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Box 220, 728Main St., Red Bluff, CA 96080 Facebook: Leave comments at FACEBOOK.COM/ RBDAILYNEWS Twitter: Follow and send tweets to @REDBLUFFNEWS I won't waste your time trying to use Feel- ing Poorlygate as an excuse to play amateur doctor — plenty of people in the basket of deplorables are doing that already — be- cause here's the sagacious bottom line: Givenwhatwealready know about the '16 presiden- tial candidates — combin- ing their ages, this is the old- est duo in American history — it's imperative that they both release their medical records. Only then can we begin to put Hillary Clinton's ill health ep- isodes, and notably her lat- est one, in the proper perspec- tive. Only then can we begin to determine whether Don- ald Trump's rotten health hab- its — four hours sleep a night and an insatiable intake of junk food — are blinking yel- low lights for an overweight 70-year-old man. But neither of these candi- dates is particularly transpar- ent, and there's no require- ment that they come clean on the medical front. Indeed, their predecessors rarely went the extra mile. Barack Obama and Mitt Romney didn't share those personal histories in 2012. John McCain did it in 2008, but with a big caveat: He dumped 1,000 pages on a select few reporters, and gave them only a few hours to read up. So when Trump tweeted in August that he was willing to "release detailed medical re- cords," that he had "no prob- lem in doing so," it just read like a head fake. But we do need to know, not just because the presidency is such a grueling job, but be- cause in the absence of hard information, the conspiracy theories continue to metasta- size — as we've long seen al- ready, like when Karl Rove cited Clinton's '12 concus- sion and conjured brain dam- age. And the public wants a lot more info. According to a na- tional poll last month by the survey firm Morning Consult, 64 percent of registered voters want Clinton and Trump to re- lease detailed records, a 9 per- cent hike since the question was asked in May. Still, it doesn't necessarily mean that the public will ra- tionally assess the released info. Take a look at what's hap- pening right now: Clinton's doctor says she has pneumo- nia, and the usual loons and trolls, their hair afire, spent their Sunday tweeting pneu- monia death stats. This is a big a reason why leaders often embrace secrecy — as arguably evidenced best by FDR. Post- polio, he hid the fact that he couldn't walk; back then, most Americans didn't look kindly on "cripples." The truth would have damaged him politically; only after his death did people learn that Hitler was beaten by a guy who couldn't stand. But now that we're sup- posedly more sophisticated about these things, and about modern medicine, the scales should tilt toward transpar- ency. At least the rational among us would know more than we know now. And lest we forget, we know a lot less about Trump's medical fitness than we do about Clinton's. All we've got from the demagogue is a four- paragraph letter written in five minutes nine months ago in the back of a limo. Trump's gastroenterologist, Har- old Bornstein, did the hon- ors, declaring in suspiciously Trumpy language that "his strength and stamina are ex- traordinary," that his lab re- sults "are astonishingly ex- cellent" (no doctor talks that way), and that of course Trump would be the healthi- est leader in the history of hu- man endeavor. With Clinton off the road for the next few days, the health speculation will only get worse. In theory, the best — one that has been floated for years — is to bring in an independent team of doctors to fully examine both candi- dates. The idea is to depoliti- cize the situation as much as possible. The potential upside, at minimum, is that the can- didates (especially Clinton) would no longer be accused of hiding anything. On the other hand, I fear that everything is so politicized that if Clinton were judged to be basically healthy, the trolls would sim- ply retaliate by sliming the in- dependent doctors. But here's one thing we can say for real: The vice-presi- dential debate between Tim Kaine and Mike Pence is sud- denly more important. DickPolmanisthenational political columnist at NewsWorks/WHYY in Philadelphia (newsworks. org/polman) and a "Writer in Residence" at the University of Pennsylvania. Email him at dickpolman7@gmail.com. Dick Polman Candidates should cough up medical records Cartoonist's take The Republican Central Com- mittee and volunteers hope to get to meet you at our fair booth in the com- mercial build- ing, and share our enthusiasm and hope for elec- toral victories in 7 weeks. There will be flyers, bumper stickers and ca- maraderie for all. Hope to see ya then. As I wrote this in early July prior to traveling, I found a 2-year-old item that is still rel- evant to issues at stake in this election. "The Idol of Equal- ity" by Victor Davis Hanson, is on the Internet (enter ti- tle and author, use National- Review.com). It is subtitled "To put equality ahead of liberty is to war against human nature." It should be self-evident; how- ever, many are sadly becoming confused by the pandering and sloganeering of "equality" ideo- logues. Alexis de Tocqueville, a French traveler in, observer of, and writer about, a relatively newborn America in the early 1800s had this to say: "There is, in fact, a manly and lawful passion for equality which ex- cites men to wish all to be pow- erful and honored. This pas- sion tends to elevate the hum- ble to the rank of the great; but there exists also in the hu- man heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the power- ful to their own level, and re- duces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with free- dom." The terms, "manly…men," shouldn't detract from the timeless sentiments. It's laud- able to aspire to betterment, comfort, wealth and posi- tion; and for removing imped- iments to such aspirations. It is, on the other hand, a disrep- utable desire or policy to look upon those who've achieved and have possessions, wealth or influence—even those on the way—and accuse them of ma- lintent, dishonor, injustice or undue privilege, all to de-legiti- mize achievement. Even worse is to empower the state—using the mob men- tality of manipulated public opinion—to punish achievers via taxation, seize their wealth, and transfer it to other groups or people. It's disappointing when that sentiment is a ma- jor motivation in one of Ameri- ca's major political parties. The Democrats are obsessed with raising taxes on "the rich," while concocting more spend- ing giveaways, and growing ex- isting benefit programs. Large pluralities of Demo- crats supported a self-admitted "democratic socialist," Bernie Sanders. This occurred while the latest experiment in social- ism, Venezuela, descends into the kind of chaos and barbar- ity that inevitably follows mis- guided attempts to socialize a nation with "equality" for all. As an oil-rich country, with abundant fertile land, Venezu- ela's energy lags its needs, food shelves are bare while riots and thievery overwhelm ship- ments, medical care is subhu- man, and they can't afford to print money. Hanson: "The present war against personal liberty in ser- vice to mandated equality may become the greatest danger of the 21st century. The theaters of battle already extend to ev- ery segment of American life; and every weapon is employed, from government coercion to the media to the Orwellian ef- fort to change the meaning of language. "Millions of Americans have lost the liberty to select their own type of health insurance, purchased on their own voli- tion to best match their own assessments of their particular needs. Obamacare—the federal government's redistributive ef- fort to equalize health care for all—sought to destroy the lib- erty of many millions in order to ensure state-directed same- ness in care for all." What was foreseen, by many analysts and conservative ad- vocates of free market health care, has occurred: So-called "death spirals" for companies that have been induced by le- gally mandated guaranteed signups—together with "must issue" for pre-existing condi- tions. That produced higher- than-expected costs with no reimbursement from taxpayer pockets as originally pro- posed. Result? Obama can't force businesses to operate at losses exceeding a billion dol- lars; they exit the insurance ex- changes, abandoning Obam- acare to wither and slide into collapse. VDH: "The effort to take away freedom, both violent and insidious, in order to ensure equality of result has a sad his- tory…(to wit the French Rev- olution, the Sovietization of Eastern Europe, socialization of African and Latin American nations, the European Union, etc.) "The problem with destroy- ing liberty in service to man- dated sameness is obvious: It has never worked, because it is contrary to human nature… forced equality erodes personal initiative, undermines the rule of law, ruins the honesty of language, and requires a de- gree of coercion antithetical to a free society." Remember that the progres- sive elite, the governing class and favored crony capital- ists will always set themselves above the ruled; they will have a vested interest in promoting the philosophy of "equality" as a means of eliminating com- petition for the excessive ben- efits they award themselves. Just like the Obamas, their children will be admitted into elite schools, universities, and then on to boardrooms, private jets, private golf courses, gated wealthy neighborhoods, and on and on. The richest counties in America surround Washing- ton, D.C. State mandated (and at- tempted) equality produces 1) humans fleeing from it, as was seen in the U.S.S.R, East- ern Europe, France, Detroit and California, 2) governing by mandates and executive fiats which comes from 3) the selec- tive enforcement of settled law and 4) appointees chosen on the basis of progressive ideol- ogy rather than proven compe- tence and expertise. This is all intended to help the poor; however "free people usu- ally create more wealth than the coerced, which makes the lower echelons better off." Liberty en- ables those same lower classes to lift themselves into higher in- comes through their own ini- tiative and abilities. Americans must choose liberty over equal- ity to survive as the world's bea- con of freedom. Don Polson has called Red Bluff home since 1988. He can be reached by e-mail at donplsn@ yahoo.com. The way I see it Which path? Liberty or equality According to a national poll last month by the survey firm Morning Consult, 64 percent of registered voters want Clinton and Trump to release detailed records, a 9 percent hike since the question was asked in May. Sounding off A look at what readers are saying in comments on our website and on social media. If they really honored law enforcement, they would support the unions that try to get them decent wages and not support the Supervisors, who think they deserve a raise, instead of law enforcement. Pat Johnston: On Tea Party Patriot groups recognizing law enforcement with plaques Proud to be from a community that recognizes law enforcement. Tonya Moore: On Tea Party Patriot groups recognizing law enforcement with plaques Don Polson StateandNational Assemblyman James Galla- gher, 2060 Talbert Drive, Ste. 110, Chico 95928, 530 895-4217, http://ad03.asmrc.org/ Senator Jim Nielsen, 2634 ForestAve.,Ste.110,Chico95928, 530 879-7424, senator.nielsen@ senate.ca.gov Governor Jerry Brown, State Capital Building, Sacramento 95814, 916 445-2841, fax 916 558- 3160, governor@governor.ca.gov U.S. Representative Doug La- Malfa, 507 Cannon House Of- fice Building, Washington D.C. 20515, 202 225-3076 U.S. Senator Dianne Fein- stein, One Post St., Ste. 2450, San Francisco 94104, 415 393-0707, fax 415 393-0710 U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer, 1700 Montgomery St., San Fran- cisco 94111, 510 286-8537, fax 202 224-0454 Local Tehama County Supervisors, 527-4655 District 1, Steve Chamblin, Ext. 3015 District 2, Candy Carlson, Ext. 3014 District3,DennisGarton,Ext. 3017 District 4, Bob Williams, Ext. 3018 District 5, Burt Bundy, Ext. 3016 Red Bluff City Manager, Rich- ard Crabtree,527-2605, Ext. 3061 Corning City Manager, Kris- tina Miller, 824-7033 Your officials OPINION » redbluffdailynews.com Tuesday, September 20, 2016 » MORE AT FACEBOOK.COM/RBDAILYNEWS AND TWITTER.COM/REDBLUFFNEWS A6