Letters to the Editor

Wish List for 2012 draws opposing responses
Editor’s note: In response to our “Wish List for 2012” in the Dec. 29 edition, we received a few letters, pro and con. Here are two responses, followed by our responses.
— Ed.

Bush caused the destruction
Dear Editor:
As I read through the last edition of the Pelican Press and ran across the “wish list,” I was so disturbed I feel the need to write and discuss the idea of “destruction” and “anti-American” (ism) that you wrote.
You wrote: “That the right candidate is elected to lead the country and reverse the destructive, anti-American agenda of the present administration.”

The destruction began when George Bush began wars based on information that was unfounded and unproven. This led to a major economic downfall, as these wars cost in the trillions of dollars, I repeat, trillions of dollars.

The destruction and anti-Americanism continued throughout the Bush administration. He gave tax cuts to people who didn’t need tax cuts. It has been disproved that the rich don’t create jobs, even by their own words. I recall a multimillionaire recently saying the only way he could help out is to possibly buy a new car. These actions have been destructive and anti-American; they have resulted in an inequity that is unprecedented in this country between the “haves” and “have-nots.”

Does this sound American to you?

President Obama has done more than any president could do to try to rectify the situation, and even when the Congress declared that it would never agree with anything he ever tried to do. How can this be anything but destructive and anti American?

We have a Congress that rejects health care that the majority of Americans want. The destruction comes in the insurance industry that is so filled with errors and mismanagement that it is universally recognized that it doesn’t work. But the insurance industry has this Congress in the back pockets.

Just research how much money is given to the representatives. Is this now the American way? Pretty destructive in my eyes. Causing people to pay out so much money in a mismanaged healthcare system doesn’t sound very American to me.

I could go on and on. A Congress that ignores the science of climate change because, once again, the business’ contributions to Congress. It goes on and on.

So now there is a president who pulled us out of recession, is working hard for the vulnerable population that continues to have to pay so the “have-mores” that Mr. Bush talked about continue to have more.

You cannot give me one example where President Obama’s actions have been destructive or anti-American. He has worked hard to compromise with a group that said IT would never ever agree with him.
So where are your examples of destructiveness?

I am proud of President Obama for continuing to work for all Americans, not just a few, which is truly American. Thank you, President Obama.

P.S. Do you know anything about the aquifer in Nebraska that the proposed pipeline was going to run through? President Obama is now waiting for an nonpartisan mandatory report on the effects of this pipeline. He cannot make a decision until this report is completed. Keep in mind that this is the largest underground aquifer in the United States, and it is at risk when you run a pipeline through it.

The report is mandatory and has not been delivered to the President yet, so he is doing what he needs to do so that this action will not be “destructive.”
Mary Dickinson
Sarasota

Dear Mary Dickinson:
It’s an overstatement to say the Iraq/Afghanistan wars “led to a major economic downfall.” They contributed to compounding our national debt; it’s more accurate to say Alan Greenspan and the Federal Reserve Bank and Congress contributed more to our economic collapse with their monetary policies and financial policies of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the banking system.

Bush didn’t give tax cuts; he didn’t have the power to give tax cuts. He advocated tax cuts. Congress gave the tax cuts. To say the tax cuts were given “to people who didn’t need tax cuts” is opinion. Our opinion: Everyone needs tax cuts.

It also has been proven that the wealthy create jobs: Facebook employs more than 3,000 people. Wealthy individuals (hedge funds and venture-capital companies who manage individuals’ and corporations’ money) invested $40.7 million to help the founders of Facebook grow that company. Amazon.com employs 33,700 employees. It started as the idea of founder Jeff Bezos. When Amazon went public in 1997, it raised $49 million from investors (rich and not-so-rich alike) to help it grow and create jobs.
Wealthy people don’t put their money under mattresses. They risk it and invest it in capitalistic enterprises so it will grow. They do, indeed, create jobs!

Some of Obama’s destructive actions:
1. Obamacare. Its cost to taxpayers is estimated at $2 trillion.
2. His advocacy for and Congress’ passage of two “stimulus packages.”
3. Permitting the U.S. debt under his watch to increase $4.9 trillion — the most rapid increase in debt under any U.S. president.
4. The shutting down of oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico (killed U.S. jobs).
5. The financing of failed solar-energy companies (Solyndra alone lost $500 million of taxpayer money).
6. Impeding the construction of Keystone pipeline, costing American jobs and access to more oil.
7. His advocacy of class warfare and higher tax rates on successful people.
8. His insulting treatment of Israel and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
9. His administration’s labeling of the Fort Hood massacre a case of workplace violence and not Muslim terrorism
10. His advocacy to reduce military spending in the face of an increasingly volatile Egypt, Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Pakistan and growing might of China.
11. His insulting treatment of Great Britain. Let us count the ways, according to Nile Gardiner of the London Telegraph:
• Siding with Argentina over the Falklands
• Calling France America’s strongest ally
• Downgrading the Special Relationship
• Supporting a federal Europe and undercutting British sovereignty
• Betraying Britain to appease Moscow over the New START Treaty
• Placing a “boot on the throat” of BP
• Throwing Churchill out of the Oval Office
• DVDs for the Prime Minister
• Insulting words from the State Department
• Undermining British influence in NATO
We’ll stop there.
— Ed.

Not a fan of paper’s dogma
Dear Editor:
I believe there are two conceptions of what America should be. Should it be a land mass that contains many individuals who are on their own to succeed or not to succeed, or are we a people who stand united for the better good of all Americans?

You’ve heard of “united we stand, divided we fall” I’m sure.

Do you believe that individual freedom is acceptable even if it tramples the rights of others? Or do you believe that some limits should exist to protect other Americans from the unlimited actions of the freedom seekers?

Do you believe every person should pull him or herself up by his bootstraps, even if he has no boots? Or do you believe that we are a nation of people who unselfishly look out for each other?

From your Wish list for 2012, it is clear which concept of America you follow.

Now I believe you have a perfect right as an American to follow a path to your concept of America. However, I’m not a fan of your either right or wrong, good or evil or freedom or servitude position.

Sometimes one person’s right is another’s wrong. Everything is not either black or white. What makes me cringe is your refusal to recognize the right of others to disagree with you, and if they do to call them anti-American.

We have run into that dogmatic mindset previously. A prime example was before, and then after, the Iraq invasion. Those of us who were not so quick to put American lives at risk while inspectors were still in Iraq were blasted as un-American and unpatriotic, especially by the Bush administration. And now, you call the Obama administration’s agenda “anti-American.” My question is: to which conception is it anti-American?
Art Ginsburg
Sarasota

Dear Art Ginsburg:
As Thomas Jefferson put it in the greatest document ever penned: Every man is endowed by our Creator with unalienable rights — life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Of course, no one should trample on those rights.

If there are to be limits, they are in the 10 Commandments. Otherwise, to borrow from Ayn Rand, “Under a proper social system, a private individual is free to take any action he pleases so long as he does not violate the rights of others.”

Yes, every person should try to pull himself up by his boots, even if he has no boots. Some people, of course, do need help. And for this, individual Americans and groups of Americans have shown they are much better than the “state” taking care of those who cannot take care of themselves. Charity begins at home, not with the collective state.

Obama’s mandated, government-run healthcare, as one example, takes away individual liberty and the pursuit of happiness. This is anti-American. Raising taxes on one group while not requiring another group to pay any taxes at all is also un-American; the American ideal is to encourage and celebrate an individual’s (legal) achievement and success, not punish it.
— Ed.