Winston-Salem Journal LTE MO 11/19/12

They work for us

Now that our quadrennial battle has ceased, the combatants have returned to their camps to award laurels to victors and to bury their dead.

Usually, after we have backed our proxies in these wars, we turn away until the next bloodbath. But aren’t we shirking our responsibilities? Aren’t we obliged to keep up with the aftermath? How will the winners use their power? Will their acts match their promises, or were these convenient slogans tailored to garner our support?

Assuming the slogans were sincere, were the ideas they espoused good ones, good for losers as well as winners? Now that we are no longer watching, will our representatives work for common good, or for the privileged few? Will they be motivated by principle or by payoff? Will the victors work hard? More aptly, will they work smart?

This newspaper and other media can help us stay informed, but we should dig into the details. It’s our responsibility to watch and evaluate our leaders, and, if they prove unworthy or their actions inadequate, to make clear our displeasure and our intention to replace them at the first opportunity.

Because the deal we make with them is this: we give you power, but you should remember that this gift is tentative. If you fall short or don’t play fair, if you prove wrong or if you are lazy or venal, we will know it.

You work for us now. Both parties. Old hand or first-termer. Local, state and national. Be advised.

HAYES McNEILL

Winston-Salem

End the spite

When will the mean-spirited spiteful letters regarding the recent elections stop? Elections since 2008 have revealed a country of persons who feel compelled to attack with not logical, thoughtful ideas, but with vicious name-calling diatribes. A recent letter about Elisabeth Motsinger should not have been written, never minded published. Its purpose? Only a continuation of incivility in the public domain. The Internet is even worse. There people hide behind anonymous user names that allow them to spew forth venomous, and in some cases, clearly racist comments.

I was not happy about the election of George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004. However, I continued to act like a rational, thoughtful civil human being. But recently the discussion is not factual or thoughtful. People seem fearful of change, of being part of a wonderful mosaic of people making this country the best on earth. We should not want to go back to a mythical time that did not actually exist. We should be finding ways to work together not rip us apart. If you’re truly patriotic, especially when men and women of all races and colors gave of themselves for this country, you should be finding common ground, bridges, not chasms of fabricated differences.

JUDITH M. GRIFFITHS

Winston-Salem

Higher moral standards

Columnist Cal Thomas has finally convinced me we need to return to a time when America had higher moral standards (“Four more years of decline,” Nov. 9).

Let’s go back to the 1950s when people of color “knew their place” and had their own special water fountains and pick-up windows at the back door of the cafés. I get all misty just thinking about it.

Maybe we could go back a century, when Henry Ford could call on the governor of Michigan and borrow National Guard troops to shoot the striking workers who made him wealthy.

How about when a rich girl got sent abroad to solve a “problem” while a less fortunate woman, desperate to avoid the moral judgment of society, risked her life at the hands of a back-alley abortionist?

Or we could return to the slave-owning, indentured servant culture of our moral Christian founding fathers; the ones who practiced genocide on the unsaved, unwashed, red-skinned savages.

America is a country of high morals when it’s convenient or useful in suppressing behavior outside the perceived “norm.” We flaunt our high morals when we can use them to put others in their place and forget them when there are strategic gains to be made. Otherwise it’s business as usual.

The best thing about our American morals is their tremendous flexibility and the fact that our memories soften the harsh realities of the “good old days.”

MICHAEL MITCHELL

Winston-Salem

Marveling at democracy

To the voters and to the Journal editorial board, thanks for your vote and endorsement. Moreover, it means a great deal to have received such a strong show of support by the voters. I marvel at how our democracy works. I am also proud to be a Democrat, the political party that respects me and my ideas. Democracy lives.

EVELYN TERRY

Representative-Elect NC House District 71