Praising Roger
I'll admit it. There are Democrats whos company I could enjoy. Roger L. Simon is one of them, but I think its likely because he might really just be a conservative Republican who doesn't yet know it. Roger recently posted:
"Let me begin by saying that there is not a great deal of domestic policy about which I agree with George Bush. I think taxes should not be reduced for the upper classes. I would like to see a lot more done for the environment, including the automobile companies being forced to build truly fuel-efficient cars as quickly as possible. I favor a woman’s right to choose and gay marriage. I’d like to see salaries raised for teachers. I could go on, but I think you get the picture—..."
Since I have a great deal of respect for Roger, but I feel his positions need challenging, I'm gonna post comments here, rather than mess things up for him and his readers on his blog.
Item 1: "I think taxes should not be reduced for the upper classes." The IRS posts documents which clearly state which income levels pay what amounts, percentages and relative amounts of taxes as compared to other income levels. If these income levels are what Roger refers to as "classes" then at least he's only misspeaking, not simply wrong. Britiain, India and Brazil have "classes" of people who are born into a certain "caste" and have no remedy for that fortune, or misfortune, of birth. These classes prevent a social translation one to another, unlike the United States, where a person like Michael Moore can become an undeserved, overnight financial success, and someone like F. Scott Fitzgerald, who can be born into noble stock, achieve great success, and die penniless.
The truth is, from the pages of the IRS Fact sheets, in our country, only "rich" people pay taxes. If you're going to give anyone a tax cut, it will only benefit "rich" people, something like 20 percent of our population, because a full 50% of our population pay no income tax. If what you want is a gift to people who actually pay no income tax, let's at least be honest and call it what it is.
Point 2: "I would like to see a lot more done for the environment, including the automobile companies being forced to build truly fuel-efficient cars as quickly as possible." What more would you like to see done for the environment? Maybe we could start with researching what pollution is. If CO2 is really a poison gas. like the environmentalists claim we should prohibit its production, just like we did the distribution of chloro-flouro carbons a decade ago. (Seems the ozone hole is still growing for some strange reason, but certainly not due to any cycle of unusual solar activity.) Well, the fact that plant life in the amazon basin requires CO2, might make it imperative that we not totally probibit its' production. In any case, resumption of nuclear research and power plant construction would fix all of this, allow us to remove environmental debacles like the Hoover Dam, TVA, and Mississippi River levees, regardeless of any flood control benefits we so shallowly thought we could impose on nature.
Regarding forcing vehicle manufacturers to build fuel-efficient cars: What a novel concept! We could have 100mpg autos tomorrow if we all switched to diesel and bought European imports! Well, maybe not. The myth is that we're running out of "fossil" fuels. We're not. Building zero-emission cars is a good idea, but it's ironic that the really over-hyped "hybrid" solution actually produces more emissions, and gets poorer mileage than a better performing diesel car. Imagine that!
Roger, what would you be willing to pay for a really fuel-efficient car? Would you be willing to start the trend and insist your book publisher use polymer based printing products, rather than paper products? Bet you couldnt sell near as many at that price, no matter how many you convinced the publisher to print.
By the way, eliminating traffic lights, toll booths and public buses stopping traffic on busy roads could save as much as 2 gallons of fuel for every car in our country, every month!
Item 3: "I favor a woman’s right to choose and gay marriage." (did he mean I favor a woman’s right to choose a gay marriage? -guess not) For the record, I favor a woman's right to choose as well. He, She, It should be able to do anything to her, his, its own body, so long as no other individual is harmed, kinda like the "pound of flesh nearest the heart" thing. Sadly, our society puts more value on an eagle's egg, than it does on a mother's child. I'd like to see at least the same respect and protection for both. Gay Marriage? Why not - lets just call it something other than marriage, in order to show a little respect for people who respect God's writings.
Lastly: "I’d like to see salaries raised for teachers." This has at its root another choice women should be given: where to send their children to school. Women in this country are denied that right because of "Churchophobia". A woman or man, gay or straight, in any community in this country should be able to say, " That school is better than the one my child is at. My child would do better there." And if that were the parent's choice, the local school board would take whatever funds were allocated for the education of the child that year, and give it to the school where the parent chose to send her child. We conservatives sometimes refer to this as a voucher system. Competition would increase, teachers could demand higher salaries, and then they could afford those high mileage cars, and the cost of fuel to put in them, all going to stimulate our economy so we could give bigger tax cuts to those who actually pay taxes for the rest of us!
Domestic policy has to be read and understood in order to be agreeable. I'm guessing Roger has heard a lot about the Bush administration's domestic policy, but he perhaps has not read much of the administration's domestic policy. We all need to make sure we are getting the facts before we choose to follow. As the war coverage in Iraq demonstrates, you cannot get facts from a source which has, at its heart, an agenda. Better to dig and be confused, than to agree and be proven wrong, I like to say. So lets agree to keep digging on these topics a while, shall we?
There you go, Roger. Hope it all made sense, or at least entertained you just a little bit!
