To the Editor:
A rather interesting letter appeared in the Jan. 9 issue of LCN, entitled, “According to the liberal Democrats’ dictionary.” We are getting used to such rants as the writers: in Washington, by our elected “representatives,” on television, via commentators, etc. Why, even the president is fair game for them, seen as the antichrist; even the new pope is a Marxist, because, for one thing, they point out it’s a shameful matter to not care about the most needy among us.
We must question where the writer gets his information from. Where is it indicated in the Democratic party’s philosophy and platforms, that “you must give half of your paycheck to someone who can’t work or doesn’t prefer to work? (Yes, we hope the writer is exaggerating, out of anger.)
There are questions to be asked of these “authorities.” What about those poor or unemployed, those working more than one job just to survive, to support families with the barest necessities – those who are blamed for “exploiting the system” the “deadbeats” we hardworking people have to pay taxes to “support,” not help?
Are they to blame for the two recent wars, which have cost us taxpayers trillions of dollars? Are they the ones who kept cutting taxes from the upper one percent of our citizenry, so that the rest of us have to make up the gap?
I remember when workers from the shoe factories went to Washington petitioning Congress to protect their jobs against foreign manufacturers. Their factories are closed. Where are their jobs? Don’t those workers deserve unemployment and retraining from the government that allowed their jobs to go overseas?
What about all the other hard working citizens who also lost their livelihoods because their government, elected “for the people,” sent their jobs overseas? What of the veterans who risked their lives; many of them suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, some crippled, who have returned to find they can’t get unemployment benefits.
How is it that billions of dollars are available and affordable for killing machines, while funding to assist families to get by is debated and/or denied? Dwight D. Eisenhower said, “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.”
That former Republican president could not mention the billions wasted in our times for war machines which have failed to function.
As for the issues of “income inequality and income equality” mentioned in the letter: In the past 25 years, America’s economy more than doubled. We are all responsible for this. In that same period, the bottom 90 percent of Americans saw their incomes fall by an average of about $4000. The richest .01 percent saw their incomes jump to 384 percent.
Is government “taxing the daylights out of the rich?” Americans do not mind people being rich; in fact, they seem to take the attitude that the wealthy deserve privileges just because they’re rich. Americans, as anyone else on earth, do not like it when others do not pay their fair share.
Maybe the rich have become our aristocracy; perhaps they are the kind of privileged elite, which led non-democracy nationals to overthrow them.
No, the writer is definitely not alone in his sincerity or passion. Let’s consider the compassionate side to things. Don’t kick a worker when she’s down and out. Share the wealth. Notice that the progressive Democratic party is pursuing income equality and a fair share for the middle class.
Meanwhile, it looks like the Republican party, formerly known as “the party of No,” has become “The party of Indifference.” Guess it all boils down to caring or not caring. Which will prevail in the mid-term elections?
