Factional politics give no choices

 Dear Editor:

Your recent column made some interesting points.

I should point out that I retired from the Air Force in 1983, and in the intervening years have pretty much avoided going to Offutt [Air Force Base]. For instance, I arrived here in 1972, and in the 43 years I’ve been here I’ve never been to one of their annual air shows. I’ve also never attended any of their annual ‘retiree appreciation’ days. I’ve been in the base commissary precisely three times, and I can meet or beat the commissary prices at Hy-Vee and Fareway stores. And I haven’t been in the Base Exchange in decades.

I was invited to join the local (Emerson) American Legion post but I declined. I’m not a joiner and I’m really not interested in anything military; 20 and a bit years of it was quite enough; I’m out of it and I’ll stay out of it thank you very much.

You seem to be upset that more than half of the American people don’t bother to vote. Why should they? The two major political parties have thoroughly corrupted the election system and present to the voters candidates who are the moral and ethical equivalents of Charles Manson and Jeffrey Dahmer. Which one of those sterling characters would anybody vote for?

This country was not founded as a “two-party system” as many claim; it was founded as a no-party system. In point of fact, the Founders repeatedly warned against what they call “factions;” those “factions” are what we now call political parties.

Roy Marshall’s column on the same page included several very nice quotes from one of my favorite cynics, Mark Twain. I’m going to add them to my collection. One he missed, though, was “. . .the United States has no [distinctly] native criminal class, save the Congress.” He had their number over a century ago.

Bob Ackley

Emerson