The Frugal Libertarian

With the election just a week away, the Letters to the Editor are getting more and more ridiculous.  There were so many to choose from this last week, but here is the winner.

Obama a vote for socialism?

The socialists are coming! The socialists are coming! This tired old canard is the last desperate gasp of Sarah Palin and every other conservative who doesn’t have a single substantive issue left to stand on.

It isn’t socialism to expect the vast resources of our government to make minimal efforts at improving the lives of our citizens. It isn’t socialism for our elected officials to be concerned about the health, education and well-being of those who elected them. It isn’t socialism for every person and business to pay a reasonable and proportionate amount of taxes to run our country, repair our infrastructure, help those less fortunate and save our environment.

And finally, it isn’t socialism to expect our president and his advisers to preserve basic freedoms that allow some misguided people to shout “socialism” rather than joining the effort to move our United States back to a position of international respect and leadership.

Ross Freese  Kansas City

Before I get into whether or not Obama is a socialist, let me first talk about the most ridiculous statement in this letter. Mr. Freese says “It isn’t socialism to expect the vast resources of our government to make minimal efforts at improving the lives of our citizens.” The government has “vast resources”? This is news to me. The only resources the government has are those that they have taken from us. They have no resources of their own.

Socialism is a generic term for several similiar political theories. Wikipedia says ”Socialism is not a discrete philosophy of fixed doctrine and program…Some socialists advocate complete nationalization of the means of production, distribution, and exchange; while others advocate state control of capital within the framework of a market economy”

Our government already controls much of the production and distribution in industries such as health and education, so all those things that Mr. Freese thinks are not Socialism could arguably be just that.

So is Obama a Socialist? I don’t know him personally so I can’t say, but is policy proposals are a lot closer to socialism than capitilism. Obama’s tax proposal is probably the best example. This plan would give tax credits to some people while raising taxes for others to pay for it. This is “nationalization” of capital distribution. In a free market capitilist economy capital distibution among workers is achieved through wages. Obama wants to circumvent this and take charge of dealing out his idea of “ecomomic justice.”

I do find hope in the fact that so many letters have been written arguing that Obama is not a Socialist.  Does this mean that many people still find the idea of socialism unattractive?  If so there may still be hope for our country after all.

This weeks ridiculus liberal letter winner is quite the tear jerker, so have your tissue ready.  (Actually it is a As I See It column, which is basically a longer Letter to the Editor)

Repossessed Car

All the possibilities Mr. Miller gives for why the car was repossessed are possible, but there could be many other explanations.

The family that lost the car could be sitting in a home that they knew they could not afford.  They could have a big screen TV, a Wii, and laptops for everyone in the family all finance with an adjustable rate Home Equity Line of Credit.  They could have a house full of new furniture that they planned on paying off before the one year interest free time period was up, but instead found new things they just had to buy.    They could have two other cars with large payments because they keep trading in their cars every two years.

Sure they could have lost their jobs, but instead of tighting their belts and making sacrifices maybe they continued to live like there was no tomorrow.  Maybe they only looked for jobs that they thought were worthy of them instead of taking anything that would put food on the table.  Maybe they didn’t look at all.

Mr. Miller’s brand of bleeding heart liberalism always seems to ignore the idea of personal responsibility.  When someone experiences hardship it is always someone else’s fault and we as society must come to the rescue.  It is the same brand of liberalism that makes every aspect of life into a “right”.  A right to healthcare, a right to education, and a right to anything else someone may need.  What Mr. Miller and many others like him don’t understand is that in a society where you have a “right” to these things, you are less likely to be able to acquire them.  In a society that you have a right not to be forced to provide these things for others, it is more likely that these essentials will be available for the masses.  I would much rather have the right to obtain life’s essentials than a right to be provided with them, because being provided with everything comes with strings and those strings usually bind our freedoms.

If Mr. Miller really wants to help the shrinking middle class he would be writing about how taxes and inflation are hurting those families.  Instead, he supports a candidate that makes many promises that can only be fulfilled with more taxes and inflation.  If Mr. Miller really wanted to help struggling families he would be writing about how our culture has completely abondoned the idea of delayed gratification and instead has embraced the idea of buy now, pay later.  If he really wanted to help the family that had their car repossessed he could find them and give it back to them.  But, no he wants someone else to fix it, he wants more government, less freedom.

The rules have not changed Mr. Miller.  The game might be a little more difficult, but the rules are the same.  Work hard, make sacrifices, live frugally, save money, and prosper.

The following was a Letter to the Editor in the Kansas City Star written by Mary Reed.

“Just read the bumper stickers

As I was driving on the highway with my 10-year-old son, he asked me what the difference was between a Republican and a Democrat. As I was trying to figure out the best way to explain, we saw a car with a McCain bumper sticker, and next to it, a car with an Obama bumper sticker.

The car with the McCain sticker was an expensive Lexus sedan. The car with the Obama sticker was a late model Chrysler. That, I said, is the difference between a Republican and a Democrat.”

I had a smartass response prepared but a someone did it for me in today’s Letters to the Editor.

“After reading Ms. Reed’s letter, I was asked by my 12-year-old son to explain the difference between a Republican and a Democrat.

I told him to imagine that two candidates were running for student council president. One candidate promised after-school jobs for any student who wished to earn 50 cents a day. The other candidate promised to collect $2.50 from each seventh-grader and to use that money to buy a cookie for every student and staff member in the school.

I then asked my child what was more important to him: the satisfaction of earning his own money or the satisfaction of giving of his savings to help others. After hearing his choice, I informed my son that he was a Republican.

We enjoyed the bumper sticker example, but I’m glad that my boy understands how the McCain supporter affords his Lexus.

Matthew Foster

If this is all Ms. Reed thinks she knows about our political parties, I would prefer that she just not vote. Educate yourself or don’t vote.

This is the most ridiculous liberal Letter to the Editor I have read this week. It was difficult to narrow down from so many, but this is the winner.

http://www.kansascity.com/309/story/785329.html

(third letter from top)

I am not quite sure where to begin with my ridicule, so lets just start with Mr. Thompson’s belief that “Being liberal stands for helping the underdog instead of the corporations that exploit them.” He wants to know how anyone can argue with this philosophy. Well I can argue with it because, for a lack of better words, it is a bunch of crap.

For any government program that may have actually improved the lives of working men and women I could name three that have made the lives of working men and women more difficult. The government almost always makes things worst. And, of course, the only way to fund these programs is to tax (or as I like to call it, steal what I rightfully have earned) those very same working men and women that they are supposedly trying to help.

Oh but wait, the liberal politician would only tax those big bad corporations, not the the working folk. Really, tell that to my tax accountant. Either way it hurts the worker. Corporations are money distributors. They either distribute it to investors or workers. The more they are taxed the less they can distribute to investors and workers. This makes the investors angry, so eventually the worker gets less so the investor can get more.

An economy free of taxes can grow and create more well paying jobs. Wouldn’t this be advantageous to the working man.

If I said that I was trying to make your headache go away while smacking you on the head would you believe me? Then why Mr. Thompson, do you believe a liberal politician when they say they are for the working man.