For the record, I'm not a Republican, but Mark Gaffney's letter appearing on Feb. 10 (Democrats look forward to future) really makes me consider making an official affiliation with the GOP. His words are more proof that the Democrats are in serious trouble.
I made it through all of three paragraphs (well, two if you don't count the opening line) before I was laughing out loud. Gaffney faults President Bush for his failure to manage our money. As evidence, he cites Bush's budget plan to cut back or eliminate 150 government programs.
Obviously, Gaffney understands conservative thought about as well as I understand the Chinese vernacular. Conservatives don't want to manage other people's money; they expect people to manage their own money, bypassing the wasteful bureaucracy altogether. Thus, we have tax cuts. The idea is that if people want the social welfare programs to exist, people can make them happen without government involvement. What, theoretically, would follow is a rollback of government-sponsored social welfare programs.
Oh my god! That's exactly what Bush is proposing! Who could have imagined it!?!
Gaffney follows with the usual leftist talking points: fie on you, Ken Blackwell; fie on you, rich people; fie on you, war in Iraq.
Then he starts talking about freedom, something I hold very dear.
While I agree with his description of freedom (love
respect help and even solitude in part), I think it's lacking. What about hope? What about responsibility? What about opportunity? Surely we all can agree that these are also part of freedom. Yet (and I admit, I'm generalizing) when liberals discuss these topics, it's in the context of some social welfare program. It's rarely with the focus on the good that an individual can accomplish.
Gaffney ends his discussion of freedom by decrying the war in Iraq as an occupation, which it is. However, his statements indicate that he believes no person can be free as long as a government or some other authority figure imposes its will on that person. Well, what exactly is taxation then? A government authority can come to your house and force you at gunpoint to give something that is yours. That sounds a lot like tyranny. If Democrats are such defenders of freedom, then why are they so opposed to tax cuts?
Don't get me wrong; I'm not advocating anarchy or anything of the sorts. I just wish Democrats would get their heads on straight and toss this whole liberalism thing in the can. Americans, and all other peoples of the Earth, want to be free, and socialism only leads to oppression.
-Casey Baker is a senior business major. Send him an e-mailat casey.baker@ohiou.edu.
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