In the 2012 film, The Dictator, the title character recommends Dictatorship:  "Why are you guys so anti-Dictator?  Imagine if America was a Dictatorship.  You could let one percent of the people have all the nation's wealth.  You could help your rich friends get richer by cutting their taxes and bailing them out when they gamble and lose.  You could ignore the needs of the poor for health care and education.  Your media would appear free, but would secretly be controlled by one person and his family.  You could wiretap phones.  You could torture foreign prisoners.  You could have rigged elections.  You could lie about why you go to war.  You could fill your prisons with one particular racial group and no one would complain.  You could use the media to scare people into supporting policies that are against their own interests.  I know this is hard for you Americans to imagine, but please try."

I would add to this, "You could distract from your misrule by focusing on divisive social wedge issues."  Like the GOP's pet trinity of God, guns, and gays.

What do all the preceding outcomes have in common?  They were all brought to you by your friends in the Republican Party.  Now we see a lot of discontent in this country, discontent on the Right, and they want more of what the Republican Party has given us.  It's like a poisoned man demanding more poison.

Unless and until regular working people wise up, abandon these politicians, and start insisting on policies that benefit their own economic interests, instead of the interests of corporations and the wealthy, their discontent will continue, as well as their dysfunctional response to it.  I wish I could be optimistic, but I fear the Tea Party is every bit as mad as the one by Lewis Carroll.

Sincerely,

Stephen Van Eck

Rushville, PA

Every thing changes and life is no different. In our township we see the changing of the color of leaves already.

The area we live in is beautiful, with high, almost flat mountain region, long windy roads and plenty of fresh water.

The serene dirt roads, of which our township has a lot of are holding up well even with all the warm, dry weather and the wind eroding many tons of modified.

I use the word serene because the roads lead to one of the most beautiful sights in all of Susquehanna County, Ararat Twp.

Ridge road, to me is an awesome place to see the sun as it sets with spectacular views over the hundreds of small hills to our west. In all the combination of the sun, rain, wind and yes, snow we, in my opinion, have one of the nicest areas in the northeast.

Come out and drive around our township and discover its hidden beauty and enjoy the beautiful sunsets God provides.

Sincerely,

Peter Andrew Seman.

Thompson, PA

It all started in 1954 with a Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education. Few disagreed with the Court's 9-0 decision, but if they knew more, they would have.

In the early '50s, there were heated arguments about school integration. Not in the halls of Congress but in the chambers of the Supreme Court. But the verbal exchanges were based less on Constitutional law than they were on social and political considerations.

The Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education was buttressed by studies that indicated that black children suffered significant psychological and social disadvantages because of segregation.

Also supporting the Court's decision was evidence that America's discriminatory practices against blacks were providing cold war ammunition for the Soviets.

After due deliberation, the Nine discovered that school segregation was, after-all, unconstitutional. "Racially segregated schools are inherently unequal," said the justices and henceforth against the law of the land.

While many then, and today laud the decision as just and in accord with a higher moral principle, if not the Constitution, the door to judicial activism had been pried open.

Rulings on constitutional law were now open to interpretation based on the winds of personal convictions and political expediency. The oath to "support and defend the Constitution" was now tacitly amended to read "what we think it currently means."

Few could have foreseen that in a few short decades the Court's legal activism would lead to government intrusion into every corner of our personal, social, financial and business lives.

The 1954 decision laid the groundwork for the Civil Rights Act of 1968.

The 1968 legislation prohibited discrimination in the sale, rental, and financing of dwellings based on race, color, national origin, religion, sex, sexual orientation, familial status, or disability. (Did we forget anything?)

Adios Ninth Amendment.

Another leap forward? Perhaps. But at a price. The Act's good intentions trampled underfoot the Ninth Amendment to the Constitution. That amendment states that a right established by custom that is not enumerated in the Constitution cannot be construed to mean that the right does not exist. The most fundamental of unlisted constitutional rights, recognized since 1788, is the right of a property owner to do as he wishes with his property or business. Not anymore.

Since 1968, the federal government's authority over a person's land or business supersedes the owner's right. The new CEO came on-board with a new set of regulations governing hiring, firing, and eliminating the owner's right to refuse service.

Adios Tenth Amendment.

The 1968 Act also trashed the Tenth Amendment. That amendment states that the federal government has only those powers specifically listed in the Constitution. The Court's authority for its1954 and 1968 decisions are not enumerated in the Tenth Amendment and thus are rendered glaringly unconstitutional. Now the federal government is poised to take another giant leap into social engineering with Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing. Translation: "Affirmatively," means by racial quotas; "Furthering," means a massive expansion of the 1968 Civil Rights Act; and "Fair" means whatever the fed thinks is fair. Obama's Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) decreed that neighborhoods must be made more diverse. To accomplish this, HUD is to gather information on the racial composition of communities across the nation and identify those that are in dire need of diversification. In areas suffering from too many whites, Uncle Do-Right will plant low-income housing in their white-privileged front yards to achieve racial balance. What the fed will do in communities burdened by too many blacks is not yet clear. The rationale for neighborhood diversification is the same as it was for school integration. Just as minorities were put at a disadvantage by attending schools with a scarcity of whites, so also they are penalized by shabby ZIP codes.

Adios First Amendment.

As an aside, one might note this scraps the right of freedom of assembly guaranteed by the First Amendment. If you're keeping count, we can scratch off three of the ten amendments in the Bill of Rights. The First, Ninth, and Tenth Amendments have been hollowed out in the name of social justice. Seven to go. To be fair, communities have the right to opt-out of importing minorities while HUD retains the right to cut billions in federal funds from those communities. That's fair, right? This October the Senate will vote yea or nay on the bill. This writer hopes for a thumbs-up vote. The Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Act, besides turning many neighborhoods into free-fire zones of social, financial, political, and racial chaos, might also change the way people vote.

Isn't 60 years of social engineering enough?

Sincerely,

Bob Scroggins

New Milford, PA