{"id":109875,"date":"2026-05-10T08:22:37","date_gmt":"2026-05-10T12:22:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.owegopennysaver.com\/PS\/?p=109875"},"modified":"2026-05-10T08:22:37","modified_gmt":"2026-05-10T12:22:37","slug":"letter-is-this-what-you-want","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.owegopennysaver.com\/PS\/2026\/05\/10\/letter-is-this-what-you-want\/","title":{"rendered":"Letter: Is this what you want?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Things to consider this year. Do you believe in choice? Control of your body? Control of your life choices? Do you believe in tolerance for your own beliefs? Or are you comfortable with self-appointed influencers? Are you influenced? Influenced to think that more outside control of your behavior would be helpful? Are you influenced in your use of language? Are you grateful for being corrected when you describe something \u201coffensively\u201d or when you have inadvertently misgendered a person? Do you believe that a person\u2019s freewheeling language should get them fired? This is already the case in government employment.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Do you believe that regulatory agencies should be staffed based on \u201cequitable standards\u201d rather than competence? It seems as though people who can\u2019t build write building codes. It seems as though people who don\u2019t function outside of an office write safety codes. These same people have no respect for cost or the ability to implement their dictates. Coincidentally, many of these people are the same people who complain about affordability. I have always been at the forefront, working for safety, and I design it into my projects.<\/p>\n<p>Many governmental influencers only see what not to do or convoluted ways of doing something and often make processes either undoable or unaffordable. For example, a house may now cost an additional 25%+\/-due to permitting, inspections, additional requirements, and environmental and zoning regulations. This is good for banks, insurance companies, and bureaucrats, but does not contribute to fair, equitable, and affordable housing. The influence of buddy-system bureaucrats, no matter how pure their stated goals may be, ultimately creates the economic and social ills they accuse others of fomenting.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Do you believe in being soft on crime? Do you support little or no penalty for shoplifting, vandalism, theft, or interference in your daily routines by \u201cmostly peaceful protests,\u201d and even violent assault? Are these offenses more important than your daily survival? This is becoming life-threatening. Stores and businesses are abandoning many areas, leaving entire communities either underserved or not served at all. Pharmacies, department stores, clothing stores, even \u201ccorner\u201d stores are put out of business. What we rarely see is accountability afterwards. People who have committed 10, 20 as many as 30 crimes, including violent crimes, and have been arrested are routinely released on little or no bail. This regularly leads to more and more serious crimes later. I believe that people who release these criminals should be held responsible for their future crimes, but both I and they know they never will be. These questions were never at issue before the left-leaning ideologues started dismantling our legal system.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Do you want to be controlled by those telling you what to drive? How to heat your house? How to cook your food? What to eat, etc., while they dine on steaks and fly on their private jets? Taken to its logical conclusion, the war on fossil fuels would eliminate at least 50% of the fertilizer used to grow food, most of our clothes, almost every appliance and tool you have, your car, your tires, and this list just goes on. The climate scare has made many people rich, raised our cost of living based on fear alone, redefined science as unquestionable, and produced all 0 of the catastrophes predicted.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p>In conclusion, you may not see it yet, but these are some of the ways your rights and freedoms are being chipped away. The Constitution can only do so much to protect those rights, but ONLY if it is followed. Much of what we are witnessing is taken from Karl Marx or Saul Alinsky. What they preach, \u201cSocial Equivalence,\u201d is not a healthy meal but more like eating a bowl of frosting. It starts out great but always ends up in sickness. It also ends up with power and control of many held in the hands of a few. This is what happened in Russia in 1917, in Germany in 1933, and again in Russia after WWII under Stalin, and in Venezuela in the 1950\u2019s. What also followed in these cases was the educated \u201celite\u201d who only saw Utopia, they were eliminated as soon as they were no longer \u201cuseful\u201d but before they woke up. The system we have been given is the only one in history that has protected the rights of the individual, and it has been individuals who have given us every advancement we currently enjoy.<\/p>\n<p>Sincerely,<\/p>\n<p>Joseph Shortino<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Owego, New York<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Things to consider this year. Do you believe in choice? Control of your body? Control of your life choices? Do you believe in tolerance for&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":82352,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-109875","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-letters"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Letter: Is this what you want? - Owego Pennysaver Press<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/www.owegopennysaver.com\/PS\/2026\/05\/10\/letter-is-this-what-you-want\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Letter: Is this what you want? - Owego Pennysaver Press\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Things to consider this year. 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