This November: Part 3
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Give me Liberty
Rodger Williamson
Again, picking up from where I left off from last week, I continue with my thoughts regarding the candidates for governor of Alabama.
Lew Burdette is the president of King’s Home in Chelsea, a Christian non-profit shelter for abused youth, women and children fleeing domestic violence.
Burdette listed his campaign goals, should he be elected, with education as his top priority. He then added that “better jobs follow better education.” And finally, he listed that he would “restore trust in government by ending corruption in Alabama.”
While these are all noble goals, I have to admit that I have heard those promises before, each made by the past 12 different governors of Alabama during my lifetime. Yet here we are, with the same unresolved problems. Also, if Burdette has any solid evidence of current corruption within the government of Alabama, then I want him to name names, charges to be filed, and the corrupt to be removed from office. With that, we all should ask why Burdette hasn’t already taken action to address any corruption that he alleges to exist.
Tim James is the son of former two-term governor of Alabama Forrest Hood “Fob” James Jr., and that alone is why he will not get my vote in the upcoming primaries. Regardless of his qualifications, I am opposed to any hint of nepotism. We the people of these United States severed our ties with the monarchy of Great Britain and their practice of primogeniture almost 250 years ago.
Among many reasons I was opposed to Hillary Clinton being president, because her husband, Bill Clinton, had already been president. I was opposed to George W. Bush being president because his father, George H.W. Bush, had already been president. I was opposed to Jim Folsom Jr. being governor because his father, “Big Jim” Folsom (Sr.), had already been the governor of Alabama.
Once a person has achieved high elected office, any members of their family who should seek an elected office should find a completely different position to run for, possibly in a completely different state.
None-the-less, Tim James is a toll road developer and president and owner of his own company. He sought and lost the Republican Party nomination for governor of Alabama twice in the past. “The Washington Post” has described James as a conservative Republican, and Alabama columnist Steve Flowers described James as “extremely conservative.” James himself has said his political campaigns aim to protect “America’s foundation: faith, family and freedom.” And herein lies another fault that I find in James as a candidate for our governor, because he apparently is not capable of separating his faith from the duties of the office that he seeks.
While every person is entitled to practice whatever religion that may believe in, every government official needs to be able to remain 100% impartial on the subject of religion when exercising the duties of the job, for if they choose any one religion over any other, then there will always be a question as to whether they are equally representing their constituents who may have a different faith than they themselves may practice.
While James has called for improvements to education, including higher pay for school administrators and more autonomy for principals and teachers, and supports school choice, James opposed the legalization of gambling as a means to fund the education system, and he has offered no other options to better fund education other than to yet again increase the tax burden upon the citizenry.
Despite the federal legalization of same-sex marriage in the United States in 2015, James stated that he would push for banning same-sex marriage if elected governor. James also called transgender acceptance, critical race theory and yoga in gym class part of a “beast with three heads” that endangered children in the public school system.
Donald Trent Jones, who is often seen dressed in a colorful hippie suit, seriously advocates for a pro-yoga platform.
In most of Jones’ online videos, he has dropped his last name and played upon the similarity of his first and middle names to the first and last name of former President Donald Trump.
Jones is a musician who can sing and play guitar and the fiddle. He is a yoga guru and can ride a hoverboard competently.
I think he’d probably be a great person to be our governor, but if I had to make a bet on him winning, I’d have to assume that he will never garner the support to get past the upcoming primary.
Because of the limitations of space available for a weekly opinion column, I must stop here and will pick up again with what I can find out about other candidates for the position of governor of Alabama in next week’s “Coosa County News.”
