As I sat at my computer to write my weekly editorial I was reading some of my old columns to find a topic. I saw the title “Destroying the Bugs in Society” and immediately thought of our situation this week in our civic duty to vote in candidates that will make the right choices for us as a people and ridding ourselves of those other candidates which have not been so forthcoming in keeping our country a “Constitutional Republic.” This is a good reminder of what we need to do as a country. So here it is with a few updates:

Computers are a big part of our society and as time goes on we will become more and more dependent on what computers and computer related hardware can do for us. With all of this “tweeting,” “texting” and “facebooking” there are more chances to get “bugs” in the system. Bugs that cause viruses that destroy what we have.

For example, last week I was reading along on my computer in a family research website when all of a sudden my computer screen started flashing. It was telling me that some major virus had attacked my computer and I should use some anti-virus program to get it out. So I click “yes” to the program and unbeknownst to me, the anti-virus program was the virus which created the whole warning in the first place. It took 24 hours to remove this pesky bug from my computer and it caused me a lot of grief. Along with the threat to our computers there are other “bugs” and viruses we need to watch out for which threaten our society.

The new health care bill which apparently has been passed has 2,000 pages of something which we really don’t know anything about but others report are not good for our health. For example, according to Fortune Magazine, Shawn Tully writes of five freedoms we have now that we will lose when the bill is passed: (1) The freedom to choose what’s in our own health plan. (2) The freedom to be rewarded for healthy living or pay your real costs. (3) The freedom to choose a high deductible coverage or a low deductible coverage. (4) The freedom to keep our existing plan and (5) the freedom to choose our own doctor. There are a load of bugs written which will not be helpful to us.

Along with the health care bill, new government regulation, higher taxes to pay for foreign aid and lack of ownership of private business all have bugs in the system to destroy our freedoms. Just like my computer experience, we say yes to what seems like a great idea but in the long run will become such a virus to us, it will debilitate our freedoms. Let’s hope we will be smart enough to avoid a total extermination. Let’s hope that our election this week will bring in new leaders who will keep our freedoms strong.

Loxley resident Valerie J. Steimle is now the author of four books. Her latest, "Dogs, Blogs and Hobbits: Writings from a Widow's Perspective" is available on Amazon.com. Contact her at valeriesteimle@yahoo.com or visit her website at www.stregthenyourhome.com.