Editor:

Those who have read my letters in the past know my views on voting — if you don't have enough care for your country to vote, then do not complain about the government when things do not go as you wish. As the midterm elections get close — early voting has already started — please take the time to learn who is running, what they stand for, and why you should give them your vote. Today we — America — are in a war that affects all sectors of our society.

There are great dangers in the Islamic War being waged against us in the Middle East. While we are told it is not a war against Islam but against certain elements within Islam, I look to our so-called "allies" in the Middle East and see men who hate us, despise our way of life and only want us gone. We should never have gone in and fought the war we did, but that is now water under the bridge.

What is necessary now is to elect men and women who will get us out of the Middle East and other places where we are not wanted. It is time for America to turn within and rebuild our country. We have an infrastructure that is dangerously outdated and in need of major repair, a southern border that is hemorrhaging billions of dollars in taxpayers' money without a clear and defined set of goals, and a national government that is leaderless and in free fall and seems unable to come up with policies that work and who cannot work together as adult men and women should.

Perhaps it is time to give the U.S. Congress to the Republicans and let them have a turn. As long as the current impasse is allowed to continue, the next two years will be the same as the last four — deadlocked. I wish that I had an easy answer for the negative atmosphere that is our national government, but I don't. I do know what is going to have to happen. We the People are going to have to shake up Washington like it hasn't been shaken in many years. To do that, we have to do away with the current attitude in Washington. Everyone who can do so must write letters to those in elected positions and tell those representatives that they work for us and that we are tired of the lack of results and it is time to get the job done or go home. We must tell our leaders that they are not only replaceable, but that we will replace them. Start out by going to the voting booths and continue by holding each person responsible to carry out the promises that they give.

Please take the time to study the men and women who are asking for your vote. Please take the time to vote. Your vote truly counts and if we are to have real change in our country, we must shout from the highest mountains that we have had enough. Let us take our country back.

Respectfully,
Tom Grovenstein