva
tives. If the LC cared about children,
they would care about all children,
especially American children, and
particularly innocent children in the
womb. But they don’t care. Matter of
fact, the leftist cabal has no problem
murdering children under the guise of
allowing women the “choice” to do so.
THE REASON the LC only cares
about illegal children is because the
illegals can be used to advance their
agenda - which is to turn the United
States into an open
country with no borders.
They’re doing this by
constantly criticizing
anyone who thinks we
should actually enforce
our immigration laws.
The LC’s main tactic is
to have illegals plead for
asylum and then use the
courts to force the release
of illegals being held
for asylum or held in
custody. Another tactic
they’re using is to shame,
mock, and condemn the
President and anyone
else who believes a nation should have
and enforce its borders.
IF YOU need more proof that the
leftist cabal doesn’t care about children
or families ask why we rarely hear
about the impoverished, inner-city,
American children or never hear
about the collapse of the American
family. We have at least 15 million
American children being raised in
poverty, and the LC wants to bring
in more impoverished children. Half
of all immigrants end up on welfare
which means that there’s less welfare
for American families. Blacks, minori
ties, and poor whites, please listen up
- the leftist cabal does not care about
you or your family You ever wonder
why the LC is only interested in the
illegal children? It’s very simple - the
Dems know they already have the
black vote and minority vote and thus
they do nothing for those groups.
Blacks are taken for “chumps” by the
Dems, and blacks go along with being
chumps by voting for Dems every
JUiuwA
election. Oh, the Dems will put you
and your children on the welfare plan
tation and then they ignore you. Is that
what you want for your children and
family - to be raised on welfare and
never get off the Democrat plantation?
IT’S A known fact, if you want more
of something, provide an economic re
ward and you’ll get more; if you want
less of something, punish it and you’ll
get less. That’s just human nature. For
example, we punish bank robbers with
long prison sentences and the result
is that we have relatively few banks
getting robbed. Contrast that punish
ment with government rewarding an
activity and getting more of it. For 50
years, the government has rewarded
single women for having children out
of wedlock. The result
of decades of reward
ing women for birthing
children out of wedlock
is that we went from less
than 10 percent of chil
dren born out of wedlock
in 1964 to more than 70
percent of black children
born out of wedlock in
2014. Simply put, the
government gives finan
cial incentives for having
children out of wedlock,
which has led to the
collapse of the American
family and has resulted
in more children living in poverty. The
collapse of the family is terrible for
our country’s future. Now, the left is
demanding we give economic rewards
to illegals once they get here. You tell
me - will economic rewards lead to
more or less illegals trying to enter the
country? And except for the illegals
themselves, who exactly benefits from
bringing in a group of people where 50
percent instantly qualify for welfare?
Oh, that’s right, the Dems will benefit
because they expect to get the votes of
all illegals.
WEEKLY QUOTE: “Liberals de
stroy everything they touch - the NFL,
Boy Scouts, education, healthcare, the
economy, and Christmas. That’s why
we shouldn’t allow them near immi
gration.” - Dan Bongino
Sloan Oliver is a retired Army officer
He lives in Bolingbroke with his wife
Sandra. Email him at sloanoliver@
earthlink.net.