Now Is the time to bring change to Salisbury
To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven (Ecclesiastes 3:1).
There comes a time when a community must speak to social standards and morality, lest a vocal minority seize the silence and foist their morals upon the majority. Now is that time.
There comes a time when onerous ordinances and regulations impede local businesses at the very hour they most need the freedom and flexibility to innovate. Now is that time.
There comes a time when lavish, duplicitous and reckless municipal spending is a burden and offense to thrifty citizens facing the most troubling economic times in a generation. Now is that time.
There comes a time when public debt proliferates as a municipality pretends to be a business venture, risking the wealth of our community on pet ventures, while stepping on the private companies that should be shouldering the risk. Now is that time.
There comes a time when incumbents manipulate sign ordinances, protecting political dynasties by suppressing the exposure of lesser known challengers. Now is that time.
There comes a time when registered voters must stand and cast off apathy to seize the outcome of off-year elections from a politically active minority, in order to secure the blessings of fiscal, social and spiritual liberty in our city. Now is that time.
The light of a new dawn is just over the horizon. In a few weeks we will be handed a genuine opportunity to impact the status quo on the Salisbury City Council. We can no longer afford for retirement to be the most successful challenger that incumbents face. There is a time to seek new faces and ideas, rejecting the unanimous votes for policies that have failed us. Now is that time!
ó Benjamin Johnson
Salisbury
Where are the leaders?
As a senior citizen, husband, father of three children, step father to two and grandfather to eight, soon to be nine grandchildren, I am concerned about the future of our country for them and for myself. We are in two arguably questionable, horribly expensive wars that we have no easy way to exit. We are spending more money than we take in, with Democrats wanting to spend even more and Republicans wanting to tax less, and both apparently unwilling to compromise. Politicians want their positions as a profession, instead of being temporary public servants ó re-election being their main and many times only priority.
I agree with Lee Iacocca in asking: ěWhere have all our leaders gone?î In 2008, I was one of the Republicans that helped elect our current president for the ěchangeî he promised. It is time to get serious and establish term limits for all politicians, amend the Constitution to require a balanced budget, get out of the two wars, bring manufacturing back to the United States and refocus on our own country, including illegal immigration, infrastructure and especially education.
I have a hard time understanding why some of our problems are so difficult to solve. For instance, the Post Office is in serious trouble. They have been procrastinating too long regarding how to solve its problems. Someone please step forward and lead. Stop mail delivery on Saturday, close the appropriate locations and increase postage enough to make up the difference. Seems simple enough to me. May God continue to bless America.
ó Clarence Peoples
Clemmons