Guest writer

Give it thought

Votes have lasting implications

The news about the United Kingdom voting to withdraw from the European Union was startling. Like the United States, there appears to be great division among the citizens of that country, as the vote for leaving was 52 percent.

The effect on the American stock market was even more startling with an immediate drop of 610 points in the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

With such a close vote, I wondered about a few things and compared the U.K.'s potential problems from their vote with that of the United States in the coming election for president.

Did the people voting for leaving really give their vote the thought it deserves? I have to wonder whether they took President Barack Obama seriously when he made his speech about the U.K. staying. We do not yet know what all is to come, but after the knee-jerk reaction of the American market, one has to wonder what is in store for the world economy and more specifically for the United States.

I hope the citizens of the United Kingdom were not guided by emotion or politics, two very bad reasons to make a vote. I guess time and further possible repercussions will tell the world if the withdrawal from the Common Market was a well-thought-out idea.

We face a similar problem in the United States. Will we vote for a Republican candidate who seems to be trying to address citizens' emotions and politics, rather than what would be good for the country? He repeatedly states that he will return the country to greatness. But does he offer disorganized, helter-skelter approaches or a well-planned agenda such as the Democrat candidate? Does he have the experience the country needs at this point in history?

These are some of the questions that must be asked.

We already have an example of what a Clinton in the White House will do. According to FactCheck, President Bill Clinton both removed the deficit and balanced the budget during his presidency. He also left the White House with a surplus of more than $230 billion for the U.S.

He resolved other problems too numerous to mention here, but is it not logical that a President Hillary Clinton will move along similar lines? No doubt former President Bill Clinton will serve her as an adviser.

Of course, she will need some help from Congress, for no matter how much a president proposes, the Congress must act on much of it. For any candidate to make promises that are difficult to keep without the help of Congress is ludicrous. Do you follow the voting of your Arkansas senators and congressman in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette? You should.

This is the election to provide the incoming president with the help needed as we vote for Arkansas' representation in Congress. Let us not knee-jerk our votes for president for some emotional or political reason or even because we are against a woman being president. Let us rather do the thinking and fact-checking that an intelligent vote requires.

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George Wilken lives in Little Rock and has a master's degree in public administration.

Editorial on 07/01/2016

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