Letter to the Editor by Nancy Murdoch, CCTA Education Chairman, July 26, 2013

Detroit and the Black Community

Detroit, once the seventh largest city in America, has recently filed for bankruptcy.  The statistics of Detroit are frightening:  40% of the traffic lights are broken, only 1/3 of the ambulances work, the police force has been cut by 40%, the murder rate is eleven times higher than New York City, only seven percent of 8^th graders are proficient readers, and 47% of the citizens are functionally illiterate; even though billions were poured into the education system.  Millions have fled leaving urban blight in their wake.  The future of Detroit is dismal.

The black population of American finds itself in similar disarray:  over 70% of black children are born to young, single mothers; high unemployment and poverty; high incarceration rates; rampant drug and alcohol abuse; gang membership; huge numbers on welfare; malaise and hopelessness.  While it may be easy to blame whites and the history of slavery, there comes a point when personal responsibility and other factors need to be examined.

Detroit and the black community have one commonality---50 years of progressive Democrats with destructive and corruptive policies, destroying Detroit and the black family. 

“The War on Poverty” has effectively made the black man irrelevant as government has taken the place of the father in the home.  Because of entitlement rules it has become more beneficial for black men to become sperm donors than fathers.  Male children look in all the wrong places to replace the missing fathers:  gangs and drug dealers are often popular choices.  Statistics overwhelmingly suggests that marriage and family is a better way to prevent poverty and crime.  However, the progressives and the race baiters would not profit from such a scenario.  The race baiters need to constantly pick at the scab of racial tension, and the progressives don’t want to lose the black vote.

The election of a black president did nothing to alleviate the racial conflicts, but has seemed to exacerbate them.  A NBC /Wall Street Journal poll shows a sharp decline in perceived racial harmony since 2010.  The leader of the free world misses the opportunity to engage in meaningful discussions about how we are all Americans, preferring to enflame by throwing gasoline at situations which are divisive.  Granted, these are not confined to racial issues, but to all people who disagree with his agenda.

“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different result.”  It’s probably too late for Detroit, but hopefully not for the black community and the rest of the Nation.

A Message from Our Chairman

Dear friends of freedom,


I, like many of you, have been listening to the the arguments at the Supreme Court this week, and I'm beginning to think Obama wants the individual mandate to be struck down. Hear me out.

If only the individual mandate is struck down and not the whole bill, we will be left with a program similar to Social Security WITHOUT any funding. This could easily lead to a universal healthcare system identical to what is currently in place in Canada and Great Britain. After all the mandate forced healthy citizens to pay for others. And as so much of ObamaCare is already in place, it will difficult to throw it out. Many businesses will drop insurance for their employees, individuals will drop their insurance and accept the government plan, insurance companies will go under, and the government insurance will be the only alternative. I can see the national debt topping $25T by the year 2025, if not sooner.

Please...someone tell me why I'm wrong,

CCTA Chairman, Nancy Murdoch

Sun Journal Letter to the Editor by CCTA Vice Chairman, Nancy Murdoch: Coveting Stuff

December 08, 2011 4:08 PM



There is something fundamentally wrong with this country, and it’s deeper than politics, but there may be a correlation. We have a culture run amok, with a percentage of folks that seem closer to barbarians than members of a civilized society.


The day after Thanksgiving, also known as Black Friday, some individuals acted like hooligans and starving animals. With a mob mentality, people fought over “stuff” with no concern for their fellow man. The “stuff” was not the necessities of life, but waffle irons, video games and other “stuff”. In West Virginia folks stepped over and around a collapsed man as if he was only a piece of trash.

During the Occupy Wall Street protests, we have witnessed open sex, rapes, public defecation and all sorts of antisocial behavior. And many of their demands involved “stuff”, generally wanting someone else’s “stuff,” not wanting to pay for their own “stuff”, or just more “stuff”.


Then we have a president campaigning on promises to take “stuff” from some Americans and give that “stuff” to other Americans that vote for him. He likes to chastise those who he perceives having too much “stuff”, but doesn’t mind giving the taxpayers’ ”stuff” to those who give him lots of “stuff” for his campaign coffers.


Another new phenomenon of the 21st century is the so called “flash mob”; young, social media connected types rushing into stores stealing “stuff”. Has stealing become socially acceptable in some circles?


It does appear there are people trying to feel better about themselves and their lives by illegally or immorally acquiring more “stuff”. A number of people do nothing to earn their “stuff”.


A review of history will see this scenario has played out before. A culture reaches a position of wealth and prosperity, followed by an erosion of the values that helped the country reach that pinnacle of success. People become lazy and dependent on society for their “stuff” and the society begins to crumble.


Add a government and a citizenry completely consumed by debt, a crumbling dollar, and it’s easy to visualize an uncertain future. The rubber will meet the road when there is a lot less “stuff” to go around. If there should be a shortage of essential “stuff”, is it a stretch to think that these semi-barbarians will become full fledged in their desire for enough “stuff” to exist?


Nancy Murdoch, Havelock, NC