Letter: Get educated so you don't get ..

This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2014, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Does anyone besides me fear for our democracy? We now live in a world where the rich and powerful can spend unlimited amounts of money on think tanks which create right-wing issues that appeal to emotion, but have little or no basis in fact. Some of these issues are: liberals want to take your guns away; the rich must be given more and more tax breaks, or liberals want to take your money and give it to the poor, who will just waste it.

These messages are then repeated by Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, and others. Unfortunately, this works, and it causes hard working, struggling Americans to vote against their own self interest repeatedly.

We need to fund quality education. We need to fix our infrastructure. We need affordable quality health care for all. We need to maintain our national and state parks, not sell off the land for development.

Please do not allow yourself to be manipulated any more. Educate yourself on the issues. Vote for candidates who will invest in our future, not starve our society so a few well off and well connected campaign donors can make exorbitant short-run profits at our expense.

Mark Rothacher

Salt Lake City

Letter: Get educated so you don't get taken