Easy to criticize from sidelines

A recent letter writer says that history will ask “how could we have been so dumb”? The writer is quite obviously referring to the elections of 2008 and 2012, where the voters chose today’s leaders of an opposing political party who the letter writer believes are incompetent, short-sighted and weak, among other faults. Old news, one party bashing on another. Blah, blah, blah…

All while we are presently trying to extricate ourselves from near economic collapse and two wars of questionable benefit to say the least, we might as well ask the same of the voters choices in the years 2000 and 2004? We don’t even have to wait for history to give us an answer to that question!

Politics aside, it is very easy to stand on the sidelines and criticize. In today’s ever more complicated world, right and wrong often have subtle differences. What seems right today may be wrong tomorrow. Who’s side should we be on in Syria, for instance? Or better yet, does anyone really believe that putting more missiles in Poland or the Czech Republic would deter Putin? Some would bluff and bluster, threaten and remind Putin that we have nuclear capabilities, aka Sarah Palin, but when the bluff is called I don’t think that the most hawkish hawk would incinerate the planet over Crimea or the Ukraine.

The very fact that some choose to prattle on about others shortcomings is to prove only that they too lack the answers. We all possess 20/20 hindsight and we all have a right to our opinion (and most everyone has one of those including myself), but what would be far more helpful and interesting to read about would be to offer informed, concrete solutions to problems.

Kari Morgan

Sultan

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