Letters: Anarchy, MJ and bags of poop
The letters column today kicks off with a guy who thinks taxpayers need more say in how their money is spent. Here's you clue, Dave: it's called a vote.
In the middle we see a familiar comment from MJ, cross-posting to the Courier online comments system. Go MJ, and I encourage all readers here to do the same.
Finally a Vietnam vet confirms just how awful those peaceniks are by repeating the legend of returning troops being taunted and pelted with shit. Like everyone else I've heard these stories, but also that no one has ever reliably confirmed they actually happened. Anyone have a good source?
4 comments:
MJ I have your post in a place of Honor on my wall as the letter of the week !
I cannot confirm Mr McGee's Nam Story ,It was before my time. During my service in the USN I was spit on (And Spit back At) No Nukes Protesters in Hawaii and Adelaide, Australia.
so while not actually having seen it , I believe that its quite likely that what Mr McGee describes happened. As to communism in prescott...well I think that there aint much left to be afraid of paticularly if it's face is some one as lame as Randall Amster.
Steve ,Dave wants hands on control of exactly where his money goes , voting for a candidate does not do that .
what you get when you vote for someone is at best a nod and a wink promise that they will spemd your money wisely..Hmmm I wonder if the war in Iraq would still be going on if we all could choose whether or not to allow any of our individual tax money to fund it ...if we could all see how much the war was costing each of us....Hmmm
Re: "hands-on control," perhaps we could institute a coin-operated system, where to use or receive benefit from any public service you'd have to put a buck in the slot. I don't think so.
The purpose of shared public expense is to gain the economic advantage of buying goods and services as a society-wide group. Parceling that out to individual decisions would mae government itself pointless, and bring on the dream of the radical Libertarians: anarchy.
The key is electing people who know what they're doing and understand the mission. You start by encouraging smart, committed people to get involved. You get in your own way when you believe that anyone who gets involved is corrupt.
campaign promises are just as leagally binding as a young Mans promise of unending love from the back seat..
while Daves proposal is as much a pipe dream ( and most likely) unworkable in a practical sense
as expecting the electorate to only vote for good politicians,( what constitute's a good politician ?, man THERE's a topic that could clog the blogosphere for weeks) the basic Idea of regular folks having to stop and actually make decisions on what they want to support with their Tax dollars is attractive to me .
I suspect that if a person is smart enough to balance a check book he or she is smart enough to take part in deciding where his or her tax dollars go.How many folks have you had to educate on just exactly where the money is coming from to finance the wa..I can't call it a war any more..the occupation of Iraq? Geez how many of us would pay for the total coverage health care the president gets when just a few city blocks from the white house there are kids w/out health care?
Whether or not its intentional, there is a huge "somebody else's problem field" wrapped around the financial side of our Govt. When's the last time you were ENCOURAGED by Govt. at any level to actually understand where and what for your personal tax dollars go. I mean even a Itemized recipt for sevice's rendered would make a huge difference in getting people to WAKE UP.
Which is the point.
more participation by citizens means better Govt. Right?
Mr. McGee seems to have a problem with other people not agreeing with the President.
And with telling the difference between someone throwing poop at the troops and an old lady standing on a corner wearing black and holding a sign. They are, actually, different.
Supposedly, our troops are in Iraq fighting so that, among other things, old ladies have the right to stand on a corner wearing black and holding a sign. We call it Free Speech. Saadam didn't like it either.
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