I have often complained about Gary Horton’s “Full Speed to Port” column. I have often reminded readers that always steering to port means that you spin in circles. However, when Mr. Horton commands us to do so many of the “right things” as he does in his Aug. 19 column, I must agree with him. It is important that we all “ante up and kick in,” as he suggests. I agree with his remarks about the quality of life in the Santa Clarita Valley being due to quality of character in its residents. His recommendations of the “right things” are civic lessons that every child in the SCV, California and the U.S. should learn.
But I have a difficult time reconciling Mr. Horton’s common-sense ideas about “coming together” when his Democratic Party is tearing us apart. Children cannot buy cigarettes, alcohol, or get a tattoo because we deem them too young to make those life choices, yet the Democratic Party recommends that they can obtain puberty-blocking drugs or even mutilating surgery without notifying their parents. Fifty years ago, Title IX was created to give women’s sports equality with men’s in our schools. Yet the Democratic Party feels it is “equal” for any male to use women’s locker rooms to compete against them. The Democratic Party proclaims freedom of speech, yet on the previous page of The Signal, the Democrats locked Republicans out of a redistricting hearing to prevent asking questions about the process.
The Democratic Party has enjoyed single-party rule in California for many years. Look at what this has brought us: Dramatic increases in school spending, but ever-declining test scores, statewide. Higher gas prices, but poorer quality roads. Many billions on a “bullet train” that has only shot us in the foot. Every week, The Signal tells us of another event in Sacramento that denies the “coming together” of common-sense people as (the state) celebrates the immoral and illogical. The values that Mr. Horton praises in the SCV are absent from the Democratic Party.
The depravity espoused by the Democratic Party has not escaped the SCV. The previous page of The Signal announces the beginning of College of the Canyons’ Umoja program. This is another brilliant misconception by academia. If we can find another way to divide and distinctly identify another segment of society, we can create another disadvantaged group that needs to segregated so they can be rewarded. So much for “coming together,” let’s find another way to divide us …
Another damage the Democratic Party has done to the SCV is by dividing us into voting districts. In the name of the California Voting Rights Act, our city has been counted, surveyed and sectioned into five racially profiled districts. In the name of providing minorities a fair opportunity at being elected, we have been divided. They have not been labeled as such — that would be too honest — but the city’s voting districts were initiated by a Democratic Party attorney in order to provide minorities a voting advantage in “their” district. Calling them “socioeconomic” makes it politically correct, but all of the legal wrangling that caused this is racially based. Thank you, Michael Cruz and Sebastian Cazares.
Would it too honest to call the districts by their racial segregation rather than just a number?
What if you are living in the “wrong” district? Should you be given a tax advantage or subsidy to relocate? If one race begins to create an imbalance in another’s district, should we redraw the lines? How often? Who decides? This is a despicable evil and should be called out and eradicated by honest, moral people — such as those in the SCV that Mr. Horton applauds.
Mr. Horton began his column by accurately stating that “both sides” need to get clean. That is true. Power corrupts both parties because that is in the heart of man. However, the corruption in the Republican Party needs to be called out by a Democratic Party that is not steeped in a greater hypocrisy. The Republicans, indeed America, need a Democratic Party that can stand on principles of honesty, integrity and the interests of the American people — as a whole, not divided segmentation.
Until then, Mr. Horton can call for all of us to “come together,” but the likely result is the more we “ante up,” the more we will get “kicked in,” even when we are down.
Jim Scott
Saugus
