Exotic Journeys: A Tourist's Guide to Philosophy
brought to you by Ron Yezzi
Emeritus Professor of Philosophy
Minnesota State University, Mankato
© Copyright 2015, 2020 by Ron Yezzi
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Submissions are listed for three year or more intervals. Topics are listed alphabetically. Within a topic, the most recent letters come first. In some cases, the date of posting on the website might differ by a day from the printed newspaper. The Free Press creates the captions for submissions.
Years:
2010 - 2012
2007 - 2009
2004 - 2006
1996 - 2005
1986 - 1995
1975 - 1985
1970 - 1974
Your View: Letter to the Editor
My View: Longer Op Ed
Posted: Indicates when the submission was posted on the Free Press website; it may not be the same as the day it was printed in the newspaper.
Topics
Financial Issues (1)
Government (3)
Health Care (1)
Historical Issues (2)
Politics (8)
Religious Issues (1)
Responsibility (1)
Same-Sex Marriage (2)
Taxes (1)
Your View: GOP anti-regulatory attitude brought crisis, By Ron Yezzi, Mankato, Posted: Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Nearly all laws and regulations produce groups of dissatisfied people. Building codes, farm runoff restrictions, minimum wage laws, unemployment compensation, seatbelt laws, smoking bans, child car seat laws, fuel efficiency standards, vaccinations, the new health care law, taxes, financial bailouts, the auto industry bailout, stimulus spending packages, oil drilling restrictions, gun control laws, stand-your-ground laws, same-sex marriage bans, laws allowing same-sex marriage. You name it, and somebody will be unhappy about it.
Sometimes, griping is justified. Everybody should complain about those GSA officials spending lavishly, especially when preventing wasteful spending is their most visible public duty.
But many times (as in all but two of the list above), most griping is misguided due to human frailties like ignorance, selfishness, resistance to change, and insular attitudes. Many people preaching personal responsibility contradict their preaching by becoming gripers. Here’s one example.
Given the anti-regulatory attitudes of most Republicans and most Wall Streeters, we had a near collapse of the financial system. The Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank) sets up regulations to prevent such financial crises.
Those Republicans and Wall Streeters basically have two choices. They can work with the Act to test how well it increases financial stability while still allowing private sector profits and economic prosperity; or they can gripe about regulatory hindrances and try to make sure the act never works.
Currently, they favor griping and obstruction. That choice has consequences. Yet they’re no more willing to take responsibility for this choice than they are to take responsibility for the consequences of their anti-regulatory attitudes that brought on a horrendous financial crisis in the first place.
Your View: Learn from the past, don't just gripe, Ron Yezzi, Mankato, Posted: Friday, May 4, 2012 11:31 pm
Let me respond directly to two recent letters criticizing my contentions that (1) Nearly all laws and regulations make somebody unhappy, and (2) Many times, most of the resultant griping is misguided. I also stated that, sometimes, griping is justified.
Bob Jentges sees an essential conflict between regulations and freedom. What he doesn’t see is how regulations can enhance freedom. When regulations eliminate pollution hazards, they increase opportunities (the freedom) to do other things than deal with health problems the hazards would create. Compulsory education increases children’s opportunities in life (and hence their freedom).
Pointing out causes of misguided griping, according to Jentges, “is nothing more than an elitist attitude that government always knows what is best for we the people.” My reply: Ignorance can take away freedom as much as a prison cell, because it deprives people of opportunities to fully express themselves. Generally, the more you know, the better and wider your range of possible action. So let’s not make knowledge the enemy of freedom by associating it with elitism.
Matthew Barnes greatly exaggerates Fannie Mae’s and Freddy Mac’s role in the financial crisis. And if lax regulatory attitudes by Democrats also contributed to it, at least they acknowledge the mistake and passed a regulatory law to prevent another crisis. Comparatively, with their anti-regulatory attitudes, most Republicans and most Wall Streeters acknowledge nothing, learned little, and do little — except to gripe and obstruct in an effort to make sure the new regulations never work.
Finally, here’s my fuller list of potential root causes of misguided griping: Ignorance, denial, selfishness, greed, prejudice, arrogance, shortsightedness, inattention, hidden insecurity, stubbornness, laziness, resistance to change, insular attitudes, irrational fear, fixated worship of the past.
Your View: The need for regulation [RY], Ron Yezzi, submitted April 20, 2012
Nearly all laws and regulations produce groups of dissatisfied people. Building codes, farm runoff restrictions, minimum wage laws, unemployment compensation, seatbelt laws, smoking bans, child car seat laws, fuel efficiency standards, vaccinations, the new health care law, taxes, financial bailouts, the auto industry bailout, stimulus spending packages, oil drilling restrictions, gun control laws, stand your ground laws, same sex marriage bans, laws allowing same sex marriage. You name it, and somebody will be unhappy about it.
Sometimes, griping is justified. Everybody should complain about those GSA officials spending lavishly, especially when preventing wasteful spending is their most visible public duty.
But many times (as in all but two of the list above), most griping is misguided due to human frailties like ignorance, selfishness, resistance to change, and insular attitudes. Many people preaching personal responsibility contradict their preaching by becoming gripers. Here’s one example.
Given the anti-regulatory attitudes of most Republicans and most Wall Streeters, we had a near collapse of the financial system. The Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank) sets up regulations to prevent such financial crises.
Those Republicans and Wall Streeters basically have two choices. (1) They can work with the Act to test how well it increases financial stability while still allowing private sector profits and economic prosperity. Or (2), they can gripe about regulatory hindrances and try to make sure the Act never works. Currently, they favor griping and obstruction. That choice has consequences. Yet they’re no more willing to take responsibility for this choice than they are to take responsibility for the consequences of their anti-regulatory attitudes that brought on a horrendous financial crisis in the first place.
My View: A country divided cannot move forward, By Ron Yezzi, My View Posted: Wednesday, August 31, 2011 11:14 pm
In an 1858 speech, Abraham Lincoln declared, “A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure, permanently, half slave and half free.” Although the issue then was slavery, his words apply just as well to current battles over the role of government.
Can middle-of-the-road compromise solutions bridge such great differences? This is not a struggle between anarchism and socialism. Neither side intends those extremes. But each side has directly opposing visions of government; and you can’t go both north and south at the same time. Agreements are only truces demanded by political circumstances of the moment rather than being true compromises.
In 1861, the South’s intransigent extremists chose secession and plunged the nation into civil war. We don’t seem to be anywhere near a shooting war now. But the fall 2010 elections empowered intransigent extremists to produce the political equivalent of a declaration of war on government actions — and they are trying to implement their program in state after state and in the houses of Congress.
Just as in Lincoln’s day, when one side tried to preserve the past, we have a similar situation today. The South demanded preservation of the culture of slavery, an outdated way of life, and invoked the Constitution and states’ rights to defend their faulty vision.
Isn’t it startlingly obvious that the current conservative coalition also fixates on the past — rejection of evolution and global warming, insistence on our being a Christian nation, rejection of an African-American president’s authenticity and competence, attempts to take away a woman’s legal choice regarding reproduction, demand for legal definition of marriage as only a relation between a man and a woman, eliminating employee collective bargaining rights, embracing Constitutional “originalism,” demand for a return to laissez faire economics and small government, demands to cut well-accepted government programs, willingness to bring back the much greater income inequalities that preceded The New Deal, attempts to deny revenues to government by pushing tax cuts and pledging not to raise taxes?
It would be hard to find a vocal conservative who does not support at least five of these past-fixated positions. Many support most of them and some, even prominent presidential candidates, give support to all of them.
Why is constitutional “originalism” an outdated relic of the past? Take just one reason. In 1790, when our population was under 4 million — 94.9 percent rural, and 5.1 percent urban — Thomas Jefferson and James Madison could envision a nation with small government and relatively self-sufficient farmer-citizens. Now, we are more than 308 million — 84 percent urban, and 16 percent rural.
Urban environments are not composed of relatively self-sufficient families. They require social cooperation and a marshaling of resources that only much larger government can provide.
Why is reversal of government activities since the start of The New Deal (1933) a faulty attempt to resurrect the past? Answer: The New Deal initiated nearly a half century of increased governmental activity that fostered economic prosperity, strengthened the middle class and decreased income inequalities.
The e-magazine Slate’s article, “The United States of Inequality” includes a graph showing the top 10 percent’s share of national income from 1917-2008. From 1942-1982, a period of great prosperity for the nation, that share was down to about 35 percent.
Since 1982, with the advent of continual conservative insistence on tax cuts favoring the wealthy, the top 10 percent’s share has climbed steadily until it reached 50 percent in 2008, about what it was before the stock market crashed in 1929 leading to The Great Depression.
Meanwhile, during these last three decades, the middle class has steadily lost ground. In “Aftershock,” economist Robert Reich points out both how the middle class tried to cope and the underlying reasons for its decline. The coping measures were a shift to both spouses working, working longer hours, and taking on greatly increased debt (a burden that came crashing down with the financial crisis and The Great Recession). The underlying reasons for losing ground are, first, the automation and globalization that has taken away good paying manufacturing jobs and, second, the transfer of wealth and power to the rich so that too few resources are available for a thriving middle class.
In my view, finding or improving on what works provides real solutions. Alternate ways of reaching the same goal and/or synthesis of opposing views are possible. But clinging to, or resurrecting, the past to deny needed change and trying to reach your destination by going in directly opposing directions at the same time are self-destructive.
Your View: Conservatives oblivious to differences in scale, By Ron Yezzi, Mankato, Posted: Monday, May 31, 2010 7:00 pm
Living in the 21st Century, we can’t have government functioning as if it’s the 18th Century. From my view, the tea party’s “don’t tread on me” flag aptly symbolizes persons focused on the distant past, not contemporary revolutionaries. There’s no real revolution in their general message, lower taxes and government deregulation, since Republicans have pushed that message for 30 years now. And people ought to see how the success of that message is largely responsible for our current mess.
When voluntary private transactions brought on a global financial collapse that significantly affects billions of people and a corporation’s oil drilling in the Gulf brings on an economic and ecological disaster for a whole area of the country, I’m astounded to find conservatives portraying business enterprise as just like going to the barber for a haircut and denying a need for government involvement. It shows they’re oblivious to the difference between small and large scale business and the huge effects on third parties. Without government acting as a countervailing power, third parties are at the mercy of big business engaging in voluntary private transactions that, often enough, produce major disasters.
With their “starve the beast” attitude for years now, I’ve seen too many Republicans at the polls, in Congress, and in the executive branch acting to make sure government spending and entitlements are underfunded, voting against health care reform that can bring costs under better control, and supporting deregulation that produced a need for government bailouts from the savings and loan crisis to the current financial debacle.
Now, with pretended innocence, they see the debt and want to slash government rather than solve its problems responsibly.
In Response (My View): Free Press puts undue blame on Obama Medicare talk, By Ron Yezzi, Posted: Sunday, September 16, 2012 1:11 pm
The Free Press editorial (“Mediscare Claims Skew the Truth”) offers this criticism, “The Obama campaign claims the Romney/Ryan ticket will ‘end Medicare as we know it.’ The Romney campaign has claimed Obama cut $700 billion in Medicare benefits to pay for the health care overhaul.”
How can a true statement about the fundamental nature of the Romney/Ryan Medicare plan be equated with a blatant falsehood about The Affordable Care Act cutting $716 billion in Medicare benefits?
The Romney/Ryan Medicare plan makes three basic changes: (1) It replaces present Medicare benefits with a voucher program; (2) It replaces the present government-run Medicare program with private insurance and a public option (unlike traditional Medicare since it will be based on vouchers); and (3) It eliminates government-directed Medicare as the dominant force in setting payment rates and standards for seniors’ health care. Asserting that these fundamental changes “end Medicare as we know it” is, in my opinion, a true statement.
Even if their plan allows persons now 55 and over to stay with traditional Medicare, this in no way changes the radically different future for Medicare that they propose. Why should the Obama campaign be attacked for describing and criticizing what the plan does? The Obama campaign doesn’t say that today’s seniors will lose all their Medicare coverage under the Romney/Ryan plan.
According to the editorial, “While both campaigns suggest ‘today’s seniors’ will be cut off or otherwise hurt by their opponents’ plan, experts who’ve studied each plan say very little would change for people already on Medicare. They may be indirectly impacted, but claims that suggest benefits will be cut next year are not credible.” Did these experts say this before or after The Affordable Care Act became the law of the land?
Here are three benefits that “today’s seniors” will lose next year if Republicans were to succeed in repealing The Affordable Care Act: (1) An assurance that the Medicare Hospital Trust Fund will be able to meet fully its liabilities through 2024 rather than just 2016; (2) Free preventive services including an annual wellness visit (or physical), cancer screenings, and mammograms; and (3) elimination of the “donut hole” that increases seniors’ out of pocket expenses for prescription drugs.
Although widely popular and successful, Medicare has serious sustainability problems; and the two major parties have different priorities for a solution. Order of Priorities for Democrats: (1) Look for ways to cut costs; (2) Raise taxes to support Medicare, if necessary; and (3) Cut benefits only as a last resort.
Order of Priorities for Republicans: (1) Privatize the system altogether or as much as politically possible; (2) Cut costs by cutting benefits; and (3) Oppose all tax increases and cost cutting that would preserve Medicare’s present structure. These different sets of priorities are rooted in deep ideological differences between the two parties. That’s one reason why the November election offers a clear choice between two visions of our future.
Finally, in keeping with the Democrats’ first priority, let me say this: The Affordable Care Act (ACA) incorporates plans and pilot programs for a variety of measures, suggested by health professionals, that can reduce the growth costs of Medicare significantly. That $716 billion is just a start. For space reasons, I’ll supply details on the Free Press website. Let’s put the ACA to work.
Ron Yezzi is emeritus professor of philosophy at Minnesota State University.
Additional Information on Free Press website: Lowering the Growth of Medicare Costs through The Affordable Care Act (ACA):
(1) Lowering the Growth of Medicare Costs by $716 Billion Over Ten Years. All of these cost growth savings are contingent on the ACA. Repeal the ACA and they disappear. For example, hospitals and other health providers have agreed to reduced Medicare reimbursements of $415 billion only because The ACA¹s expansion of health coverage to 30 million more persons gives them a lot more paying patients. Google CBO report about repealing the affordable care act and click on "Estimated Budgetary Effects of Repealing the Affordable Care Act." See "Effects on Spending for Medicare, Medicaid, and Other Programs," pp. 13-15)
(2) Preventive Care. The ACA adds these free preventive services to Medicare: annual wellness visit, tobacco use cessation counseling, bone mass measurement, cervical cancer screening, cholesterol and cardiovascular screenings, colorectal cancer screening, diabetes screening, flu shot, pneumonia shot, hepatitus B shot, HIV screening, mammograms, medical nutrition therapy for diabetes or kidney disease patients, prostrate cancer screenings. The purpose of preventive care is the more effective prevention, elimination, or alleviation of illness. But it saves money by avoiding higher costs of later treatment. http://www.healthcare.gov/law/features/65-older/medicare-preventive-services/index.html">http://www.healthcare.gov/law/features/65-older/medicare-preventive-services/index.html
(3) Electronic Record Keeping. The ACA supports electronic record keeping as a way of better coordinating care, eliminating unnecessary duplication of procedures and increasing efficiency. Doing all this saves money.
(4) Coordinating Care. "A health care home," also called a "medical home, is an approach to primary care in which primary care providers, families and patients work in partnership to improve health outcomes and quality of life for individuals with chronic health conditions and disabilities. (Health Reform Minnesota). Minnesota happens to be a leader in this. The ACA supports establishment of "medical homes" and bundling of Medicare payments and services. It also saves money. http://www.health.state.mn.us/healthreform/homes/index.html">http://www.health.state.mn.us/healthreform/homes/index.html
(5) Outcomes Based Payments The ACA supports pilot programs to replace the present "fee-for-service" payment system with one based on the "value of the outcomes produced." The Mayo Clinic is a major advocate of this shift. And there is evidence to show its effectiveness: ". . . Rochester, Minnesota, where the Mayo Clinic dominates the scene, has fantastically high levels of technological capability and quality, but its Medicare spending is in the lowest 15 per cent of the country - $6,688 per enrollee in 2006, which is $8,000 less than the figure for McAllen, [Texas]. (Atul Gawande, "The Cost Conundrum," from the New Yorker, June 1, 2009). This shift would save money. Also, go to http://www.dartmouthatlas.org/publications/reports.aspx and, for 2009, click on "The Policy Implications of Variations in Medicare Spending Growth."
(6) A Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute. The ACA establishes this Institute to provide health care workers with better information about the best, most efficient medical procedures. Patients will get better treatment, and it saves money.
(7) Independent Payment Advisory Board. The ACA establishes this independent Board to make cost cutting recommendations if Medicare costs are rising too rapidly. It has some limited authority to make mandatory recommendations (that require prescribed Congressional action) and a broader authority to make advisory recommendations. The goal is restraint on the growth costs of Medicare. http://www.kff.org/medicare/upload/8150.pdf
(8) Fraud, Waste, and Abuse Control. The ACA establishes additional rules to combat fraud, waste, and abuse - for example, "face-to-face" certification by an appropriate health care professional of a patient¹s need for medical equipment and services. Again, it saves money. http://www.healthcare.gov/news/factsheets/2012/02/medicare-fraud02142012a.html
The ACA has tried to take into account numerous recommendations by health care professionals for approaches to reducing costs. We need the political will to see that these cost cutting programs are implemented.
For a readable interpretation of what the ACA does, I recommend: Staff of the Washington Post, Landmark: The Inside Story of America's New Health Care Law and What It Means for Us All (New York: Public Affairs, 2010).
Your View: Conservatives turn history upside down, Ron Yezzi, Mankato, Posted: Saturday, February 5, 2011 10:53 pm
Given the way conservatives interpret the Constitution these days, who would they point to as the worst president in U.S. history? Barack Obama for health care reform? Lyndon Johnson for Medicare and the Civil Rights Act? Franklin Delano Roosevelt for Social Security and New Deal programs? Woodrow Wilson for the Federal Reserve?
No, while they would accuse all these presidents of acting unconstitutionally, they clearly would point to Abraham Lincoln as the worst, because of the Civil War and Emancipation Proclamation.
Since the Constitution established clear legal protection for slavery, they would have to insist he acted unconstitutionally by freeing slaves in the Confederate states in the Emancipation Proclamation of 1862.
Moreover, the Constitution did not expressly prohibit secession and the Tenth Amendment states, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.” So they would have to insist that Lincoln acted unconstitutionally in forcing the Confederate states back into the Union, thereby causing the most destructive war in our history.
(An aside: Rather than facing what their constitutional interpretation would say about Lincoln, one local conservative offered the offhand opinion that the Civil War itself settled the constitutional issue of secession. But that evades the issue just like saying that lynchings settle the question whether persons are innocent or guilty, that is, “might makes right”).
While conservatives, with what I take to be their twisted view of the Constitution, want to turn much of what is best in U.S. history upside down, I like to think that sensible people are eventually capable of knowing better.
Your View: Fourth of July ad took Jefferson out of context, By Ron Yezzi, Mankato, Posted: Monday, July 12, 2010 7:00 pm
I, too, was bothered by Scheels’ 4th of July ad in The Free Press embracing a right-wing political agenda. The ad salutes Independence Day by presenting selected quotes from Thomas Jefferson and asking “What would Thomas Jefferson think?” — presumably with respect to today’s problems. The quotes happen to be ones popular these days on right-wing websites.
What could be wrong with patriotically quoting Thomas Jefferson? Well, first, you need to be careful about accuracy and context; and, in at least one instance, the ad contains a clear misrepresentation. In an act establishing religious freedom in the State of Virginia, Jefferson argued that no government money should be used to support “any religious worship, place or ministry whatsoever” and accordingly said, “to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves, is sinful and tyrannical.” In the ad, this quote ignores the religion context and becomes “To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.”
So the original quote has been distorted and generalized into an attack on any taxes one disagrees with.
“What would Thomas Jefferson think?” is a great question for all of us, because he is one of our nation’s greatest thinkers. But it is ill-served by a right-wing slanted ad. Also, I am confident that Jefferson, as an intellectual, would warn us not to accept thoughtlessly in today’s America everything he said in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. And he would want us to question some of what he said just as he questioned those who went before him.
Your View: President Obama is a proven leader, By Ron Yezzi, Mankato, Posted: Wednesday, October 31, 2012 9:00 pm
I don’t see why the presidential race is so close when the country is so much better off than four years ago.
President Obama’s accomplishments: Avoidance of second Great Depression; terrifying, cascading monthly job losses replaced by steady (but somewhat slow) job growth; economic stimulus that created or saved millions of jobs; re-establishment of stability to the financial system; government assistance that saved and revived the auto industry; foreign policy that revived respect for the United States, while avoiding deep entanglements in new wars; Osama Bin Laden gone and Al Qaeda’s power structure severely weakened; troops withdrawn from Iraq and leaving Afghanistan; significant energy conservation to be achieved through increased fuel efficiency standards; “Obamacare” with adequate funding that will bring insurance coverage to some 30 million more Americans, eliminates many harmful practices of private insurers, and lays out programs for controlling health care costs; Dodd-Frank regulations to prevent Wall Street practices that produced the financial crisis; lower interest loans to make college more affordable.
Everyone knows we still have a long way to go, but Obama is a proven leader who moves us forward.
By contrast, Gov. Romney jumps all over the place and withholds all the important details that need to be evaluated. Here’s my view of his strategy: By changing positions constantly and avoiding details, he hopes that everybody will just assume that he’ll do exactly what every one of them wants.
If he’s elected, people are in for a sad awakening. What you don’t know can hurt you.
Vote for Obama.
Your View: Republicans advocate extreme measures, By Ron Yezzi, Mankato, Posted: Wednesday, February 15, 2012 7:00 pm
Why are some Republican politicians deemed courageous simply because they say that they might vote for a tax increase? And why do so many Republicans view any tax increase, even on the wealthiest among us, as a betrayal of fundamental American values? There is a simple, correct answer: Right-wing extremism has entered the mainstream of American politics.
The Grover Norquist tax pledge (tax cuts, but no tax increases) is a prime example of this extremism. It has become a brand identifier of the Republican Party. Currently, 238 of 240 Republicans in the U.S. House and 41 of 47 Republicans in the U.S. Senate have signed the pledge. Whenever there is a confrontation over the budget or deficits or a new program in Washington or in the states, Republicans oppose any tax increases.
In Norquist’s own words, “I’m not in favor of abolishing the government. I just want to shrink it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.” This tax attitude has the effect of arsenic poisoning. You don’t kill your victim all at once; you just gradually destroy the ability to perform needed functions.
What would be comparable left wing extremism? Confiscating all the wealth of rich people? Opposing all spending cuts while increasing taxes until the government owns everything? Whatever it is, Democrats clearly are not advocating it. Numerous people express to me their disgust with both political parties for not finding middle ground. But the middle ground between right-wing and left-wing extremism is where the Democrats already are. There’s nothing extreme about asking millionaires to pay taxes at least the same rate as middle-income Americans.
Your View: Programs should be improved, not dismantled, By Ron Yezzi, Mankato, Posted: Thursday, May 5, 2011 7:00 pm
Politicians opposing all tax increases, while continually supporting tax cuts and slashing programs, are acting like persons spreading a socially transmitted disease.
At a time when we as a society desperately need to mobilize social resources to meet the challenge of global competition and to guarantee the fundamental American value of equal opportunity, they are promoting cynicism about recognizing and supporting a common good.
It’s no secret that tax cuts are usually more politically popular than tax increases. So, while Republicans act on ideology, they campaign on the cynical political calculation that Americans vote for short-term selfishness rather than social responsibility.
The Republican proposal to transform Medicare into a voucher system is a good example. They assume that people 55 or older will not oppose the proposal because, as long as they get traditional Medicare for themselves, they won’t care what happens to their children, nieces, nephews and anyone else. And Republicans assume that persons under 55 will not oppose it because they don’t want to risk tax increases and they’re too shortsighted to recognize that vouchers won’t meet their health care needs as seniors decades from now.
Everyone knows that programs like Medicare and Social Security present financial challenges — in a major part because Republicans have been blocking funding solutions and health care reform for decades now. But, as Americans, we should want politicians to improve these programs, not dismantle them.
Let’s not forget that President Clinton’s 1999 State of the Union address proposed using projected budget surpluses to bolster Social Security and Medicare; but instead, we ended up with the Bush tax cuts and huge deficit increases.
Your View: 'Life isn't fair" — but it can be fairer, Ron Yezzi, Mankato, Posted: Sunday, March 20, 2011 10:52 pm
What’s the difference between saying, “Life isn’t fair,” in the 18th Century and now?
Answer: Given the huge increase in human knowledge and power, there’s a much greater responsibility to make life fairer now.
Whenever conservative leaders insist upon some iron law of nature in society requiring helpless acceptance and a reduction in fairness, let’s remember that this is the 21st century.
So, when they say that growing inequality in American life is necessary and opposing it incites class warfare, let’s point out that we have the power to change conditions and attitudes rather than simply accept the decline of the middle class.
When anyone says that CEO pay averaging hundreds of times more than that of the average worker is an economic necessity, let’s point out that just 40 years ago in the United States it was under 30 times, and even now in other nations, CEO pay is far lower than in the United States.
When House Speaker John Boehner says we’re broke and our only choice is drastic cuts in spending and entitlements regardless of needs, let’s point out that his rejection of all tax increases is a changeable, ideological choice and attitude, not a law of nature.
When Gov. Scott Walker says Wisconsin’s broke and his only choice is elimination of nearly all union collective bargaining rights for public workers, let’s point out that this is an attack on workers’ rights, not a budgetary necessity.
When fairness requires shared sacrifice, let’s not forget that many persons in the private sector are doing as well or even much better than the public workers we call upon for sacrifice.
Insisting on more fairness should trump helpless acceptance.
Your View: Deceptions abound in Pledge to America rhetoric, Posted: Wednesday, October 13, 2010 12:01 am
The Republican Pledge to America is better titled Deceiving America Again. Wrapped in high-sounding rhetoric, distortions, and coded language, the Pledge exemplifies what I see as five basic principles of Republican practical politics:
1. Promise painless prosperity and limitless freedom: Tax cuts, vague references to spending cuts that will only affect someone else, elimination of regulations.
2. Sweep problems under the rug: A pattern of denying health care breakdown, deteriorating infrastructure, educational decline, growing income inequality, climate change, the consequences of oil dependence, harmful effects of job outsourcing, out of control financial markets.
3. Throw the baby out with the bath water: Privatization of Social Security, Medicare and other federal programs
4. Promote false claims to justify continuing failed policies: The economic stimulus bill did not save or create millions of jobs; many federal programs, such as Social Security, are unconstitutional; Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac caused the financial meltdown; wealthy people and corporations do not have enough money to invest; the Obama administration is anti-business; the new health reform law is a government takeover of health care; more regulation of Wall Street is unnecessary.
5. Use the filibuster rule so the Republican minority can block legislation in the Senate and then blame Democrats for ineffectiveness or for engaging in political deal making.
It would take several columns to detail all the deceptions in the Pledge to America, starting with what it says about the Bush tax cuts.
Whatever the shortcomings of Democrats, they pale in comparison with the dead end politics of the Republican Party. Voters have to choose between facing the future with hope and trying to revive a past that never was.
Your View: GOP’s attempts to distract may hurt us, Ron Yezzi, Mankato, The Free Press Posted: Wednesday, August 25, 2010 10:52 pm
Will the November elections bear out the adage, “no good deed goes unpunished”?
Democrats have been doing many good deeds in Washington. They are facing up to the nation’s serious challenges and moving important legislation.
They’ve taken major steps with economic stimulus to create and save jobs, health care reform, financial reform and climate change. There’s a presidential commission working on recommendations for long-term deficit reduction.
Unfortunately, you can’t make this progress without controversy and therein lies the risk of suffering for good deeds.
By contrast, the Republican response to serious challenges is obstructionism and “Pablum for the People”: Since we’re the greatest nation on earth, so long as we restrict government and lower taxes, problems either don’t exist or are readily solved through private actions in the marketplace. In other words, enjoy some pats on the back and more money to spend — just don’t think.
I can understand people’s frustration and fear about the economy as well as their disgust with political squabbling and deal making, but I can’t understand why anyone thinks the solution is election of more Republicans to the House and Senate.
Right now, this “solution” will just produce more political gridlock as well as support for Republican policies that have been deepening the nation’s problems for 30 years and raising barriers to solutions.
How many financial crises, breakdowns in the health care system and environmental threats does it take to know that we need changed policies, not a continuation of old ones?
Maybe voters need to remind themselves of that old Confucian-like adage: “The distracted man who intends to hammer a nail may smash his own thumb instead.”
Your View: Conservatives oblivious to differences in scale, Ron Yezzi, May 31, 2010
MANKATO — Living in the 21st Century, we can’t have government functioning as if it’s the 18th Century. From my view, the tea party’s “don’t tread on me” flag aptly symbolizes persons focused on the distant past, not contemporary revolutionaries. There’s no real revolution in their general message, lower taxes and government deregulation, since Republicans have pushed that message for 30 years now. And people ought to see how the success of that message is largely responsible for our current mess.
When voluntary private transactions brought on a global financial collapse that significantly affects billions of people and a corporation’s oil drilling in the Gulf brings on an economic and ecological disaster for a whole area of the country, I’m astounded to find conservatives portraying business enterprise as just like going to the barber for a haircut and denying a need for government involvement. It shows they’re oblivious to the difference between small and large scale business and the huge effects on third parties. Without government acting as a countervailing power, third parties are at the mercy of big business engaging in voluntary private transactions that, often enough, produce major disasters.
With their “starve the beast” attitude for years now, I’ve seen too many Republicans at the polls, in Congress, and in the executive branch acting to make sure government spending and entitlements are underfunded, voting against health care reform that can bring costs under better control, and supporting deregulation that produced a need for government bailouts from the savings and loan crisis to the current financial debacle.
Now, with pretended innocence, they see the debt and want to slash government rather than solve its problems responsibly.
Your View: These claims are too crazy to refute, Ron Yezzi, Mankato, Posted: Friday, April 23, 2010 11:43 pm
How do you refute absurdities, such as:
Bob Jentges (My View published April 16 in The Free Press) trying to make Republicans and loopy falsehoods more respectable by pointing out that a significant number of independents also believe the same loopy falsehoods?
A tea partier at the Mankato tax day rally holding up a sign “Glenn Beck is a Great American”? An amnesiac speaker at the same rally attacking government and demanding an immediate return to the same unchecked free enterprise system that brought on a self-destructive financial collapse, only avoided through government intervention? Tea partiers so totally dedicated to reducing the national debt that they reject all tax increases that would reduce it?
People who are insisting that the $787 billion spending in the Democrats‚ economic stimulus package is not creating or saving millions of jobs?
Some Medicare recipients who are so angry at Democrats for health care reform that will benefit them, that they plan to vote for Republicans as the promoters and protectors of Medicare?
Sarah Palin maintaining her Republican hero status and making a lot of money by imitating Tina Fey impersonating Sarah Palin? John McCain, author of “Worth the Fighting For: The Education of an American Maverick," denying that he’s a maverick in order to appease the Republican base in Arizona?
Anyone agreeing with Michele Bachmann that we have a “gangster government?”
Answer to the starting question: You don’t.
You just point them out and hope that there are enough informed people of good sense who recognize them for what they are.
Your View: Democrats need to better explain program, Ron Yezzi, Mankato, The Free Press Posted: Saturday, February 27, 2010 11:51 pm
Here’s my view of what the most vocal critics of the Democrats, President Obama and Rep. Tim Walz want.
They want government out of their lives without affecting Social Security, Medicare, or VA benefits. Instead of government intervention, they want to deal with Wall Street bankers, corporations, and private health insurance companies themselves. They favor deregulation and no limits on CEO pay.
They prefer a rerun of The Great Depression or worse to bailouts and economic stimulus. They want to ignore how we got into the nation’s current economic mess.
They’re suddenly worried about the national debt, although they’re eternally opposed to any tax increases that would ease the burden being placed on their children and grandchildren. To encourage private wealth, they’re willing to sacrifice the nation’s infrastructure — education, health care, welfare, clean water, clean energy, clean air, roads, bridges, public transportation, sewer systems, jobs with a future.
They’d rather deny there’s a public good than make any personal sacrifice. This “program” goes nowhere in solving the nation’s problems. But in sour economic times, it can ride a long way on Republican falsehoods and obstructionism. So there are filibuster roadblocks and a steady stream of false claims — such as that the stimulus is not creating or saving jobs and that health care reform is about death panels or a government takeover of medicine.
The Democrats, Obama and Walz need to do a better job explaining their own program. And if they don’t succeed, we all lose because the worse parts of ourselves will be overcoming the better parts.
Your View: Letter made the case for a theocracy, Ron Yezzi, Mankato, Posted: Friday, June 15, 2012 10:53 pm
Rev. Victor Roth’s letter (“Vote yes on the marriage amendment”) makes a powerful case for voting “no.”
By voting “yes,” you can join Roth in establishing a theocracy, thereby violating the Constitution. You also can join him in pretending there’s just one religious view here.
By voting “yes,” you can join him in declaring, “We say that the Lord established the relationship between male and female in a proper union for the procreation of children.” Then you can pretend traditional marriage vows totally misrepresented marriage by omitting procreation: “I, ____, take you ____, to be my____, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish; from this day forward until death do us part.” You can pretend it’s impossible for persons of the same sex to have feelings whereby they sincerely want to take vows like that. You can pretend sexual relations merely serve the purpose of having children, even if that’s not what nearly all couples have in mind 99.99 percent of the time.
You also will want to forbid marriage to women beyond childbearing age, persons refusing to pledge to have children in their wedding vows, and those not providing proof of fertility prior to marriage.
By voting “yes,” you can pretend that marriage is impervious to social change — despite attitude changes toward divorce, women working outside the home, and men as “head of the family.”
Finally, by voting “yes,” you can foster the illusion that same-sex marriage would destroy the meaningfulness and sustainability of your own marriage and that of everyone else.
Think.
Your View: Reliance on personal responsibility is unsound, By Ron Yezzi, Mankato, Posted: Saturday, March 17, 2012 7:00 pm
Reliance on personal responsibility is unsound
I think most people reject the Optimistic Helplessness Theory of Government: Government is helpless because it only makes situations worse; but we can be optimistic because individuals will solve problems themselves. We have 100 years of evidence against it, and the overstretched reliance on personal responsibility is unsound.
Personal responsibility is a noble concept that runs into problems in practice. I’m sure Catholic bishops view themselves as paragons of personal responsibility in rejecting insurance coverage for contraceptives. But are they invoking their right to religious freedom in a way that denies, or overrides, the rights of others? In addition to inclusion as a right to normal health care, can’t contraceptive use also be an expression of the right to religious freedom? Can’t contraceptive use exemplify personal responsibility?
When we talk about taking responsibility for consequences of your own actions, we can’t ignore simple evasions.
Given enough power, you can avoid the consequences you deserve. With 15 million loyal listeners, Rush Limbaugh has the power to make outrageous attacks like that on Sandra Fluke, without facing strong penalties.
If you don’t know, or are in self-denial about, what the consequences are, you’re not likely to take responsibility for them.
I sympathize with people struggling with high gasoline prices. But when Newt Gingrich and “drill-baby-drill” advocates demand cheap gasoline — without considering pollution, climate change, conservation, fuel efficiency standards, alternative energy, realities of increasing worldwide oil demand, and the need for future competitiveness — it strikes me as more like addiction than taking responsibility for the consequences of your own actions.
We need resourceful government action because there are needed projects bigger than what individuals can, or will, do.
Your View: Marriage is about a lot more than children, By Ron Yezzi, Mankato, Posted: Friday, August 24, 2012 7:00 pm
Like many others supporting the proposed constitutional amendment on marriage, Chuck Darrell ("Marriage is more than a couple") rests his case on the view that marriage is about children being raised by a mother and father. Let's have a reality check:
1. This child relationship is not a normal part of the marriage vows;
2. We do not require persons who marry to pledge to have children of their own or to adopt children;
3. We do not require a fertility test as a condition for marriage;
4. We do not ban marriage for women beyond childbearing age;
5. We do not ban divorce, even though it often entails that children will not be raised by a married mother and father;
6. We do not force single parents -- whether due to being widowed, due to out of wedlock births, or due to divorce -- to marry a member of the opposite sex or else to give their children up for adoption;
7. We do not require "a family headed by two biological parents in a low conflict marriage" as a condition for entering into, or continuing, a marriage;
8. We do not require parents to meet idealized parenting goals in order to keep and raise their children.
Why should we hold same-sex couples to standards that we commonly reject every day of our lives?
Darrell's argument is as much out of touch with reality as his distorting way of citing sources out of context. His phony "social science" on the issue of same-sex marriage is rejected by these groups: American Psychiatric Association, American Psychological Association, American Medical Association, and National Association of Social Workers.
My View: The limits of religious liberty, By Ron Yezzi, Posted: Sunday, July 1, 2012 10:54 pm
I want to respond to two recent submissions by Catherine Sweere (“Marriage amendment would not be a theocracy”) and Peter Etzell (“Traditional marriage needs protection”).
Catherine Sweere raised a question about advocacy of a theocracy. In his June 11 letter, Rev. Victor Roth presented himself as the definitive messenger of “the Lord” on the marriage amendment. Six of the letter’s eight sentences referred explicitly to “the Lord” to show that “the Lord” requires a “yes” vote.
He has a free speech right to say all this. But he’s advocating establishment of civil law based on dictates of God, as interpreted by religious authority. That’s the meaning of “theocracy.” Moreover, he’s implying that all religious groups advocating a “no” vote are opposing God’s dictates. I did not misinterpret Roth’s letter as she claims.
It’s more important, though, to point out Sweere’s misinterpretation of the First Amendment’s guarantee of the right to religious freedom. It does not grant you the right to impose your religious values in a way that interferes with others’ right to religious freedom.
Suppose, on religious grounds, you think same-sex marriage is immoral. If you vote yes on the marriage amendment, are you asserting your religious right to enter into heterosexual marriage? Or, are you voting to prevent others from exercising their right to act differently than your religious view?
The prevention intent is very clear. The assertion intent is not clear at all, since there is no threat of a ban on heterosexual marriage.
To override others’ right to religious freedom here, you would have to show that your right is more important and necessary than theirs and requires a supportive social framework that doesn’t allow these others their rights. The attempts to do so though are stunningly bad, in my judgment.
That brings us to Peter Etzell’s “My View.”
If you accept his argument about the need for children being raised by a mother and father, then a constitutional amendment banning divorce should be much more important to you than one banning same-sex marriage: 50 percent of marriages end in divorce; but same-sex marriages would not be anywhere near that percentage.
Suppose one spouse with young children dies. Would Etzell say the children face such a dim, diminished future that we should force the surviving parent to marry (someone of opposite sex) or to give the children up for adoption?
Etzell oversimplified the history of marriage. He ignored changes in the role of sex and reproduction in marriage, the effects of greater equality on women’s traditional roles, complexity of child raising in contemporary society. But I’m not convinced most persons supporting the marriage amendment are interested in reasons, religious differences on the issue, civil rights arguments, or realities of marital life.
I think they find the idea of same-sex sexual acts disgusting and thus beneath the dignity of marriage. So here’s a response:
You don’t need to deny or give up that feeling of disgust. You just need to treat same-sex marriages like heterosexual ones. You don’t judge the marital worthiness of your heterosexual neighbors based on their bedroom activity even though they may engage in sexual acts you also would find disgusting.
You live with them based on their friendliness and cooperation, their helpfulness if you need it, their taking good care of their property, their picking stuff up when their dog poops on your lawn, etc. So let it be with same-sex marriages.
Taxes
Your View: Progressive taxation necessary, justifiable; Ron Yezzi, Mankato, Posted: Saturday, June 18, 2011 12:31 am
I think it’s time for Republican lawmakers to stop treating wealthy people as greedy, self-centered mercenaries.
Underneath rhetoric about “rewarding job creators,” Republican lawmakers are really saying that wealthy people are so greedy that unless they have lower tax rates than most other Minnesotans they’re taking their wealth out of state, that they have no loyalty to Minnesota and no appreciation for the state’s good quality of life, and that they consider their wealth to be solely the result of their own effort.
I have a higher opinion of wealthy people. In these rough economic times, I find it hard to believe that most wealthy people take a “let them eat cake” attitude toward their fellow Minnesotans rather than being willing to participate in shared sacrifice, or that they think it’s fair that their effective tax rate is 10.3 percent when the rate for middle class Minnesotans is 12.1-12.3 percent.
The mere fact that they are wealthy shows that they are being amply rewarded for their efforts. Governor Dayton’s proposed, modest tax increase for them neither deprives them of their wealth status nor hinders their capacity to make sound investments. So much for the shallow GOP slogan, “Rewarding job creators.”
Let’s get beyond seeing success or failure as solely a matter of individual effort. Glen Taylor is the same person exhibiting the same kind of individual effort whether his activities involve successes of Taylor Corporation or failures of the Minnesota Timberwolves. In both cases, conditions going well beyond his individual effort are fundamentally involved in success or failure. Because society and social conditions are important components in making wealth possible, progressive taxation is justifiable and necessary.
Topics
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Guns (1)
Health Care (2)
National Debt (1)
Politics (6)
Religious Issues (2)
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Taxes (1)
Your View: Economy a mix of capitalism, socialism, Ron Yezzi, Mankato | Posted: Friday, April 24, 2009 6:00 pm
Two irresponsible actions muddying the political waters during the current financial crisis are simple-minded references to socialism and capitalism and demands for large spending cuts in the federal budget. So why is The Free Press (editorials, April 16 and 17) offering superficial judgments about capitalism vs. socialism, and carelessly calling for a 10 percent across the board cut in federal spending now?
Anyone who contrasts America’s “capitalism” with “socialism-friendly countries of Europe” is ignoring the FRB, SEC, FDIC, FDA, USDA, EPA, FAA, ICC, VA, AEC, NTSB, NLRB, OSHA, CPSC, FHA, USFS, BATF, NIH, CDC, STB, TVA, NASA, NEH, USPS, PUC, Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid, AmeriCorps, public education, air traffic controllers, police, firefighters, interstate highways, public parks, minimum wage laws, child labor laws, unemployment compensation, workmen’s compensation, licenses, Pell Grants, bar exams, anti-discrimination laws, zoning laws, building codes, antitrust laws, sanitation laws, vehicle inspection laws, Homestead Act, transcontinental railroad, CCC, etc.
These government-engaged activities arose because massive evidence shows that unfettered free markets fail to provide the progress, stability, and fairness contemporary society demands of its economic system. But these activities are a long way from eliminating free markets. The U.S. is best described as a mixed economy between pure capitalism and pure socialism.
The Republicans’ dominant anti-government, anti-tax agenda of the past quarter century put us in a deep hole regarding financial stability, deficits, energy policy, health care, education, retirement, infrastructure, and climate change. So we need more government engagement in our society and economy. And right now, we especially need federal spending stimulus to avoid making our economic situation worse.
‘Cornish-thinking’ makes no distinction in levels of threat, Ron Yezzi, Posted: Sunday, January 21, 2007 12:27 am
With the Minnesota legislature again in session, let’s revisit Rep. Tony Cornish’s proposed “shoot to kill” law.
In my opinion, he wants to give gun owners the right to administer capital punishment to anyone posing almost any physical threat. According to current law, you can kill in self-defense if it is necessary to save your life or prevent permanent, serious bodily harm. But Cornish wants you to be able to kill anyone who threatens you with (a) temporary but substantial disfigurement, (b) fracture of any part of your body, or (c) temporary but substantial loss or impairment of a bodily function. He favors “blow away” rights against anybody who might blacken an eye (disfigurement), break a finger or toe (fracture) or knock the wind out of you (impairment of function). Even a kicked shin or a bad bruise is enough, in my analysis.
In justifying killing someone who might break your finger, here is what he actually wrote in a June 7 Your View letter: “It’s said that someone could be shot for simply breaking your finger. As a 27-year veteran peace officer, I’ll tell you if a policeman is in a struggle with an attacker and one of his or her bodily members is broken during the struggle, the hardware is definitely going to come out! Why shouldn’t an attacked citizen be afforded the same threshold?”
Talk about queer thinking. Police officers rightfully would get into a lot of trouble using the Cornish defense, “I had to kill him, because he broke my finger.”
The world of “Cornish-think” in my view: Since there’s no difference between persons trying to kill you or give you a fat lip, you should be able legally to shoot them either way.
Ron Yezzi
Mankato
Your View — Costs of mammograms should be part of discussion, Ron Yezzi, Mankato | Posted: Tuesday, December 1, 2009 10:34 pm
Women in their 20s and 30s can die of breast cancer. Yet there aren’t guidelines recommending annual mammograms for every woman from age 20. Why not? Presumably, panels charged with such recommendations decided that, given an assessment of risks, harms outweigh benefits.
Harms would include anxiety about tests, unnecessary tests or treatments — including chemotherapy, radiation or surgery — for non-life-threatening conditions, plus the costs of the screenings, follow up tests and treatments. Benefits would include lives saved. There hasn’t been social turmoil over current practice here.
So why is there such controversy when a panel uses the same considerations to recommend fewer mammograms for women in their 40s and 50s? Their risks, of course, are greater. (Women in their 40s are 3.37 times as likely to be diagnosed with breast cancer as those in their 30s.) Probably nearly all women know someone middle-aged who died of breast cancer or survived because of treatment. Even if the risks are relatively low, it’s still your life at stake.
While these reasons deserve consideration, they need to be balanced by what this panel is saying about risks, harms and benefits. At some point, somebody also has to interject costs into the discussion. According to the panel’s statistics, annually screening 1,904 women through their 40s saves one life. At $100/mammogram, this translates into $1,904,000. That amount does not include any further tests and/or treatments for the women. Maybe these costs are acceptable, whereas the higher costs for women in their 20s and 30s are not. But we should be clear about what choices we’re making.
Finally, we need similar considerations regarding PSA tests for prostate cancer in men.
Your View: Americans' rights include health care, By Ron Yezzi, Mankato | Posted: Tuesday, September 22, 2009 3:10 pm
Who wins and who loses with meaningful health care reform? The biggest winners will be the American people who get quality health care for all at lower costs. The losers will be the special interests profiting too handsomely from the system now, bizarre extremists bursting their lungs with lies and misinformation to scare people (I judge them on their falsehoods, not their sincerity), Republicans and right-wing media opportunists determined to bring down the Obama administration.
Read accurately and fairly, the committee-approved House bill, HR3200 is a tremendous advance in health care. I urge Congressman Tim Walz to support it. The Baucus plan, a failed compromise among six extremely to moderately conservative senators, lacks credibility.
Contrary to some recent letters, the right to health care is as legitimate as the right to an education, which has been recognized for more than a century as both constitutional and an expression of the highest American values.
Here’s my view on two major issues worth serious debate:
The public option is a reasonable, middle ground compromise between a single-payer system and private insurance. It changes the structure of competition among insurance providers by adding the choice of a financially self-sustaining government plan; but it is not a government takeover of health care. Without it, we are just mandating a windfall for private insurance and higher costs for the rest of us.
On costs, we have to trust politicians to keep their promises about budget neutrality because, while they are responsibly including many costs-control procedures in their proposals, nobody can predict precisely what the savings will be. Your power still resides at the ballot box. If you’re dissatisfied, don’t re-elect them.
Your View — We don’t have to pass debt on to our children, Ron Yezzi, Mankato | Posted: Saturday, August 8, 2009 11:22 pm
It defies common sense to bail out financial institutions and companies that bring about their own destruction and to pass an economic stimulus package that increases already huge deficits. Before becoming too enthralled with common sense, though, let’s remember that, by common sense, anyone can see the earth doesn’t move: just stand still.
Given an extraordinary event like imminent collapse of the global financial system or much of the U.S. auto industry, Keynesian economics works better than common sense. And that justified a government bailout.
Similarly, avoiding large deficits is wise policy in ordinary times; but the situation is different in extraordinary times. If a $200,000 decrease in spending eliminates just one job, a $1 trillion decrease in one year will eliminate 5,000,000 jobs. Further, the next year there will be even less spending because of those lost jobs and the fears of tens of millions of others that they will lose their jobs.
To prevent this downward spiral into a severe economic depression, government had to step in to provide economic stimulus. (And in our present circumstances, even $790 billion probably is not enough.)
But even if we all benefit from the government preventing global financial collapse and a severe depression, how dare we pass on this huge debt increase to our children and grandchildren?
Answer: We don’t have to.
When the economy improves, we can be fiscally responsible and accept tax increases needed to lower the debt. But we must overcome two problems: the pattern since the early 1980s of sacrificing public needs for the sake of private affluence and greed; and the Republican tax demagoguery that has become the mainstay of the party’s appeal.
Your View: GOP 'bipartisanship' based on amnesia, Ron Yezzi, Mankato | Posted: Saturday, February 7, 2009 12:00 am
The current Republican view of bipartisanship seems based mainly on political amnesia. They want a middle ground compromise with more tax cuts and less spending. Translation: The 2008 election never happened; Obama and the Democrats never received a mandate to bring about basic change; the Republican strategy of running the economy with tax cuts and less spending did not bring about deregulation debacles, the financial crisis, and our infrastructure depletion. When major economists are warning that a large economic stimulus is immediately necessary to deal with the greatest economic crisis since The Great Depression (that even $800 billion probably will not be enough), Republicans are holding out for a less expensive stimulus that fits their priorities.
On Feb. 2, congressional Republican leaders announced a list of wasteful spending in the Senate’s proposed $900 billion stimulus bill. The list amounts to merely 2.1 percent of the entire bill. Furthermore, nearly all their waste-claims are ridiculous. The bill’s goals are job creation and infrastructure improvement. Yet these Republicans see no connection between the goals and the following: $1.4 billion for rural waste disposal programs, $500 million for flood reduction on the Mississippi River, $6 billion to convert federal buildings into “green” buildings, $500 million for state and local fire stations, $1.2 billion for youth activities (especially summer job programs), $850 million for Amtrak, $2 billion to attempt development of a near-zero emissions coal plant, $600 million to acquire hybrid vehicles, $500 million for construction and repair of NIH buildings.
Moneywise, my short list covers 71 percent of their waste-claims. I found just two claims that should really raise eyebrows.
Whatever bipartisanship requires, Republican thinking here is missing it.
Your View: Progressive change, By Ron Yezzi, Mankato | Posted: Thursday, October 30, 2008 1:44 pm
Democrats offer progressive change.
Hard times test people. In 2004, voters failed the test by re-electing George Bush; and we all are worse off for it.
We cannot afford to fail again by electing John McCain. Those twin disasters, the Iraq war and the financial crisis, are competing to find which can drive the nation deeper into debt.
McCain demands victory in Iraq. But no real victory is possible when it is an unnecessary war undertaken for false reasons, when it shreds our international standing, and when it costs dearly in lives, injuries and money. His belligerent temperament doesn’t recognize that, in diplomacy and war, the nation sometimes must find a path between victory and defeat.
I hold the Bush-McCain-Republican mantra, “Less government, lower taxes, less regulation,” directly responsible for the financial crisis, government failures during Katrina, huge deficits, climate change denial, infrastructure breakdown, health care failures, and failure to shore up Social Security and Medicare.
And deceitful or empty meanderings from Sarah Palin do nothing to put the country back together again.
A vote for progressive change is a vote for Obama, Franken, Walz, Brynaert, Morrow and Branstad.
Your View: Walz not too liberal for 1st District, By Ron Yezzi, Mankato | Posted: Thursday, September 25, 2008 3:42 pm
Is Tim Walz too liberal for the 1st District, as some Republicans say? As a liberal (that is, a moderate between rightist Republicans and leftist social radicals), I don’t find him embracing especially liberal positions.
For example, he supports an offshore oil drilling compromise that strikes me as a 75-25 Republican-oriented bill. A 50-50 compromise would give Republicans more offshore drilling in exchange for Democrats directing all the royalties toward transition to a new, sustainable energy policy based on conservation, renewables, carbon sequestration, and low-income energy assistance.
But Walz’s bill gives Republicans major drilling expansion and also siphons off most of the royalties (60 percent) as general revenues for the states and federal government. The siphoning serves typical Republican foot-dragging on transition to a new, sustainable energy policy and exhibits typical Republican tax avoidance (similar to Gov. Pawlenty’s attempts to raid the tobacco settlement and Health Care Access Fund for general revenues as a budget balancer).
A 75-25 liberal-oriented bill would include the 50-50 compromise plus, say, a built-in windfall profits tax provision, an increased royalties rate, a required advance down payment of royalties and a price rise to reflect oil’s harmful externalities — such as global warming and pollution-caused health problems.
I strongly support Walz’s reelection. He’s an amazingly gifted person totally dedicated to serving the public interest with openness and fairness. His outstanding first term shows he can work effectively on the nation’s problems and he has the potential to attain national political stature. But if he ever gets derailed, it should not be because voters make the mistake of thinking he’s too liberal for the 1st District.
Your View — On crucial votes, Coleman sides with Bush, Ron Yezzi, Mankato | Posted: Sunday, August 10, 2008 11:03 pm
What’s the most important reason to vote for Al Franken in November? Answer: Democrats need more votes for a working majority of 60 in the Senate. A vote for Norm Coleman is a vote for gridlock in Washington.
Coleman’s claims about his “independence” and “bipartisanship” are misleading. On basic issues — opposing universal health care, supporting an open-ended Iraq war, supporting failed energy policies, getting us into the current financial mess, extending tax cuts for the rich, producing huge deficits, favoring right-wing justices on the Supreme Court — he toed the standard Bush-Republican line. With an election coming, he joined many other Republicans to override Bush vetoes on two bills. But when he “opposes” the Republican leadership or the White House, I see him usually resorting to a political trick: If Republicans already have enough votes to block legislation, he votes with Democrats to look good for his re-election campaign while doing little or nothing to push for the legislation.
I challenge anyone to come up with bills where his supposed devotion to independence and bipartisanship led to his casting a crucial vote in overcoming the wishes of the Republican leadership or the White House.
His TV ad trying to portray Al Franken as just a comedian in the mode of a John Belushi tells us more about Coleman than it does about Franken.
Franken has a worthwhile family story to tell; he is dedicated to serving the needs of Minnesotans and the nation. He will work with other Democrats to reverse the terrible consequences of Bush-Republican policies — both domestically and internationally.
But that isn’t what Coleman’s ads want voters to think about.
Republican mantra thwarts future, Ron Yezzi, Posted: Thursday, March 27, 2008 3:41 pm
My translation of the Republican mantra, “Less government, lower taxes, less regulation: Live better now by screwing up your children, your grandchildren, and your country.”
Just look at some evidence.
The mantra has brought us a massively increased national debt (CBO figures): Reagan, $1.53 trillion; Bush I, $1.24 trillion; Bush II, $2.7 trillion in 6 years, with another $957 billion projected for the last 2 years. The interest on the $604 billion spent for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (2001-2007) will add up to $415 billion by 2017 (and counting). War costs this year will add another $197 billion plus interest. Projected eventual costs go as high as $3 trillion.
The mantra has brought us incompetence in dealing with a natural disaster like Katrina and in producing a human-made disaster like the current financial crisis.
The mantra has brought us a steady deterioration in the social infrastructure needed to protect our future: Social Security, Medicare, health care, affordable education, equal opportunity, job security, pollution reduction, response to effects of global warming, roads and bridges, transportation facilities. Each year that we fall further behind makes it that much harder to regain control over the nation’s problems.
Wars without shared sacrifice, recessions without shared burdens, spending without paying the bills, welfare for the wealthy, foot-dragging on regulations necessary to combat pollution and global warming, risks to public safety, privatization schemes instead of adequate retirement protection and health care, reckless neglect of those who will come after us. This is the party of family values and patriotism?
It is a time for major change, not illusion and victimization through Alice-In-Wonderland slogans.
Ron Yezzi Mankato
Sources: My figures can be checked at the CBO Web site links: Past debt: Historical Budget Data; Projections: Budget Projections; War Figures: Analyses of Operations in Iraq and Afghanistan (Oct. 24, 2007 link). The $415 billion in interest can be found in the Debt Service section. The $3 trillion figure comes from the Bilmes-Stiglitz book.
Your View — Coleman's 'nuances' misses point, By Ron Yezzi, Mankato | Posted: Monday, August 6, 2007 11:40 pm
The July 19 Free Press editorial “Coleman Grasps Iraq Nuances” suggests the senator is seeking a sensible middle ground between two extremes, the Bush policies and the Iraq war critics‚ demands for redeployment and withdrawal.
Looking at the supposed nuances though, I don’t see any bold, courageous or subtle insights. I see a lot of greasily vague points designed to position Norm Coleman for his 2008 re-election bid: being in Iraq “for a long time,” tactics tied to ever-changing events,” no specific dates for withdrawal or benchmarks, “the United States cannot indefinitely police Iraqi streets,” a “significant drawdown” of U.S. troops in 2008 (sometime before the November election, I bet), “warming to a significant mission correction.”
With Republicans like Coleman voting to sustain his Iraq policies, Bush has shown he can drag out the war his way as long as he wants — regardless of reality or lack of popular support. And these greasily vague points from Nuancing Norm just allow Bush to keep going.
Even when Coleman sides with Democrats, they always are weak votes — not fundamentally challenging Bush policies, not passionately lobbying fellow Republicans to join him, or never crucial to the outcome of the voting.
My “nuanced” comment: The editorial confuses mediocrity with a sensible middle ground because it shows a shallow understanding of the extremes.
I think a sizable majority of common citizens and experts recognize the dominant fact that the Iraq war is a massive blunder for our country — fueled by constantly false claims and false predictions from Bush, Cheney, and their underlings.
The Iraq war critics’ demands for fundamental change through redeployment and withdrawal are not a problem; they’re the solution.
YourView: Democrats: open-ended commitment is a mistake [RY], Ron Yezzi, submitted April 19, 2007
Last year’s failed slogan, “The Democrats want to cut and run,” has given way to a new one, “The Democrats want to micromanage the war.” To the president and his Republican lemmings, I say, “Cut out the BS.”
The Democrats are not telling military commanders how to run day-to-day operations. They are trying to end the commanders’ need to carry out the PRESIDENT’S POLICY of an open-ended commitment. In doing so, they are just pursuing the recommendations of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, numerous experts, and the wishes of the majority of the electorate.
The Democrats are trying to rein in this president. Instead of accusing them of not supporting the troops, Bush should be reminding himself that the U.S. is not a dictatorship. In a democracy, there’s no reason why the country should meekly accept a president’s blunders.
You need to take historical analogies with a grain of salt. But since the president and others have been offering them, here’s my own opinion.
Instead of likening George W. Bush to George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, or Harry Truman, I would suggest George Armstrong Custer: With reckless arrogance and poor planning, he sent his troops into an unnecessary battle they could not win.
And instead of likening the situation in Iraq to the U.S. Civil War or World War II, I would suggest the Soviet Union’s occupation of Afghanistan: You unnecessarily occupy an Islamic country whose culture you don’t understand well and that has war-prone factions; and, in the process, you evoke the hatred of many millions of Muslims throughout the world and your occupation becomes a magnet for the world’s Islamic militants.
Your View: Klobuchar and Walz offer a new direction [RY], Ron Yezzi, submitted Oct. 14, 2006
Political solutions cannot happen if people keep endorsing politicians in power responsible for the problems. That is what this coming election is about.
President Bush keeps digging our country into a deeper hole. But Republicans like Mark Kennedy and Gil Gutknecht are the shovels that make this possible. Voters can give these two a “Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job” thumbs up or they can vote for a new direction with more promising solutions from Amy Klobuchar and Tim Walz.
Elections choose leaders. But they also test people’s ability to govern themselves. Our belief in democracy rests on the hope that they do not fail this test through ignorance, apathy, or hopelessness.
Of the present political situation, a liberal wrote (Free Press, July 27), “They [Republicans] are screwing up major areas of American life: Their attitude of denial toward global warming, their messing up health care and the future of Social Security and Medicare with their insistence on privatization schemes, their continuation of money corruption in politics by opposing public campaign financing, their subsidizing inequality at the expense of equal opportunity, their piling up deficit debt for our children and grandchildren, their trampling of rights in the name of security.” When Gordon Walker (Free Press, October 9) calls criticism like this “socially irresponsible” because it suggests no solutions, he has a reading problem.
Although I won’t respond to Tony Cornish’ June letter until January, “queer” is the accurate dictionary word to describe his thinking on his “shoot to kill” bill.
Finally, I doubt that Teddy Roosevelt intended his noble words (quoted by Walker) used to defend the Bush administration’s incompetence, deceit, and denial.
Your View: Bachmann, Cornish proposals were distractions, Ron Yezzi, June, 2006
With their proposals for guns and gays, State Sen. Michelle Bachmann and Rep. Tony Cornish are the queerest couple in the just completed session of the Minnesota legislature.
In the world of “Cornish-think,” the Mankato Clinic and ISJ Hospital are dangerous places in southern Minnesota, because their signs banning guns prevents people from protecting themselves when they enter. Now he’s pushing for an unnecessary and irresponsible law allowing gun owners to “shoot first and ask questions later” with impunity.
The world of “Bachmann-think” is no better.
Like nearly everyone else, so far at least, she is not fixated on the sexual activity of her straight friends and neighbors. Presumably, Bachmann does not judge them based on their purposes in having sex, their method of birth control, their engaging in oral or anal sex, or whether they watch pornography. But she is fixated on the sexual activity of gay and lesbian partners and wants to judge them accordingly. So she keeps pushing for a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage.
The argument for the ban, however, never mentions sexual activity. Instead, it focuses on the need to protect children from being raised by anyone other than their married male and female parents. But if she really believes this argument, then Bachmann also should be proposing a constitutional ban on divorce (along with a constitutional ban on death of a spouse and out of wedlock births).
Fortunately, the Minnesota Senate, led by Democrats, did not let the Bachmann and Cornish proposals distract the legislature from much more important business.
Your View — Social harmony requires tolerance, Ron Yezzi, Posted: Friday, June 1, 2007 11:26 pm
In his April 29 reply to my February My View piece arguing against intelligent design being taught in science classrooms, Chuck VanBuskirk’s overly rich imagination draws implications that aren’t there. How my column attacked love, morality, and speculation about the meaning of life escapes me.
For the record: Religious beliefs about the natural world that rely on supernatural explanations are not immune to science’s naturalistic explanations. Over the centuries, science has been successful in establishing naturalistic explanations for numerous religious beliefs of this sort.
So should persons distort or reject science to protect religious beliefs? No, because science (although not infallible) is the most consistently powerful tool for acquiring knowledge that humans have devised. And it betrays the pursuit of knowledge to give religious beliefs a free ride.
Is science sufficiently successful to justify atheism or agnosticism? Yes, as a judgment of probabilities.
Can atheists or agnostics be good persons? Yes.
Does it follow then that everyone must embrace atheism or agnosticism and religion is foolish, stupid, or ridiculous (VanBuskirk’s three fantasy charges against my column)? No, because: 1. Since science cannot establish the impossibility of God’s existence, it leaves at least some speculative window for religious belief and many persons can be intellectually satisfied with this speculative “maybe.” (2) Aside from science, religious faith can be an especially important value to people. (3) Religion is not just a set of doctrines competing with science and can produce benefits independently of the truth or falsity of its beliefs. And (4) As a practical matter, since common agreement on answers to ultimate questions is unlikely, social harmony requires a respectful tolerance for diverse views.
Ron Yezzi
Mankato
My View: Intelligent design concept not based on sound science, Ron Yezzi, Posted: Wednesday, February 28, 2007 10:23 am
(Let’s be clear at the start that I am writing about science, not religious faith).
Based on his Jan. 20 column, I do not see Doug Wolter as a reliable referee to judge what constitutes good science. He wants intelligent design to be taught in science classrooms — what he takes to be the moderate position between the extreme “creationists” and “secularists.” But it is misguided moderation.
These extreme secularists (classic “darwinists”) he writes about happen to be the overwhelming majority of scientists who establish what good science is; and the extreme creationists happen to be pseudo-scientists promoting false, or bad, science. Let’s not equate the two groups.
Moreover, advocates of intelligent design, Wolter’s moderates, have produced fringe writings unrepresentative of the scientific community’s views and much closer to pseudo-scientific creationism.
Before considering intelligent design today, let’s look at its history. From ancient times, human beings have cast anthropomorphic projections of intelligent design onto nature as a way of explaining what went beyond their limited understanding and as a way of promoting and protecting religious belief. With regularity though, the advance of scientific methods has shown the projections to be unwarranted.
Once, events like earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and lightning were considered to be direct acts of a god. Galileo was hauled before the Inquisition, because of religious insistence that intelligent design required the earth to be stationary at the center of the universe.
Once, most of the leading minds of the 17th and 18th centuries were absolutely certain that only intelligent design by God could explain the perfect order of the universe. And then came the scientific account of evolution, showing how complex order can develop without a pre-designing intelligence and that many instances of life’s diversity are antithetical to intelligent design.
Despite the historical record, present day advocates continue these projections. There are major flaws in their arguments that lead to rejection by the scientific community. But increasingly, non-scientists lack the technical scientific background to recognize the flaws. One of the better attempts at intelligent design, in my judgment, can be found in Michael Behe’s “Darwin’s Black Box.” But there are sound scientific reasons for rejecting his views. For anyone interested in references and commentary related to his book, you can start by going to krypton.mnsu.edu/~yezzi/behebook.html. I also include other references related to current intelligent design claims and to Wolter’s column.
Regarding God’s existence, Wolter says that the big bang theory “points in that direction.” Says whom? What proportion of reputable scientific journal articles and astronomy textbooks over the last half-century assert that?
Misuse of probability calculations is a frequent technique of creationists in intelligent design clothing. To recognize it though, you need to know something about the significance of improbable events, the assumptions being used, and the scientific community’s understanding of the role of chance and necessity in nature.
And when Wolter writes about nature being so “complex and perfect” as to require intelligent design, he should consider this passage from evolutionary biologist Douglas Futuyma’s Science on Trial: “We look at the design of organisms, then, for evidence of the Creator’s infinite intelligence, and what do we see? A multitude of exquisite adaptations, to be sure; the bones of a swallow beautifully adapted for flight; the eyes of a cat magnificently shaped for seeing in the twilight. But if we look further, we find that the bones of the flightless dodo and penguin are also hollow, as if adapted for flight; and that the mole and cave salamander also have a lens and retina that serve no function. Every organism has such vestiges of structures that can only be the useless remnants of past adaptations.
Scientific method can cast a severe eye on religious beliefs. By scientific standards of evidence, the truth of the statement, “Augustus Caesar was Emperor of Rome,” is very highly probable; but the truth of the statement, “Jesus Christ rose from the dead,” has extremely low probability. By the same standards, it is more probable that Jesus was an illegitimate child than the result of a virgin conception.
Although science can, and usually does, establish the scientific inadequacy of numerous religious claims, it cannot establish the impossibility of God’s existence. So it leaves at least some speculative window for religious belief. But to use this speculative window as justification for teaching intelligent design in science classrooms is akin to scientific suicide, especially in the United States where (according to a recent study) only 40 percent of adults accept the fact of human evolution.
Your View — Writers in state of denial regarding their topics, Ron Yezzi, Posted: Saturday, October 20, 2007 12:15 am
Let me present a George W. Bush State of Denial Award to three recent letter writers: Bob Jentges (”Global warming consensus more politics than science,” Sept. 2), Rev. Paul D. Nolting (“Compare museums before deciding what to believe,” Oct. 5), and Scott Moore (“Zinn’s trendy foolishness disguised as truthful play,” Oct. 6).
As scientific evidence keeps mounting, it becomes politically irresponsible to do nothing about global warming. The world can’t wait for an OK from the minority of longtime scientific skeptics like Jentges‚ S. Fred Singer.
For a sense of the scientific consensus here, go to wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific _consensus_on_climate_change.
And I see no evidence that the majority membership of these scientific groups disavow the summary statements. According to Nolting, the Creation Museum’s critics “have their own pre-suppositions. They pre-suppose that there is no God, that the Bible is not true, and that our present world evolved over billions of years.”
The world’s evolution is not a presupposition; it is the scientific community’s prevailing conclusion based upon accumulated evidence. (See any reputable textbook on evolution.)
And when evolution shows how order can evolve without a pre-designing intelligence, this evidence severely weakens the design argument for God’s existence; it does not “presuppose” God’s nonexistence. Moreover, evolutionists with religious beliefs certainly do not presuppose God’s nonexistence.
According to Moore, “we would do well to remember that the Soviets demonstrated two important truths about socialism. Socialism must suppress freedom by force in order to fulfill its good intentions, and as government programs supplant individual responsibility, the population loses its inherent nobility.”
Since when did “the Soviets” become the model for all socialism? And how do government programs like public education and Social Security destroy our “inherent nobility”?
Ron Yezzi
Mankato
Your View: Taxes don't destroy wealth, By Ron Yezzi, Mankato | Posted: Monday, June 15, 2009 3:45 pm
Regarding Minnesota taxes and the public good, Republican lawmakers and Gov. Pawlenty are showing an absolute inflexibility akin to rigor mortis.
Their open-ended claim that higher tax rates kill jobs and drive successful people out of state is a myth. If the claim were true, nearly all Minnesota’s businesses and successful people already would have moved to lower tax states. Thoughtful Minnesotans know that taxes are a key element in a better life here; that’s why they haven’t left. On May 22, The Free Press had a good editorial on our taxes and the business climate.
“Making money is all that matters” is an attitude, not an iron law of living. Aren’t these Republicans fostering this highly questionable attitude when they accept the reasonableness of leaving solely because of a higher tax rate?
I prefer the attitude, “In hard times, everybody needs to make sacrifices.” The modest income tax increase initially proposed by Senate DFLers (0.65 percent and 1.4 percent for the highest income bracket) fits this attitude. It called for those less hurt by Minnesota’s economic problems to make a contribution proportionate to how much money they make. A married couple making more than $250,000 a year has a hard time claiming they’re as bad off as families reduced to unemployment benefits.
The graduated income tax in the United States has never eliminated the opportunity to become wealthy. Moreover, its fairness rests on recognizing the fact that personal financial success depends upon public services, social conditions, other people, efforts, natural abilities and luck, not just individual effort.
People convinced they accumulate wealth exclusively through their own effort fall for a conservative fairy tale.
Topics
Editorial Complaint
Local Issues (1)
Politics (15)
Taxes (1)
Your View: Free Press letter policy too stringent, Ron Yezzi, Aug. 11, 2000
Why is the present Free Press editor the first, during my 31 years in Mankato, to insist on a 275-word limit for letters to the newspaper?
Does the Free Press now have a circulation in the hundreds of thousands so that drastic restriction on the length of letters became necessary?
If anything worth reading can be stated in 275 words or less, why do Free Press editorials routinely exceed that limit?
Isn't the presence of longer columns on the opinion page an open admission that there is a place in the newspaper for thought-provoking material longer than 275 words?
What reasoning justifies the editor's rule that submissions to the Free Press must be fewer than 275 words or long enough to be "My View" columns?
Does the 275-word length limit achieve the goals of a free press, whereas longer letters with thought-provoking content do not?
Does the policy produce a less vibrant public forum by discouraging letter writers and thereby restricting public expression?
In my case, editor Deb Flemming's letter-length policy is the sole reason why no letter by me (except for this meta-letter) has appeared in the Free Press over the last three-and-a-half years.
Am I whining because I do not want to abide by somebody else's rules?
I hope so—especially when I see them as rules lacking good sense.
Your View: Citizen opposition to DM&E plans was good citizen involvement [RY], Ron Yezzi, submitted Jan. 3, 2006
Malda Farnham has citizen involvement and the DM&E story all wrong. You don’t want or need citizen involvement if you only reach for crumbs by endorsing the shady dealings of corporations like the DM&E. That’s how the agreement got through initially.
It was Mankato citizen involvement that (a) joined with other larger cities such as Rochester and Brookings to demand bypasses around their cities, (b) questioned coal as a key energy source for the future, (c) distrusted the DM&E’s promises, and (d) doubted Kevin Shieffer’s assurances about private sector financing for the project. That led to four Council members voting to void the agreement.
Basically, the DM&E came to Mankato and put a gun to the City’s head: “We’ll do whatever it takes to get what we want. Support us and we’ll toss you some goodies. Fight us and we’ll fix your a__ good.”
The excellent Free Press articles by Mark Fischenich on Dec. 19 and 20 lay out what it took.
What happened reeks of hypocrisy and corruption. Need I mention that Republicans are there at the heart of it?
The DM&E project, judged to be a bad investment by private enterprise (that is, by the free market process Republicans supposedly swear allegiance to), was sneakily put into a transportation bill through the effort of a former DM&E lobbyist, turned Republican Senator from South Dakota. Very few Representatives and Senators knew they were providing for a $2.5 billion government loan to the DM&E.
Malda is right that we need greater citizen involvement in government, including projects like Envision 2020. But we need the involvement to prevent exactly what corporations like the DM&E do.
Your View: DM&E editorial was cowardly, Ron Yezzi, Feb. 9, 2002
The Feb. 1 Free Press editorial on the DM&E decision was a profile in cowardice.
The message was clear: Worship the bottom line and genuflect before the powers that be.
The editorial used this bow down message as a club to attack City Council members who voted to rescind the Community Partnership Agreement. The editorialist wants the Council now to go "begging" to the DM&E.
The editorialist is too deep in bow down mode to recognize that the DM&E has responsibilities as a corporate citizen to respect reasonable interests of the Mankato community, even without a Community Partnership Agreement.
Instead of hailing so many small towns with CPAs, the editorialist should consider why the DM&E has no CPA with any of its three largest cities in Minnesota and South Dakota—Rochester, Mankato, and Brookings.
If the Free Press knew that the rescinded Mankato CPA was an ironclad, sure thing, why didn't it offer to put up a $25 million bond as a guarantee to the City Council?
"In a couple of years, when you're lying awake, listening to the train whistles blowing through Mankato every 20 minutes" (Free Press wording), ask yourself:
(1) How do we get a government that doesn't recognize this noise as a problem?
(2) Why did STB Vice-Chairman Burkes cite President Bush's Energy Policy and say, "I believe that this is exactly the type of project that should have involved an expedited review under the President's Executive Order"?
(3) Are voters electing so many reckless "freemarketeers" to office, that the U.S. may become a giant, wild west show?
(4) What are we if everyone buys the Free Press editorial message?
Elections a chance to seek solutions, Ron Yezzi, Posted: Tuesday, October 24, 2006 9:26 am
Political solutions cannot happen if people keep endorsing politicians in power responsible for the problems. That is what this coming election is about.
President Bush keeps digging our country into a deeper hole. But Republicans like Mark Kennedy and Gil Gutknecht are the shovels that make this possible. Voters can give these two a “Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job” thumbs up or they can vote for a new direction with more promising solutions from Amy Klobuchar and Tim Walz.
Elections choose leaders. But they also test people’s ability to govern themselves. Our belief in democracy rests on the hope that they do not fail this test through ignorance, apathy or hopelessness.
Of the present political situation, a liberal wrote (Free Press, July 27), “[Republicans] are screwing up major areas of American life: Their attitude of denial toward global warming, their messing up health care and the future of Social Security and Medicare with their insistence on privatization schemes, their continuation of money corruption in politics by opposing public campaign financing, their subsidizing inequality at the expense of equal opportunity, their piling up deficit debt for our children and grandchildren, their trampling of rights in the name of security.” When Gordon Walker (Free Press, Oct. 9) calls criticism like this “socially irresponsible” because it suggests no solutions, he has a reading problem.
Although I won’t respond to Tony Cornish’s June letter until January, “queer” is the accurate dictionary word to describe his thinking on his “shoot to kill” bill.
Finally, I doubt that Teddy Roosevelt intended his noble words (quoted by Walker) be used to defend the Bush administration’s incompetence, deceit, and denial.
Ron Yezzi
Mankato
Liberals need not apologize for keeping people informed, Ron Yezzi. Posted: Thursday, September 14, 2006 10:09 am
For more than a year now, a steady stream of letters and My View columns in The Free Press has offered facts and arguments detailing the blunders and inadequacies of the Bush administration and Republicans.
You can’t help but notice the intellectual impotence of opponents unable to counter these facts and arguments. If they write anything, they just whine about liberal extremists.
Liberals need not apologize to anyone for keeping people informed about what their government is doing: Ignorance may be bliss; but it is not a virtue.
The problem with ignoring facts is that they can come back to bite your backside — evident (to anyone reasonably well-informed) in the President’s rhetorical attempts to cover his badly-bitten butt after the Iraq fiasco, Katrina, loss of international prestige for the United States, rejection of Bush prisoner policies by federal courts, huge deficits, tax cuts for the rich, denial of global warming, hindering stem cell research, and trying to panic people about Social Security. Equally bitten are his Republican cohorts, like Gil Gutknecht and Mark Kennedy.
I counted at least 25 relevant facts cited in Fred Slocum’s Aug. 28 My View column, supporting his charges about Republican abuse of power. I challenge whiners Wayne Comstock and Ryan Hansen, or anyone else, to refute these facts.
Slocum’s expertise warrants respect and close attention from any citizen wanting to be well-informed.
On Plan B, I thought he chose the wrong word (wrong, only because of a decision made after submission of his column). And in the Texas redistricting case, I personally thought an important factual omission deserved consideration. But nobody’s perfect.
Ron Yezzi
Mankato
Only lemmings will stay the course with Republicans, Ron Yezzi, Posted: Thursday, July 27, 2006 9:49 am
As the lemmings march into the sea, you can hear their Republican leaders noisily proclaiming a victory parade and accusing all doubters of wanting to “cut and run.”
The Iraq war has been one blunder after another since before it even began. The President’s newest revision of reasons for being there, “When the Iraqis stand up, we’ll stand down,” smashes to smithereens his continual claim that Iraq is the center of the global war on terror. As if we expect the poorly equipped, poorly motivated, allegiance-divided, relatively inept Iraqi security forces to lead the war on terror!
Republicans do or say anything to avoid responsibility for their actions. The war is just the most glaring example. They are screwing up major areas of American life: Their attitude of denial toward global warming, their messing up health care and the future of Social Security and Medicare with their insistence on privatization schemes, their continuation of money corruption in politics by opposing public campaign financing, their subsidizing inequality at the expense of equal opportunity, their piling up deficit debt for our children and grandchildren, their trampling of rights in the name of security.
They spent five years developing a “comprehensive” energy policy so obsolete that, within six months, the President had to reverse rhetoric and warn about “oil addiction.”
As for rosy statistics about our economy, remember: If you’re in a room along with Bill Gates, the average worth of persons in the room is $25 billion; but that doesn’t make you a multi-billionaire.
The last, great hope of Republicans is that they can find enough lemmings to stay the course without thinking about where we’re going.
Bachmann, Cornish proposals were distractions, Ron Yezzi, Posted: Monday, June 5, 2006 12:14 pm
With their proposals for guns and gays, State Sen. Michele Bachmann and Rep. Tony Cornish are the queerest couple in the just completed session of the Minnesota legislature.
In the world of “Cornish-think,” the Mankato Clinic and ISJ Hospital are dangerous places in southern Minnesota, because their signs banning guns prevents people from protecting themselves when they enter. Now he’s pushing for an unnecessary and irresponsible law allowing gun owners to “shoot first and ask questions later” with impunity.
The world of “Bachmann-think” is no better. Like nearly everyone else, so far at least, she is not fixated on the sexual activity of her straight friends and neighbors. Presumably, Bachmann does not judge them based on their purposes in having sex, their method of birth control, their engaging in oral or anal sex, or whether they watch pornography. But she is fixated on the sexual activity of gay and lesbian partners and wants to judge them accordingly. So she keeps pushing for a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage. The argument for the ban, however, never mentions sexual activity. Instead, it focuses on the need to protect children from being raised by anyone other than their married male and female parents. But if she really believes this argument, then Bachmann also should be proposing a constitutional ban on divorce (along with a constitutional ban on death of a spouse and out of wedlock births).
Fortunately, the Minnesota Senate, led by Democrats, did not let the Bachmann and Cornish proposals distract the legislature from much more important business.
Your View: Follies of Gov. Pawlenty [RY], Ron Yezzi, submitted April 19, 2006
Dear Editor:
It’s time for a sounding of Gov. Tinny Tim Pawlenty (“Tinny,” as in “bright and shiny on the outside, with a distinctly hollow ring”).
After producing legislative deadlock and a shutdown during the last session through his no new taxes pledge, Tinny Tim then curried favor with the public by blaming legislators for not doing their jobs. He then ended the deadlock by sacking his pledge and raising the cigarette tax—calling it, with quintessential tinniness, “a health impact fee.”
Mediocre plans from other states—gambling expansion to increase state revenues, higher tuitions and user fees, lower levels of funding for local governments, for education, for health care, and for social services—became “innovative” ideas to Tinny Tim. He wants Minnesota to be a copycat of states that have a lower quality of life.
Tinny Tim’s website boasts, “Historic Funding Increases for Minnesota’s Schools.” Meanwhile, in the real world, school boards, superintendents, and higher ed administrators are left to maintain high quality education with continuously inadequate state support.
The governor supports our National Guard and picks up great photo ops. But on the basic issue of Bush administration blunders forcing the Guard to function like active-duty troops, Tinny Tim’s not even a peeper.
Someone once said, “It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.” Tinny Tim and most Republicans are convinced this was some crazed socialist trying to screw up Christians: Everyone should know that the rich deserve lower taxes on earth and first entry into heaven because they serve the public good better than anyone else.
Your View: Too much propaganda about Iraq [RY], Ron Yezzi, submitted March 9, 2006
The powerful Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld-Pentagon propaganda machine never stops. So what they want us to know is what the media mostly cover. The security situation in Iraq is so dangerous that journalists cannot move about freely enough to report many things happening that the Bush crowd doesn’t want us to know. Still, the blunders are big enough and frequent enough to keep puncturing the Bush administration’s bluster bag.
Now along comes a new propaganda group with slick, well-financed mailings and TV ads to bolster flagging support for the Iraq war.
The group pushes classic propaganda: distortions of the truth, embedded in emotional and patriotic appeals, with state-of-the-art production visuals and testimonials. These simple-minded messages are perfect for persons like Roger Skaar (Free Press letter, Feb. 15) who can’t figure out that liberal writers are saying a lot more than “Republicans bad—Democrats good.”
The most heart-wrenching parts of the ads are the exhortations to keep fighting on indefinitely at all costs so that loved ones have not died in vain.
A nation can call upon its soldiers to make enormous sacrifices for their country. But while soldiers are rightly honored for their sense of duty in answering that call, their deaths and injuries usually do little to establish the rightness of a war. And they do not give families the right to spread suffering to others because they want to feel that their own loved ones did not sacrifice in vain. These are horrible truths about war. That’s why a nation’s leaders should never go to war unnecessarily, as in Iraq, and why they should be held responsible for their actions.
Your View: President Bush does not respect the law [RY], Ron Yezzi, submitted Feb. 3, 2006
Why did President Bush order illegal, secret spying on U.S. citizens?
The answer: He figured that potential terrorists, like most Americans, assume that our president is an honorable person who abides by the rule of law. So what better way to cross up these naïve, dumb suckers than by breaking the law to get some potentially useful information?
Apparently, he didn’t fool terrorists. If he had, that illegally gathered information would have broken the back of any potential Al Qaeda activity in the U.S. and we all would feel secure by now.
So the only real fools here are all those Americans who expect the president to stay within the law.
Being caught in illegal actions though is not a big political problem for Bush. As we’ve seen now with spying and torture, he has his legal people redefine the law to suit his purposes.
This cavalier attitude toward the law is a characteristic mark of the Bush administration.
Can we respect the Supreme Court as the ultimate arbiter of law and justice in our society when judges are appointed according to how well they satisfy the Republicans’ rightwing political base?
Can we respect the laws of the land when special interest money is more powerful than the public good in determining what laws are passed?
Can we respect an administration more interested in trying to subvert environmental laws rather than to enforce them?
Can we respect an administration more determined to dictate what other nations do rather than to broaden the global rule of law?
None of these concerns though need bother those who believe, “Might makes right.”
Your View: Bush administration morally reprehensible, Ron Yezzi, Dec. 3, 2005
Let’s call this “an exercise in moral futility.”
The first rule of moral accountability for preemptive war is that a leader leaves office if the overwhelming reason for the war turns out to be false. Otherwise, any government with a raging eagerness for war can find reasons for it without having to take responsibility for bad judgments.
Wouldn’t it be morally astonishing if a head of government recognized the rule and resigned? And isn’t it morally depressing that the American people re-elected the Bush-Cheney team?
The Bush administration’s continual cover-up shows an absence of moral integrity. Before the war, the whole nation knows that we were up to our ears in warnings about Saddam’s WMDs. They bullied the UN for dragging its feet on WMDs. They showed open contempt for the UN inspectors for not finding WMDs. Now they just want to change the subject and prevent any investigation into suspected political misuse of intelligence reports.
It is morally outrageous when the President, Vice-President, and numerous other Americans say, “It’s better to be fighting the terrorists there than fighting them here.” To get the point, these people should be shipped to Iraq to tell the Iraqis how happy we are that the U.S. occupation has become a magnet for terrorism, so that they are the ones being killed, maimed, terrified, and sabotaged.
It is morally disgusting that the administration fights terrorism by circumventing laws against torture—with secret prisons in other countries, redefinitions of prisoners’ status to evade the Geneva Conventions, and opposition to Senate passage of a specific prohibition on torture. And it is morally disgraceful that only low-ranking soldiers take blame for torture.
Your View: Republican administrations race to gamble our future, Ron Yezzi, Oct. 31, 2005
Letting Republicans with their anti-government attitudes run the government is a lot like letting bumbling burglars look after your interests when you’re away from home. On the one hand, they don’t know7 what they’re doing; on the other hand, they’re liquidating your present and future assets.
Republican administrations have' been racing to gamble the nation’s future with huge deficits — Reagan, $1.5 trillion in eight years; Bush I, $1.2 trillion in four years; and Bush II, $1.4 trillion in just three fiscal years. Indeed, Bush II will reach $3-4 trillion before leaving office.
For more than a decade now, Republicans have been magnifying the future financial problems of Social Security and Medicare by blocking simple, obvious solutions in order to push their risky, confusing, privatization schemes.
They are gambling with the future environment by denying global warming, weakening
fuel economy standards, weakening clean air and water standards, and promoting fossil fuel production instead of conservation.
They insist on squandering government resources on those who need them least.
So every tax cut hill enriches the already rich; energy and prescription drug bills include giveaways to big corporations; and big corporations get no-bid contracts in Iraq and the Gulf region. Then they cut back on government auditors needed to uncover fraud.
In combatting terrorism, the Bush administration went into the wrong place, at the wrong time, for the wrong reason, and without considering the likely consequences of their actions.
The federal government leapt into the Terry Schiavo case but was nowhere to be seen when Hurricane Katrina struck.
But hey, your taxes am a little lower and you can get a gay marriage ban. So what’s to worry?
Your View: We got the incompetence we asked for, Ron Yezzi Sept. 29, 2005
It’s hard to blame the bumbling Bush administration for incompetence when the country voted for incompetence in last November’s Presidential election. You wonder what it takes to wake people up.
Four years after 9/11, there is no excuse for the ineptitude of the federal government in dealing with the Hurricane Katrina disaster. How much money was spent? How many studies were produced? How much government reorganization occurred? How many simulated trials were done? How many assurances did the President give that his administration was no longer asleep at the wheel?
Isn’t it clear that a huge chunk of the $200 billion to clean up Katrina could have been saved if the federal government had spent $1 billion on adequate flood control for New Orleans? Even the Army Corps of Engineers’ latest request for a meager $110 million was cut to $42 million by the President and the Republican Congress.
Instead of raising taxes, the President proposes to pay for the $200 billion Katrina cleanup by cutting government programs that can prevent other social disasters. So next time around, we can pay $1 trillion to clean up the mess caused by diverting $200 billion to pay for Katrina.
In Iraq, we’ve already spent $200 billion to remove WMDs that never existed. And now we can’t get out because we made such a mess of things by going in.
Meanwhile, Bush and Republicans rely on conservative think tanks like The Heritage Foundation to design social Rube Goldberg machines allowing us to pretend we’re living in the 18th and 19th centuries. If you don’t know what a Rube Goldberg machine is, just think, “Health Care in the U.S.A.”
Your View: Problems can’t be solved by throwing money at the rich, Ron Yezzi, Aug. 23, 2005
Republicans apparently plan to eliminate taxation based upon ability to pay as a fundamental value, thereby delivering a dagger in the heart of any hope of equal opportunity for all in a democratic society.
In Minnesota, they tried to expand gambling as a substitute for taxation to increase state revenues. Then they rejected the Democratic plan to increase taxes for the wealthiest Minnesotans. Finally, they pushed through a cigarette tax increase. In recent years, they increased user fees, forced tuition increases, cut support for education, health care, local government aid—anything to avoid taxation based upon ability to pay.
Nationally, there are the Bush tax cuts that strongly favor the rich, the attempt to totally eliminate the estate tax on the wealthiest Americans, calls for a flat tax to replace the graduated income tax, and a demagogic anti-tax mentality.
As evidence that the wealthy pay too much in taxes, Republicans like to quote the statistic that the top five percent in income pay more than 50 percent of all the federal income tax collected. What the statistic really shows though is, first, the astounding amount of income the wealthy have, and secondly, their ability to pay higher taxes without significantly crimping their affluent life styles, opportunities for their families, or their huge supply of money for investments.
You cannot solve U.S. economic problems by just throwing more money at the rich.
Instead of moving toward the ideal of a democratic society that ennobles and inspires us, one that creates a level playing field for everyone to compete, we are moving instead in the direction of establishing a superior class with the money to grab up by far the greatest share of political influence as well as of financial and social opportunities.
Your View: One guy’s a movie maker, the other runs the country, Ron Yezzi, submitted July 22, 2004
Michael Moore is one film maker. The Bush administration runs the entire executive branch of the U.S. government as long as George W. remains in office.
So if Mark Wilkowske (Free Press, July 14) feels a “moral” need to label “Fahrenheit 9/11” as left-wing propaganda, he should feel an almost infinitely greater moral need to label nearly all statements from the Bush administration and political team as right-wing and CYA propaganda.
One example: President Bush defends the Iraq invasion by saying, “So I had a choice to make: either take the word of a madman or defend America. Given that choice I will defend America." This is simple-minded, garbage-grade propaganda for persons who either refuse to think or are unable to think.
Before labeling “Fahrenheit 9/11” as left-wing propaganda, may I make a suggestion? In your web browser, type in “Michael Moore’s Homepage”; then click on the “Facts in Fahrenheit 9/11” link to check out his documentation.
Contrary to Wilkowske’s single “factual” objection to the film, Richard Clarke’s sworn testimony shows that he did not act simply on his own in allowing a plane carrying Bin Laden family members to leave the U.S. on 9/11. And the White House continued this Saudi “bon voyage” policy after 9/11.
I don’t agree with Michael Moore on everything. But I recognize that he’s not trying to be a historian presenting the whole truth. He is a portrait artist using documentaries to provide thought-provoking insights into the meaning of important events that affect us. He has footage you won’t see anywhere else.
And he brings you far closer to the truth than Rush Limbaugh or Bill O’Reilly ever will.
Your View: Republicans should dump Bush for McCain, Ron Yezzi, May 27, 2004
If Republicans have any good sense and concern for the country, they will dump The Grand Leader with his $180 million and nominate John McCain.
The President crosses the country preaching personal responsibility when all we get are cover-ups and denials of responsibility from him and his administration.
Responsibility for torture of Iraqi prisoners begins at the top with the continual Bush references to “thugs” and “terrorists” and with Rumsfeld’s playing games with the Geneva Convention. The two of them had labeled Iraqi prisoners and stripped them of rights before any soldier ever appeared in those photos.
There is a trail of Defense department and military directives for collecting intelligence that led to the torture at Abu Ghraib prison and elsewhere. Where is Rumsfeld’s resignation?
The war on terrorism is complicated and requires the wisdom to make the right moves. Unfortunately, we are being led by someone who has spent nearly all his life relying on charm instead of doing his homework.
The Bush invasion of Iraq made colossal mistakes: from the claim that it was a necessary step in the war against terrorism, to the claim that it was necessary to remove the non-existent WMDs, to the disdain for the UN, to the insistence that our occupation would be treated as liberation, to the messianic hope of creating a pro-American democracy there that would transform the whole Middle East.
His “leadership” has now burdened us with an enormous waste of resources, international humiliation, fewer allies in the world, greater hatred for the U.S., and the search for a responsible way out.
And Republicans want to reward this guy with four more years?
Your View: President keeps heading in wrong direction [RY], Ron Yezzi, submitted March 7, 2004
What good is decisive leadership, if you keep heading in wrong directions?
President Bush bullied and belittled the United Nations for not agreeing with him on Iraq’ weapons of mass destruction.
He started a preemptive war against Iraq to remove weapons of mass destruction that did not exist.
He underestimated the costs and complications of occupying Iraq, even when knowledgeable persons predicted these problems before the war began.
He strutted around an aircraft carrier like a top gun pilot, when his actual military service record, to put it generously, was lackluster.
Instead of following President Clinton’s plan to use projected budget surpluses to shore up Social Security, he insisted on tax cuts because the government supposedly had too much money.
And when his projected surpluses turned into huge deficits, with the prospect of really monstrous deficits later when baby boomers retire, he keeps demanding more tax cuts.
He hails his tax cuts for all, when every reasonable analysis shows that they heavily favor the wealthy.
He claims a robust economic recovery, even though job production is sluggish and both businesses and the stock market cringe at what will happen when the Federal Reserve raises the artificially low interest rates.
He hails his “No Child Left Behind” education initiative, while blocking the funding necessary to make it work―following the seemingly eternal, southern states’ penchant for underfunding public education.
He degrades government rules to protect our environment and health.
Now he intends to sweep all his wrongheadedness under the rug with well over $100 million dollars of misleading advertising and with advocacy of a Constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.
Your View: Republicans drag feet on campaign finance reform [RY], Ron Yezzi, submitted July 24, 2003
“If their case is so strong, why would they have to spend $150 million to defend themselves?” (The Free Press, June 16, 2003)
Would you believe that these are the words of a Republican, Congressman Gil Gutknecht?
He was referring to pharmaceutical companies.
The Congressman though is clueless how aptly the statement applies to himself, President Bush, and the Republican Party.
The Republican Party does not believe it can win an election it cannot buy.
It proves the point by continually dragging its feet on campaign finance reform and by raising grotesque amounts of campaign money.
According to the Federal Election Commission, national Republican Party committees raised $465.2 million during the first 18 months of the 2001-2002 election cycle, exceeding Democrats by $210 million. And the Democrats only raised as much money as they did in a desperate effort to slow down the Republican election-buying strategy.
This Republican pattern has been evident for decades now.
President Bush is raising $200 million to spend on his reelection before the Republican convention in September, 2004; and he does not even have any competition for the nomination. That figure is twice what he raised in 2000, because the latest campaign finance law allows individuals (richer ones, presumably) to contribute twice as much to a campaign, from $1000. to $2000.
In his last three Congressional elections, Gutknecht has outspent his Democratic opponent by $624,000., $343,000., and $572,000., his expenditures ranging from $632,000. to 948,000.
I ask: If their case is so strong and the country has become so conservative, why do they have to spend so much money to defend themselves?
Your View: Republicans should dump Gingrich, Ron Yezzi, Jan. 31, 1997
When will the Republican Party gain enough confidence to face its future without Newt Gingrich?
Most recently Gingrich maintained his power as speaker of the House by drawing his fellow Republicans into his underhanded scheming.
He and the Republican leadership led their fellow Republicans to shut down the completion of the ethics committee’s investigation of his actions by cutting off time needed for committee hearings and by ending the services of its special counsel.
He and the Republican leadership snookered fellow Republicans into re-electing him ahead of time by orchestrating a lobbying and public-relations campaign to minimize the significance of the ethics committee’s report.
In the leadership vote, only nine of 227 Republicans had the wisdom and courage to just say no to Gingrich.
Gil Gutknecht, as expected, was not one of the nine.
Before the vote, he assured his fellow Republicans that there would be no more ethics surprises involving him.
Fat chance!
The first surprise came when Republicans discovered that the ethic committee’s report was harsher than they had been led to believe—with his false reports being labeled “intentional” or “reckless” and with his getting an unprecedented $300,000 penalty.
[something missing – RY]
After the whole issue was supposedly over, the third surprise came in the Jan. 26 Sunday papers with reports that, back home in Georgia, Gingrich was discrediting the ethics committee and the 395 House members who supported their report by renouncing his already admitted responsibility for his ethical shortcomings and blaming his problems instead on his lawyers, the media, and liberals.
Caught up in his own sense of self-importance, Gingrich is always there working endlessly in underhanded ways to seek his own partisan advantage.
Shouldn’t there be more than nine Republican members of the House of Representatives with some backbone?
Your View: Hottinger was best choice, Ron Yezzi, Dec. 24, 1996
Since letter writers are still rehashing election year politics, here is my contribution:
When I received Chuck Rudolph’s “funeral service” flyer, I had three reactions: 1) This is in extremely poor taste: 2) it distorts Hettinger’s position unfairly; and 3) It shows terrible political judgment.
i don’t know Chuck Rudolph personally. But, politically, he cannot hold a candle to John Hottinger —- hard-working, constituent-serving, innovative state senator.
When it comes to distortions of Gutknecht’s record, the problem is that two Gil Gutknechts served in the 104th Congress
There was Gutknecht 1 — the c u t -e v e r y t hi n g , f a v o r -t h e -r i c h , undermine-government-programs, shut-down-the-government Gingrich clone from January 1995 to April 1996.
Then, during the summer of 1996, there was Gutknecht II — the pragmatist who compromises to get things done.
The candidate ran a “Newt Who?” campaign based on Gutknecht II. The AFL-CIO ran campaign ads based on Gutknecht I.
Arguably, the candidate himself | distorted his record more than the AFL-CIO did.
Time will tell.
Finally, I just don’t understand some people’s outrage about union dues being used to support political candidates, contrary to some union members’ wishes.
If union leaders attain office through a democratic process and spend dues money to support political candidates, they’re acting in essentially the same way as publicly elected officials who spend tax money to support some persons, groups, and programs even if the spending runs contrary to wishes of some taxpayers.
As for complaints about the big money contributed by unions, that’s a joke when you compare it with the far greater amount contributed by businesses.
Your View: Dole has candy for everybody, Ron Yezzi, Sept. 16, 1996
Everyone’s going to hit the jackpot, and the government’s even passing out the gambling money.
That’s the Dole-Kemp $550 billion tax cut plan in a nutshell.
It’s 80 percent political gimmick and 20 percent the act of true believers.
Supply-side economics is the most glaring example in my lifetime of thinking that you can solve a problem just by throwing money at it.
In the Dole-Kemp plan, you throw 550 billion dollar bills into the air and hope that they’ll multiple tenfold before falling to earth so everyone in the United States can get rich.
If supply-side economics worked, people would be rich from the tax cuts of the 1980s, and their wise saving and investment would have produced bundles of money by for their children’s education.
It hasn’t happened.
And there’s no sound reason to think the Dole-Kemp plan will work, either.
Worse yet, in the excitement of tossing money about and watching it blow in the wind, people would be distracted from the really hard work necessary to recognize budget constraints, preserve the social infrastructure, invest in education and training for the future, and make sure there are opportunities for all citizens rather than making the rich richer.
Bob Dole puts the whole situation into perspective himself on the campaign trail when he says, “Anybody here who doesn’t want a tax cut, just raise your hand.”
What kid doesn’t want a piece of candy?
That’s the great idea of the Republican campaign.
Give everybody a little candy without spelling out the consequences and hope j they don’t notice who’s getting most of it.
Your View: Politicians, don’t panic the public, Ron Yezzi, July 29, 1996
Personal responsibility is a virtue; selfishness is a vice.
Too often these days, persons twist the vice into the virtue.
They act selfishly or promote selfishness under the guise of personal responsibility.
I have no quarrel with advocating persona! responsibility: People should recognize that their chances of doing well in life are better if they strive to improve themselves rather than just to sit back and blame problems on everyone else.
But to sweep all the complexities of life I under the rug of personal responsibility and then to turn it into “getting what you can for yourself without worrying about others” does a disservice to the virtue and shows social irresponsibility.
The disservice probably is worst in the political arena.
Newt Gingrich, Phil Gramm, Vin Weber, Rod Grams, Gil Gutknecht and their like pronounce themselves champions of personal responsibility--wanting to get government off of people’s backs and to unleash individual initiative.
All the while, the selfish, vote-getting i underside of their message comes through:
1) We promise lower taxes so you can keep more money for yourselves.
2) You’re right to enjoy your own economic success and leave the wounded behind.
3) By cutting back government, you’re better able to act for your own interests.
Far from restoring The American | Dream, their message appeals to antisocial attitudes and expresses lack of confidence in society’s ability to solve common problems together.
We need better government to deal with our ever more complex, interdependent lives.
What we don’t need are politicians trying to win elections by panicking citizens into thinking it’s time to desert a sinking ship.
Your View: Republican plan helps the well-off, Ron Yezzi, Jan. 23, 1996
Lacking any evidence to disprove my Dec. 13 letter showing that the Republicans’ tax cut plan favors the rich, Sal Frederick (Free Press, Dec. 23) resorts to breezy generalities about “fiscal responsibility,” the “innovative Republican budget plan,” and the need to ease the burden on “our children and grandchildren.”
Let’s be clear about what Republicans are doing.
The main cause of their political resurgence is the successful promotion and use of an anti-taxes mentality. They win votes by promising lower taxes than the Democrats.
Even with various cutbacks in proposed spending, the anti-tax climate since 1980 has boosted the national debt from $1 trillion to nearly $5 trillion.
Now the Republicans’ lower-tax strategy is directed toward deeper cuts in programs dealing with education, health care, poverty, children, job training, the environment, research, government oversight and regulation, and security for senior citizens. Cutting programs, though, ignores problems rather than solves them. It just makes solutions more costly for the people who follow later. Hasn’t everyone seen the oil filter commercial where the mechanic says, “Pay me now or pay me later?”
The Republicans’ “innovative” programs are ideological shots in the dark, whose main practical function is creation of enough noise to distract people from what is happening, namely, the guarantee of lower taxes for the well-off.
Trying to solve problems of social needs, entitlements, budget deficits, and the national debt in the present anti-tax climate is like fighting with one hand tied behind your back. And the eventual result is going to be a beating. But Sal Frederick, I, and the rest of present-day adults who benefit from the Republicans’ lower-tax strategy probably are not going to suffer. We’re dodging and weaving and enjoying our consumer goods while future generations will take the beating we deserve.
What the Republicans are doing may look like “fiscal responsibility” to Sal Frederick, but not to me.
Your View: Minnesotans not overtaxed [RY], Ron Yezzi, submitted July 14, 2000
I was surprised to see a Free Press editorial writer join with letter writer R. Michael Regan for a "dumb and dumber" act in the July 12 newspaper.
Regan's characterization of socially responsible politicians as sleazebags and thieves was quite dumb enough.
But the editorial's view on Minnesota taxes was even dumber.
According to the editorial writer's pronouncements: (a) "Minnesotans are overtaxed. They have been for years." (b) It is a "disgrace" that "Minnesota is one of the highest taxed states in the nation." And (c) "It is time to demand an end to the surpluses."
All these pronouncements appear without a whiff of supporting evidence.
Taxes are levied to meet present and future public needs.
Pronouncing that Minnesotans have been overtaxed for years is equivalent to claiming that the tax money collected exceeds the state's past, present, and future public needs in education, health care, pollution control, civil rights, farm issues, transportation, public safety, child development, welfare, economic dislocations, disaster relief, and public recreation.
Prove the claim.
Pronouncing it disgraceful for Minnesota to be one of the highest taxed states is equivalent to claiming it disgraceful for the state to use tax money in achieving its usually high standards relative to other states with respect to education, health care, pollution control, civil rights, farm issues, transportation, public safety, child development, welfare, economic dislocations, disaster relief, and public recreation.
Prove the claim.
Demanding an end to Minnesota's large budget surpluses in recent years relies upon claims that the current economic boom will continue indefinitely and that additional state spending is unnecessary.
Prove the claims.
As a start on a more thoughtful approach to Minnesota taxes, I offer these five points:
(1) Public needs are greater than available tax resources. That is why legislatures always battle over the allocation of tax money.
(2) Year-by-year rebates make good sense when there is no guarantee that big surpluses will continue indefinitely.
(3) Big surpluses during economic boom years provide especially good opportunities to spend more on public needs.
(4) In government like everything else, there are bargains around; but, generally, you get what you're willing to pay for.
(5) Present levels of taxation neither force Americans into poverty nor wreck the economy.
Topics
Abortion (3)
Affirmative Action (1)
AIDS (1)
Gays (1)
Gun Control (1)
International Issues (2)
Local Issues (2)
Nuclear Power (1)
Politics (8)
Pollution (2)
Religion (4)
Taxes (1)
Your View: Pro-lifers don’t back up talk, Ron Yezzi, Nov. 21, 1990
Isn't it about time that we quit giving a free ride to political candidate who want to ban abortions but then promise not to raise taxes?
When Vin Weber, Sal Frederick, Mark Piepho and Al Quist appear at any public forum, they should show some accountability by revealing the real tax burden — in terms of health care, welfare, education, child care, mental problems, child abuse, crime, and other social problems — of their anti-abortion position. If abortions were banned in 1991, how much would it cost Minnesota taxpayers over the coming decades?
Let’s find out if pro-lifers are willing to back up what they say or are merely maintaining a piously pleasant hypocrisy.
If Weber, Frederick, Piepho, and Quist don’t believe in putting a price on human life, why don’t they start by proposing that an overpass be built at every intersection of a road with railroad tracks — so that no child, woman, or man in Minnesota would ever again be killed in a vehicle-train collision? That proposal, of course, is just a start. Millions of actual human beings in the world (including ones in Minnesota) die every year because the resources needed to save them are not provided. Doesn't the promise not to raise taxes give a hollow ring to any claim about not putting a price on a human life?
Like the persons they criticize for being irresponsible in creating unwanted pregnancies, pro-lifers need to become more responsible by recognizing that what makes you feel good now can end up making things worse.
My View: People with facts will choose pro-choice stance, Ron Yezzi, Dec. 2, 1989
Dorothy Coughlan’s call for fair play in education on the abortion issue (My View column: “Feminism doesn't exclude anti-abortion stance,” Nov. 18) interests me because I usually associate deception and misrepresentation more with pro-life extremists.
According to Ms. Coughlan, “A university level education implies that all aspects of a subject have been examined and discussed.” The statement looks good. But what exactly does it mean?
Can Roman Catholic institutions of higher education pass this test? How do they counter the constant messages (indoctrination?) regarding abortion in official church pronouncements, sermons, and diocesan newspapers? Given the official church position, can we be sure that their graduates have examined and discussed all aspects of the abortion issue?
Does a university level education require that every course in every program present a balanced account on every controversial issue taken up?
Does a university level education require neutrality on every issue where taking a stand might offend someone's values?
Does a university level education require that every idea ever advanced on any issue be fully examined and discussed?
Does full examination and discussion require taking up every fact anyone thinks is relevant? For example, Ms. Coughlan thinks it important to know the fact that, after 20 years, Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life is 40,000 families strong. Is it also important to know the fact that, after a 20-year, highly publicized campaign of education and lobbying, fewer than 5 percent of Minnesota's married couple households are members of MCCL? Or, are both these facts of little relevance in settling the abortion issue?
In the interests of fair play, shouldn't pro-life activists make clear (1) how extreme a moral code they want everyone to adopt and (2) the extent to which they want their personal religious convictions to become the law of the land? Accordingly, Ms. Coughlan's comments prompt me to raise several questions.
She wants everyone to know the fact that “less than 5 percent of all abortions were performed because of rape, incest, or to save the health of the mother, leaving 95 percent for social reasons.” Does this mean that she accepts just about 5 percent of abortions as justifiable? Or does the statement merely distract attention from her belief that abortion after rape or incest is as much an act of murder as any other abortion?
She wants people to see pictures of what a fetus looks like at eight weeks and what its body parts look like after an abortion. Does this mean that she favors legalization of RU-486, the so-called “morning after” pill, to avoid these situations? Or does she oppose legalization because, in terms of her beliefs, an abortion one day after conception is as much murder as one after 26 weeks?
She supports freedom of choice to become pregnant or not. Does this mean that she supports efforts to encourage use of artificial methods of contraception to prevent pregnancy? Or, does she want to limit freedom of choice to sexual abstinence or to use of natural contraception within a first and only marriage--so that she cannot condone educational and distributional efforts by groups such as Planned Parenthood to help sexually active persons avoid unwanted pregnancies through use of artificial methods of contraception?
Ms. Coughlan firmly believes that most people will adopt the pro-life position, if they just knew all the facts. I firmly believe just the opposite.
The values, shared by nearly all of us, that lead to a dislike for abortion are simple and straightforward. Everyone knows that abortion prevents a baby from being born; and nearly everyone believes in loving and protecting innocent children.
It is the pro-choice position that is more complicated, harder to articulate, and therefore more in need of careful consideration of all the facts and values involved in the abortion issue.
If people give the issue careful consideration, I am confident that most of them definitely (although probably with some reluctance) conclude that the pro-choice position is better, and more moral, because:
(1) They realize that abortion is not the same as murder;
(2) They do not want the government in a democratic society to force its will on women regarding such a personal and controversial issue;
(3) They realize that the pro-choice position does not force anyone to have, or refrain from having, an abortion;
(4) They recognize that full equality for women in society requires that women have greater control over pregnancy; and
(5) They regard any tragedies associated with allowing abortions to be less significant than tragedies associated with banning them.
Pro-life activists regard it as a great tragedy that some 23 million abortions have occurred since the 1973 Supreme Court decision in Roe vs. Wade. Yet the tragedy probably would have been even greater if there had been 23 million births instead, because all those births would have multiplied problems that we, as a society, want to prevent. There would be more unwed mothers and illegitimate children, more humiliation and distress for persons and families, more teenage mothers and fathers, more inequality among the sexes, more oppressed women, more women who are socially and economically disadvantaged, more unwanted children, more children with serious birth defects, more children living in poverty, more victims of abuse, more high school dropouts, more single parent families, more welfare costs, higher health costs, higher education costs, and eventually more unemployed. And, by 1989, the cycle would be repeating itself and multiplying problems even more as children that would have been born in 1973 and 1974 might themselves now become teenage parents, and so on.
I am not pleased with the tens of millions of abortions occurring throughout the world every year; and I am not often pleased with many of the personal motivations and social conditions that lead to unwanted pregnancies. But banning abortions is not the answer.
My View: Court was both accurate, wise, Ron Yezzi, July 8, 1986
What is the irony in George Green’s My View column on abortion (June 28)? Just this: He accuses others of “moral myopia,” while he himself offers carelessly superficial analyses of U.S. Supreme Court decisions and never considers the consequences of his own position.
If Green rejects “judicial activism,” then he should not criticize, as he does, the Dred Scott decision (1857)--where Chief Justice Taney took a “strict constructionist” approach and argued that slaves were to be treated as property rather than as persons or citizens because such was the clear intent of the framers of the Constitution.
Green calls Roe vs. Wade (1973) “capricious and arbitrary” for not regarding fetuses as persons. But he never explains what a “person” is and never shows that a fetus is a “person.”
Far from being capricious and arbitrary, the Supreme Court was both accurate and wise in judging the question when human life begins: “When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary, at this point in the development of man's knowledge, is not in a position to speculate as to the answer.”
In Griswold vs. Connecticut (1965), the Court struck down a Connecticut law which read, “Any person who uses any drug, medicinal article or instrument for the purpose of preventing conception shall be fined not less than fifty dollars or imprisoned not less than sixty days nor more than one year or be both fined and imprisoned.” The majority decision protecting us from such a law by inferring a “right to privacy” based upon various Amendments to the Constitution and legal precedents has the support of numerous Constitutional scholars and subsequent Court decisions. The inference is somewhat controversial, but not “mysteriously emanating,” as Green claims. If he denies existence of a Constitutional right to privacy, then he needs to provide evidence, not just belittlement.
And Green’s argument that the Roe vs. Wade decision is bad because the Supreme Court has made some bad decisions in the past is just as faulty as trying to argue that Roe vs. Wade is good because the Court has made some good decisions in the past. Whether a particular decision is good or bad has to stand on the merits of the specific arguments used to justify it.
According to George Green, those supporting a woman's right to abortion exhibit “moral myopia” and “tunnel vision,” are unconcerned with “saving the lives of millions of our future citizens,” and are willing to allow “the slaughter of the innocents” by allowing a mother the right to “destroy her developing child for almost any reason.” And if challenged, they “respond, if at all” with “rationalizations” which “are merely parroting the so-called ‘reasoning’” of “activist judges” who don “specially tinted glasses” to “see invisible radiations mysteriously emanating” from the Constitution and to make “capricious and arbitrary” determinations.
My! My!
MSU Reporter Letters: Reader define true nature of affirmative action, Ron Yezzi, Jan. 20 1994
I am always amazed at the number of people who oppose affirmative action by invoking the principle, theoretically, that positions should go to the best qualified candidate on the basis of personal merit--when they would not accept this principle themselves, in practice.
To illustrate my point, let's consider some changes that would occur if we put the principle into practice at MSU--in attempting to establish the highest quality of education here. Let's also assume that a person with more experience is better qualified than someone with less, and that someone with eleven skills is better qualified than someone with four or six skills.
Consider registration at MSU first. The order of pre-registration should be assigned according to grade-point average (or some other measure of best qualifications). At the beginning of a quarter and up until the end of the drop-add period, a better qualified student should be able to bump a less qualified student from any closed class.
Out-state tuition should be the same as in-state tuition. Minnesota residents should get no preference over anyone else in the U.S., or in the whole world, who wants to study at MSU. If 80% of our present students are less qualified than others who want to be here, then this 80% will just have to leave.
In interviews, prospective college graduates should insist that employers select persons with more experience over themselves, when other qualifications are reasonably equal.
There should never be any administrative offices assigned to special groups, such as veterans. And, of course, veterans should not get any preference in civil service hiring at MSU (or anywhere else).
Faculty members should give up tenure and should hold their jobs only so long as they can demonstrate that they are better qualified than anyone else who wants the same job. (That includes losing one's job to someone else who can teach significantly more courses in a department.)
Faculty salaries should be set according to each individual's qualifications rather than a salary schedule; in allocations, departments with better qualified people, such as a higher percentage of Ph. D.'s or more faculty with publications, should get the most funding.
At this point, someone is apt to say that these changes ignore too many important social factors--such as special responsibilities toward some groups, what has happened in the past, the desirable social environment needed for education to flourish, the need for concern with more than just the best technical qualifications, the recognition that individuals can be well qualified without being the best qualified.
But, come to think of it, isn't that what affirmative action is all about, too?
Readers' Points of View: AIDS letter simplistic, Ron Yezzi, April 21, 1992
Peter Etzell (“AIDS `epidemic' should be put into perspective,” April 8) has the solution to the AIDS problem:
“The rules are simple: (1) Abstain, or have sex only with a faithful spouse; and (2) Don't use intravenous drugs.”
With the Etzell approach, I can solve all the world's problems in 5 minutes.
War? Stop fighting. Overpopulation? Have fewer children. Starvation? Eat more. Overweight? Eat less. Ineffective government? Be effective. Domestic abuse? Don't do it. Health problems and deaths due to smoking? Don't smoke. Alcoholism and drunken driving? Don't drink. Unemployment? Get a job. Education dropouts? Don't drop out. Drug abuse? Don't do drugs. Greed? Don't be greedy. Discrimination? Don't discriminate. Debt problems? Don't go into debt.
If people think Etzell has the solution to AIDS, then they must think I am the wisest person on earth for coming up with Etzell-type solutions for all these other problems.
Rather than claim such wisdom, I prefer to think that Etzell is guilty of gross oversimplification.
Why would a man of mature age offer such an oversimplified solution for AIDS when he has never (so far as I know) publicly offered these oversimplified solutions for all the other problems?
The most likely answer: He's talking about S-E-X here. And when he thinks or talks about S-E-X, some of his good sense departs.
I suspect that this also explains his flailing wildly about distribution of condoms and the “immoral agenda” of “the sexual revolutionists” (such as C. Everett Koop, I suppose).
In a lifetime a typical person experiences 2,000-7,000 sexual orgasms that feel pleasurable--regardless whether they are natural or unnatural, healthy or unhealthy, proper or improper. According to current estimates, about a million people in the U.S. are HIV positive. Although the risk varies with the type of sexual activity, the virus is transmittable homosexually or heterosexually. So we have a major health problem to deal with.
Peter Etzell’s rules have some worth. But they are not even close to solving the AIDS problem, unless you are prepared to let those not abiding by those rules to kill themselves off. Furthermore, he makes matters worse by trying to minimize the problem, blaming gays, giving inaccurate or misleading information about condoms, and making wild charges regarding the motives of persons trying to deal with the AIDS problem seriously.
My View: There is no good argument against lifting ‘gay ban’, Ron Yezzi, Feb. 22, 1993
Thousands of persons in the military probably harbor ill feelings toward President Clinton because he is a Commander-in-Chief without prior military service and they see him as a draft dodger.
Their feelings are hard to justify since:
(1) The Constitution does not require military service as a prerequisite for the Presidency;
(2) Clinton was elected legitimately in a democratic process that is two centuries old;
(3) In this country, the military is supposed to be under civilian control;
(4) Clinton broke no laws in not being drafted;
(5) As a matter of conscience, he opposed fighting in the Vietnam War--which was then regarded by many as an immoral war and is now regarded by the overwhelming majority as a mistake.
Under what conditions should these persons in the military be punished or dismissed for having an attitude contrary to that of most citizens?
I don't think they should be punished or dismissed for their attitude. Nor should they be dismissed for badmouthing the President in a bar or in their homes. Even if they throw darts at a dart board with Clinton's face on it in a bar or in their homes, I don't think action should be taken against them. After all, this is the United States of America!
If, however, their attitude leads to behavior that interferes with their military duties--such as insubordination, for example--then they should be punished or dismissed.
Most reasonable people should agree that behavior, not attitude, is the crucial test.
President Clinton's similar distinction between attitude and behavior with respect to gays and lesbians in the military, combined with a conduct code meeting the needs of military discipline, makes good sense; and it conforms to basic principles of individual freedom in our country.
His reasonable decision to lift the executive ban on gays and lesbians in the military contrasts sharply with opposing positions that range from silly to serious, but superficial.
Cal Thomas' wailing, "If the ban falls, America's moral collapse will be assured" (Free Press, Feb. 4) is silly.
Having showered in the men's locker room three or four times a week for nearly twenty years at Mankato State University (where there is no ban on gays), I find the shower room privacy argument also pretty silly. I have never seen any "propositioning" going on; and I have never heard of any "gay problem" there. If modesty moves me to screen parts of my body, I simply use a towel or pivot by about 90 degrees.
The claim that gays and lesbians cannot serve effectively in the military is pretty silly, when it is generally accepted already that gays and lesbians have served effectively in the military.
Complaints coming from the military are as silly as the same arguments they once used to avoid integration of African-Americans in the services.
Gen. Colin Powell's distinction between black's being born that way and homosexual's choosing a lifestyle is questionable. More importantly, it is irrelevant. If a white chose to be black by tanning darkly, changing one's hair, and getting plastic surgery to emphasize facial features of African ancestry, would the general argue that this person should be banned from the military? No, because the point is that one's skin and facial features have nothing to do with performing military duties. Whether the condition is discovered or created is irrelevant. The same holds for homosexuality.
The only really serious argument against lifting the ban is the claim that homosexuality is immoral.
People who argue this way though do not think it through carefully.
Let's assume, for the sake of an argument, that their claim about homosexuality is correct.
They act as if the military is some haven of moral purity to be protected from "immorality." In fact, however, the military has routinely been associated with all sorts of immorality--drunkenness, fighting, prostitution, adultery, contraction and transmission of sexual diseases, sexual assaults, racism, domestic abuse. Why haven't they called for a ban on everyone involved in these kinds of immorality?
Perhaps they see homosexuality as a "Big E" Evil, whereas the other immoral acts are little ("boys will be boys") evils.
Many victims of these "boys will be boys" evils, however, will not agree with that assessment .
Perhaps they see homosexuality as a "Big E" Evil, because they see it as obviously "unnatural," that is, contrary to the laws of nature.
To encourage them to think, instead of simply hiding behind what seems obvious, I would pose this question: Do you agree with the Roman Catholic position that masturbation, artificial methods of contraception, and oral sex between heterosexuals are just as much contrary to the laws of nature as homosexuality?
If you don't agree, then you may well have to recognize that the "unnaturalness" of homosexuality amounts to nothing more than the claim that most people are heterosexual.
People who find homosexuality disgusting have a right to be shielded from that behavior. But they do not have a right to discriminate against homosexuals simply because of an attitude. Nor do they have a right to discriminate when homosexual acts occur in a private setting that does not affect them.
Opinions: Each state needs gun-control laws, Ron Yezzi, Feb. 24, 1989
If auto and RV enthusiasts insisted that the legal speed limit should be raised to 120 miles per hour because these vehicles can serve a useful purpose and provide recreational enjoyment, they would be rightly labeled as being silly and socially irresponsible. If they further insisted that the 120-limit is relatively harmless because most people would not drive that fast, they would still be silly and socially irresponsible because of the harm done by a minority driving at high speeds. If they then insisted that anything less than a 120 miles per hour limit was a violation of their freedoms as Americans, they would be just as silly and socially irresponsible. Finally, if they insisted that anything less than the 120-limit will eventually lead to the government taking away everyone's auto or RV or if they insisted they cannot enjoy driving with anything less than a 120-limit, then they would be just plain silly.
So what should we say about the National Rifle Association and gun enthusiasts who oppose a legal ban on assault weapons such as AK-47s and Uzis?
They tell us that these guns can serve a useful purpose and can provide recreational enjoyment. They say that assault weapons do not cause all that much harm. They say that having these weapons is part of their basic freedoms as Americans. They insist that a legal ban on these weapons will lead to the government confiscating all guns in the hands of private citizens. And they insist that they need these assault weapons in order to enjoy hunting and target shooting.
The answer to the question is pretty clear: The National Rifle Association and these gun enthusiasts are being silly and socially irresponsible.
Instead of being intimidated by them, legislators should be embarrassed to support them--lest they, too, become just as silly and socially irresponsible.
More than six rounds in the chamber are not necessary to enjoy hunting or target shooting as sports. Any additional enjoyment gun enthusiasts get from these assault weapons is far outweighed by the deaths and social mayhem they cause. And if people think they need these weapons for self-defense, the rest of us have a right to know exactly what they are afraid of.
If gun control opponent John Stone (“So let's repeal the Second Amendment”, Feb. 21) wants to talk about the U.S. Constitution, he should precede his own personal, creative interpretation with a quoting of the Amendment itself, “A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” The meaning of that statement does not guarantee citizens the right to have AK-47s and Uzis.
Stone seems to be operating under the illusion that the Second Amendment has to be repealed before there can be gun control laws. If that were the case, then the 20,000 gun control laws already passed in the U.S. (whose ineffectiveness is constantly pointed to by gun control opponents) would all have been thrown out by the Supreme Court a long time ago.
If, as Stone insists, the justifying reason for the Second Amendment is “that people should be familiar with arms and their use in event they were needed for defense of home and property” (“home and property” apparently being his words for “the security of a free state”), then I presume that machine guns, tanks, and some nuclear-tipped missiles should also be in private hands--since they, too, are needed to maintain the security of the U.S. in the contemporary world. That takes us back to the issue of gun enthusiasts being silly and socially irresponsible.
Let's replace most of those 20,000 ineffective gun control laws with just 51 effective ones, namely, a good federal gun control law and a good one in each of the states.
Readers' Points of View: Let Nicaragua decide its fate, Ron Yezzi, Aug. 6,1988
E. G. Carlstrom’s July 30 My View column (“U.S. must aid the Contras”) brings to mind a hunting dog with a one-track nose. He just sniffs “commie” and charges off, trying to lead everybody on a false trail.
The main thrust of the Reagan administration plan for “democratization” in Nicaragua has been to destroy the country militarily, economically, and politically until the people there accept a government in accord with U.S. policy.
The U.S. government did not worry about democracy in Nicaragua while the Somoza dictatorship ruled and raped the people for over forty years. And since the Reagan administration took office in 1981, presidential policy has tried to thwart the will of the majority of the people there.
By contrast, the Sandinista leaders led a popular revolution against the Somoza dictatorship, won a flawed, but credible, election in 1984, and have held enough widespread popular support to check the U.S.-Contra attempt to overthrow their government.
No government has the unanimous support of its people over any length of time. The fact that the U.S. has located disgruntled groups willing to fight against the Sandinista government does not establish that these groups somehow represent the will of the Nicaraguan people.
I much prefer an open political process and a free press; and I wish the Nicaraguan government would do more than it has done to implement the Arias peace plan. But I find it hard to blame the Sandinista leaders for seeing their political opposition as CIA-backed groups more intent on overthrowing the government than entering into an electoral process--when even we in the United States don't really know what our government is doing down there. There is ample historical evidence of the CIA engaging in covert activities. Moreover, the Reagan administration has demonstrated a willingness to lie to the American people and to subvert both U.S. and international law in support of its policy objectives. The administration has covertly funneled military aid to the contras contrary to the explicitly stated will of Congress. Apparently, some officials have even condoned Contra drug trafficking.
Revolutions against especially oppressive regimes are cataclysmic social upheavals that may take a long time to settle down; and revolutionary leaders are prone to go to excess. In the Nicaraguan situation though, it is hard to determine whether excesses should be attributed to the Sandinista leaders themselves or to Reagan administration provocations.
Regarding the rest of Carlstrom’s comments about world affairs and Nicaragua, I can only say that finding a true trail takes more than a one-track nose always sniffing communists.
Readers' Points of View: Citizens must keep president in check, Ron Yezzi, April 9, 1986
Liberals oppose and condemn the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. So there was no general liberal outcry against President Carter's toughness toward the Soviets because of the invasion or against military aid to Afghan rebels. But, as U.S. citizens, we have a greater responsibility to criticize the wrongful policies of our own government and its allies. So much for Charles Lentle's March 29 complaint, “Liberals overlook Russian brutality.”
Take U.S. policy toward Nicaragua. As a U.S. citizen, I want to point out that the Reagan administration's challenging opponents' patriotism and all this ranting about fighting Khadafy, the PLO, the Soviet Union, and drugs by destroying the Sandinista government just sets up a smokescreen to hide the fact it has a weak case.
Only ignorance of Nicaraguan history or dishonesty allows President Reagan to assert that Sandinista leaders are more Soviet agents than Nicaraguan patriots.
The President, Senator Boschwitz, and others in the U.S. try to portray themselves as protectors of the Nicaraguan revolution, shocked by its betrayal. Well, what gives them the right to be protectors? Where were they and what were they doing when the Nicaraguan revolution occurred? Does everyone realize that Ronald Reagan, “The Great Protector,” opposed the overthrow of the Somoza government? Does everyone realize that decades-long U.S. support for the Somozas did not endear us to the revolutionaries, nor did it establish any U.S. claim to be “protector of the revolution”?
Some people do not like the Sandinista leaders. Some are more outraged by Daniel Ortega's designer sunglasses than they ever were by the economic rape of Nicaragua by the Somoza family, over 45 years. Many of us may be critical of various actions taken by the Sandinista government. But let's remember that the Sandinistas and their supporters are the ones who dedicated and risked their lives to overthrow the oppression of the Somoza regime. It was their revolution.
There's no special evidence that the majority of people in Nicaragua want to overthrow or radically change their government. There is evidence, however, that many of the people's problems occur due to military, political, and economic pressures applied by the U.S.
The Reagan administration attacks the military buildup in Nicaragua, acting as if the Sandinista government has nothing to fear from the U.S. One really has to be dreadfully uninformed about history to swallow this administration line. The Sandinista leaders are not ignorant. They are well aware of past U.S. actions taken against leftist governments in Guatemala, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Chile, and Grenada.
And you really have to wonder about the consistency of conservatives who want to attack the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan but also want to buy Florida Senator Paula Hawkins' argument that the U.S. cannot allow an unfriendly government in Nicaragua because it is in our own backyard.
Just as Congressional and public pressure was necessary to turn President Reagan away from a policy of ever-deepening U.S. military involvement in Lebanon, that same pressure is necessary to turn him away from U.S. military involvement in Nicaragua.
I think that a better understanding of the nature of revolutions and the history of the Americas, combined with patience and more moral, more farsighted policies are more effective than a policy of military panic.
But even if oppression were to be the inevitable future of Nicaragua, I would much rather have the source of that oppression be somebody else, not my own government or the people my government supports.
Your View: Call’s Statements are questioned, Ron Yezzi, May 23, 1994
The School Board's newly elected "Mr. Ethics" is off to a bad start.
Ralph Call (Free Press, May 9) asserts, "Ethics need to be taught by precept and example."
Let's apply this to his own statements printed in the Free Press on May 9, 1994 and May 13, 1994.
According to Call, the School "Superintendent views his job to be part time."
What evidence does he offer for this attack on Paul Beilfuss' character?
Well he "recently came across a flyer from a consulting firm, Boettcher, Kruse, and Beilfuss."
With this sort of reasoning, the mere announcement of Call's election to the School Board proves that he now views his job as Chairman/CEO of WINCO, Inc. to be part time.
In actuality, Call offers no evidence at all that Beilfuss has an outside interest interfering with his full time duties as School Superintendent.
Call describes himself as having "been the president of three major U.S. corporations."
Has he really been the president of three Fortune 500 companies?
Or does he inflate his own credentials to impress people?
If he has been the president of three major corporations as he says, his annual salary plus other compensation must be far in excess of $125,000.
Yet he has the indecency to hurl this dart at the Superintendent: "Isn't the $125,000-plus annual salary and benefits . . . enough for a man and his family to squeak by on?"
Since Call himself chooses to make a public issue of whether or not the Superintendent's salary places him in "the top 1 percent" of household incomes in Mankato, isn't the public entitled to know Call's income over the past ten years or so to see where he stands percentagewise?
If he didn't know "the exact number" for the Superintendent's salary, why did he say it was "$125,000-plus"? (A School Board member has since placed the salary plus benefits figure significantly lower.)
Call wants the teachers and coaches of the school district to watch their language.
Won't it be nice if "Mr. Ethics" starts to practice what he preaches?
My View: Yezzi's remarks on arson investigation [RY], submitted Sept. 11, 1992
Since the arson fires at MSU cost taxpayers more than $700,000., I think that the conduct of the arson investigation is a legitimate public issue. I have several remarks to add to the September 10 Free Press story.
Regarding basic facts,
(1) After the second fire at my office, based upon my own judgment, I named two persons to the police as possible suspects; one of them was Mitchell Lang.
(2) In addition to verbal reports, I submitted handwritten notes giving my assessment of reasons for and against their possible involvement; I said less about Lang because I knew less about him and I also speculated that his involvement was the lesser of the two possibilities.
(3) If I didn't think of Mitchell Lang as a suspect or if I wanted to "downplay" the possibility of his involvement, I wouldn't have identified him to the police and turned in the written notes.
Given these basic facts, the denials coming out of the Law Enforcement Center--especially this one, "To this day I'll tell you there was never anything to say that we ought to look at Mitch Lang. There was nobody who identified him as a suspect or gave us any reason to look at him other than to say, 'These are the people who flunked the class'"--are flatly incorrect.
I discussed the matter with Public Safety Director Glenn Gabriel. He makes a distinction between a person "being named" and "being a suspect." While I grant that this is a real distinction, it doesn't square with the specific denial above.
Gabriel also explained that the police may have had a number of names and leads to check on which seemed more promising at the time and that--although it may seem different with "20-20 hindsight"--they were doing their job.
If it is true that Lang's name was lost in the shuffle in the process of filtering all sorts of names and leads, then I have a lot of sympathy with this explanation.
In the movies and on TV, we're used to supersleuths who always manage to find the link that breaks a case. Here perhaps, there was no incompetence and no lackadaisical attitude. It's just that the investigators happened to miss the opportunity to find the crucial link.
The link was there.
The only other professor involved in multiple arson incidents (the first one, a minor incident, that occurred even before the fires at my office) had also had Lang as a student. If any of the investigators had used my identification of Lang as a suspect as a reason to check with the professor about Lang, there would have been a major break in the case.
I also want to correct some misimpressions likely to arise from the media accounts.
First, I have never thought that the police should have confronted Lang immediately after I turned in his name. Naming someone as a suspect is not the same as making an accusation. In my judgment, the naming only justifies further background investigation, which may eventually lead to interviewing the person.
Secondly, Lang was not the only student getting a failing grade in my classes the term before the fires started; in my three classes, with a total of about 90 students, some other students also had F grades. Besides, a student who hopes for an A and gets a C may be just as upset as a student who gets an F. So there was not an obvious, single arrow pointing right at Lang.
Thirdly, if Lang did say, "Things happen!" in a telephone conversation with me after the second fire (and I was listening pretty carefully because I had already identified him as a suspect and subsequently reported on the call to the police), either I did not hear him say it or did not detect any ominous tone to it in the context of the conversation.
As a final remark, I want to take this opportunity to express my own and my family's appreciation for the strong support we received from the MSU administration, the IFO faculty association, my faculty colleagues, and many friends.
Your View: More questions about Council members open-mindedness, submitted June 18, 1990
John Just Sr.'s recent letter ("Council Members, keep minds open", June 18) makes a point everyone can agree with, namely, City Council members should be open-minded. But I disagree with almost everything else that John says.
Regarding a recent 4-3 Council vote on development planning for the southern part of Mankato, he singles out Kathy Sheran, Claire Faust, and Mike Kennedy as being open-minded; Mayor Vern Cartensen, Mick Davis, and Tony Knapp as not being open-minded; and Tom McLaughlin as somewhere in between.
Well, sometimes one's perspective depends upon "whose ox is being gored."
The vote went against desires of Viking Terrace residents. But Just credits Faust, Kennedy, and Sheran with demonstrating the "valid trait of open-mindedness" by asking
questions, presenting arguments for and against, and showing a serious interest in the problem of Viking residents.
I just want to point out that, as a self-defense measure, residents of Kensington Hills (where I live) presented a petition to the City Council to counter the proposals coming out of Viking Terrace. The petition made seven specific points. None of the Council members John credits with open-mindedness raised a single question about any points in the petition, none presented arguments for or against any of the specific points, yet they all voted against the desires of Kensington Hills residents.
Should I accuse them of not being open-minded? By John Just, Sr.'s standards, I should.
Perhaps John expects too much.
Open-mindedness does not require that one agree with somebody's else's position and it should never require that one accept an unfair or unreasonable claim to show one's "open-mindedness." Nor is it necessarily based on the number of questions asked or arguments given.
All members of the City Council should exhibit open-mindedness by doing their best to make fair and reasonable judgments.
But sometimes, as I said, one's perspective depends upon "whose ox is being gored."
Your View: Problems with nuclear power {RY], Ron Yezzi, submitted March 15, 1994
In response to a Free Press editorial, NSP's Dick Hewitt (March 12) asserts that (1) nuclear-generated electricity is safe, extraordinarily reliable, and very competitive in cost; (2) one nuclear plant can eliminate 250,000 to 400,000 tons of ash per year produced by coal-fired plants; (3) storage of radioactive wastes is safe, with no environmental impact and no health impact; and (4) the Department of Energy will solve any problems with permanent storage of radioactive wastes.
If these are all the relevant facts, then let's go much further than permit storage of more radioactive wastes at NSP's Prairie Island site.
First, let's replace all coal-fired plants with nuclear ones.
Secondly, let's expand Minnesota's economy by becoming a repository for radioactive wastes from other states.
And thirdly, let's help the local economy by getting a nuclear plant, or at least a repository for radioactive wastes, right here in Mankato.
What's wrong with all these steps?
I live in an imperfect world where everyone (myself, too) sometimes acts irresponsibly or accidentally screws up.
People often want immediate pleasure, convenience, and cheap solutions--whether vehicle fuel efficiency, energy, lawn chemicals, jobs, or taxes is at issue.
People often create greater difficulties for themselves by sweeping problems under the rug and thinking short-term rather than long-term.
Financial stress or desire for more money often leads even initially well-intentioned people or companies to "cut corners" in ways not done in the past.
Local, state, and federal governments often respond to short-term pressures of interest groups rather than serve the long-term public interest.
When NSP warns that phasing out its Prairie Island nuclear plant will increase consumers' electrical costs and eliminate jobs over the next several years, wants to proceed without a firm technological solution for disposal of radio- active wastes that will be hazardous for thousands of years, touts the cleanness of nuclear plants over coal-fired ones without taking into account the radioactive wastes, views permanent disposal of its own radioactive wastes as mainly the government's problem, and offers its good 20-year safety record as if it were a two thousand year warranty, I do not see all this as progress in my imperfect world.
Instead, this seems to be the convenient, cheap, short-term approach that often gets humans into deeper trouble.
Given the risks of radiation, at the very least, we owe future generations and the planet a real, not a proposed, technological solution to permanent disposal of radioactive wastes--before we advance nuclear power further. In the meantime, NSP should stress development of alternative energy sources and more conservation.
Perhaps though, everyone else is fortunate to live in a more perfect world than I do.
Your View: Right-wingers exaggerate history, Ron Yezzi, Oct. 19, 1995
It seems you can’t pick up a newspaper these days without reading a right-wing distortion.
Some examples?
Nationally, the Republicans propose to cut $270 billion from Medicare, supposedly to save the system from bankruptcy. Yet a big chunk of the cuts are not specifically designated to aid the | system at all.
The proposed cuts include a muiti-billion-doilar rip-off of Medicare in the hopes of financing a tax cut.
Locally, regarding the separation of church and state, Ed Sorenson ("Early Americans focused on God,” Free Frees. Oct. 11) says, “The ‘wall of separation.' for good or evil is clearly the product of the rise of secularism during our late history.”
That doesn't square with U.S. history.
For example, here is a passage of a letter from Thomas Jefferson to a committee of the Danbury (Conn.) Baptist Association, dated Jan. 1, 1802:
"Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or worship that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between Church and State.”
Then, of course, Ralph Call (“Government helps us become poor,” Free Press, Oct. 10) offers his usual j menu of right-wing distortions.
He says, “...the government takes American families’ main source of wealth — our home — and through taxes, is able to confiscate and redistribute that| asset over time.”
Yet, in point of fact, the United States has never had a confiscatory tax system;
and property taxes are not gradually depriving everyone of their homes.
Call also unthinkingly repeats the right-wing nonsense that “government does not create wealth” — as if government investment in transportation, education, health, children, law enforcement, defense, research, housing, freedom, agriculture, financial stability and growth, the environment, foreign aid, and communications has nothing at all to do with the creation of wealth in this country.
Readers’ Points of View: Republicans words, actions, inconsistent, Ron Yezzi, March 30, 1995
Where do the lies lie--with the liberals as Marcel “Sal” Frederick says (“Gutknect explains government as it is,” March 23) or with Republicans riding the con man coattails of Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh?
The Republicans kept saying that the balanced budget amendment would not lead to cutting Social Security benefits. But they absolutely refused to put their words where they really count--in the writing of the amendment itself.
The Republicans are outraged at the charge that welfare cuts will hurt the school lunch program or other well-working programs for the poor. But current law guarantees that hungry children and the poor are protected; the House Republicans’ welfare cuts bill does not.
The Republicans say they do not favor the wealthy. But House Republicans want to cut $66 billion over five years from programs for those worst off in order to finance tax cuts that make the rich richer.
The Republicans preach about responsibility. But, by providing block grants to the states and at the same time reducing funding, they take no responsibility for the specific cuts that will have to be made. Block grants with reduced funding provide a convenient gimmick to wash one’s hands of responsibility for the consequences of one’s actions.
Where do the lies lie?
Your View: Blaming employees is the easy way out, Ron Yezzi, Dec. 16, 1994
For years many avid area golfers pushed for a municipal golf course.
Mankato was wise enough to resist the push; North Mankato was not.
As a non-golfer and Mankato resident, I find it hard not to chortle a little--especially after witnessing instances over the years where North Mankato tried to shirk its fair share of local taxes and services at the expense of Mankato residents.
In the current atmosphere of anger, panic, and recriminations however, I think that North Mankato is overlooking an obvious, painless solution to their problem: Area golfers should use the course enough to make it profitable.
Unless the usage projections were inflated to the point of being fraudulent, area golfers should be able to pull this off with some dedicated effort.
This solution involves nothing more taxing than playing golf.
Surely it is a more constructive approach than the opportunistic harangue of Ralph Call (“North Kato revolt sends a message to public officials,” Dec. 15).
In a nearly incoherent display of weirdness, Call tries to link one small town mistake about a municipal golf course to:
(a) The status of “straight, white men with physical impairments under 40 years old”;
(b) Government that “has grown to the largest group in the world”;
(c) Allegations about the greed of public employees;
(d) Acceptance of the assumption that “personal accountability and responsibility is undesirable”; and
(e) Reference to “the socialist state we have created.”
Call brings up this couplet: “There is a limit to need; there is no limit to greed.”
But he misdirects it at public employees and government.
Instead he should attack:
(a) Executives in the private sector who make enormously more money than comparable persons in public service;
(b) Those corporate executives who get higher salaries and power for themselves by always being willing to slash other people’s jobs;
(c) Stock market speculators who care nothing about how their profit-making schemes affect other people; and
(d) Those wealthy persons who constantly try to minimize their tax contribution to society.
If people are having trouble financially, it is not because a greedy government is taking away all their money--as any trip to the River Hills Mall and its environs or to typical neighborhoods and homes in the Mankato area clearly show. Too many people have private economic demands and expectations beyond their means. Faced with a choice between blaming themselves for wanting more than they need and can attain or blaming government for wasting money, they’re taking the easy way out.
Your View: Government helps everyone, Ron Yezzi, Oct. 28, 1994 (may have been published several days earlier)
In his Oct. 14 letter (“Get involved in taxation process”), Ralph Call says,
“I am personally frightened by the growth of government and the almost complete lack of accountability and discipline. As a citizen, I do not see how we can remain on the exponential curve we are on without destroying everything that has been America.”
One wonders where this guy has been living all his life.
The greatness, prosperity, and well-being of the United States are directly dependent upon numerous government actions and expenditures.
For starters, let me list the public school system, the Louisiana Purchase, the Homestead Act, land grants to railroads during the nineteenth century, the judicial system and law enforcement, national defense, the mail, public roads and bridges, sanitation facilities to provide clean drinking water and sewage disposal, game and wildlife management, natural resources management, pollution controls, setting aside of publicly owned parks and forests, women’s sufferage, the ending of slavery, civil rights legislation, unemployment compensation, workplace and product safety, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, AFDC, the G.I. Bill, VA and FHA mortgages, the Marshall Plan, gun control, farm subsidies, the Interstate Highway system, college student financial aid, government subsidies for key industries, products resulting from government funded research, protection against sexual harrassment, family leave, and landing on the moon.
Government, as always, should meet social needs that shortsighted individuals acting selfishly and for their personal financial interests will ignore.
Attacks against government that prevent its meeting social needs are just as destructive to a society as establishment of a totalitarian government.
The increase in governmental action and expenditures during the past sixty years is no more exponential than the increase in social needs or the increase in the costs of everything else in our society.
I do not like government waste any more than anyone else; and we should work to reduce it.
But if waste means “spending money on what’s not necessary,” then actions of the typical consumer in the U.S. both show how hard it is to eliminate waste and offer a better example of waste than the government does.
I think that I can show this to just about anyone.
I am willing to start at Ralph Call’s house.
And if people object that individuals wasting their own money is fine but government wasting taxpayers’ money is not, then, as a matter of social responsibility, I think they need a more accurate understanding of how their possession of money is dependent upon other people and government, in addition to their own effort.
I agree with Ralph Call’s plea for citizens to get involved in the taxation process. But do it as a citizen, not as a shortsighted individual acting selfishly for your own financial interests.
Your View: His rating of Weber not as charitable, Ron Yezzi, Nov. 11, 1991
Instead of allowing Congressman Vin Weber the luxury of rating his political performance himself (“Weber sizes up his year,” The Free Press, Nov. 16), I prefer to make my own measurements.
Behind Vin Weber’s carefully crafted political image, I see a reckless ideologue and opportunist.
For reasons of ideology and opportunism, Weber pushed and supported to the last the gubernatorial candidacy of Jon Grunseth — Minnesota’s foremost, ruggedly handsome, jut-jawed, unrepentant, political lowlife.
In 1990, Weber’s free market ideology led him to prefer putting the nation's economy at reckless risk rather than accept the budget compromise worked out between the president and Congress.
This ideological recklessness was most recently evident on the Nov, 17 “Face the Nation” program, where Weber offered his solution to the current bad economic situation: cut the capital gains tax to encourage investment and shore up real estate values. In other words, save the economy by transferring more money to the rich to bail them out of the shaky real estate and other investments they made with all that money the Weberites transferred to the rich during the Reagan years.
On rare occasion, Weber is capable of modifying his devotion to free market ideology.
For example, after a close reelection scare several terms ago, he became a liberal on government rural and agricultural spending to benefit constituents in his district. So now he continually attacks government spending while hypocritically and opportunistically exerting influence to bring the goodies home to insure a safe reelection.
Weber portrays himself as an advocate of fiscal responsibility. Yet he takes pro-life positions without ever having advocated appropriation of monev for the fiscal consequences. He sits in the absurd position of someone supporting pro-life programs to ban abortions but never admitting that the babies subsequently born will need government services that cost money. Of course, there is a Weberite ideological solution to the problem: demand that that the babies be born but deny them and their mothers the resources needed for a decent life.
I hope that voters in his district will figure out the real Vin Weber and put his political career where it belongs—in the trash can. But I am not going to hold my breath waiting.
Your View: Weber for the rich, Ron Yezzi, Jan. 21, 1992
Vin Weber wants to cut the capital gains tax from 28 to 14 percent.
I ask you:
Why should a wealthy person with $1 million profits through capital gains be taxed at a lower rate than a family of four struggling to survive with an income of less than $20,000?
Weber also proposes a family tax credit.
A family with taxable income of $30,000 can get the same 50 percent tax cut as wealthy people with hundreds of thousands of dollars in capital gains, if they have eight children between the ages of 6 and 18.
There is a real bargain for young families. The $30,000 family can get that same 50 percent tax cut as wealthy people with hundreds of thousands of dollars in capital gains, if they have three children under age six and can figure out how to stop them from growing older.
I ask you:
Why do people re-elect this guy?
Are they all wealthy?
Or are they so mesmerized by the idea of a Southern Minnesota boy making it big in Washington, D.C., that they don’t care what he says or does?
Your View: Weber in another world, Ron Yezzi, March 21, 1992
Whenever Congressman Vin Weber attacks government spending, you don't know whether to laugh or cry.
Like a real-life Inspector Clouseau (but without Peter Sellers' comic talents), this well-meaning bumbler goes about as a world-class opponent of government spending, oblivious to the way the supply-side economic policy he supports increases government spending by trillions of dollars.
That's right! Trillions of dollars.
Weber's supply-side economic message is always the same: Deregulate, cut taxes, let the free market work its will, and let free market economic growth eliminate problems with debt.
After a decade of supply-side economics, let's see how much it costs the government (that is, taxpayers) to pay interest on the debt-problem that Weber's economic growth was supposed to solve.
Since 1980, the federal debt quardrupled. From 1983 to 1990, more than 1 trillion dollars has been paid by the federal government in interest on the national debt. For fiscal 1992, 200.3 billion dollars will go toward debt-interest. That's 14 percent of total government spending.
The future is even bleaker. The interest charge will rise to 214.6 billion dollars in fiscal 1993 (according to projections). For the foreseeable future, federal spending will include 1 trillion dollars in interest on the national debt every four or five year period, even if the budget were balanced from fiscal 1994 on (and only dreamers expect that).
Supply-side economics is also directly related to the failures of financial institutions that add about 600 billion more dollars to government spending.
With Clouseau-like precision however, Weber pretends that government spending is not government spending. So he confidently marches ahead, preaching the supply-side economic message hither and yon.
Too bad the taxpayers have to live in the real world.
My View: Right-wing theme: God, patriotism, anti-commies, Ron Yezzi, August 6, 1987
Watching the Iran-Contra hearings recalls my teen-age years, when I watched the Army-McCarthy hearings. I remember being outraged at the way the Army through its silly counsel, Joseph Welch, was persecuting those patriotic anti-communists — Sen. Joseph McCarthy, attorney Roy Cohn, and Pvt. G. David Schine.
I learned some things since then.
First, what you see depends upon your perspective. And if you look with a warped perspective (as I did then), you mis3 the reality that’s there.
Second, whenever zealots get power, they abuse the basic institutions of this country. Convinced of the evil of their opponents, they abandon their moral scruples and resort to evil means to accomplish their ends.
Third, you can get away with just about anything in this country, if you package your beliefs with sincerity, God, patriotism, and anti-communism.
Fourth, right-wing zealots are tne greatest threat because they are much more likely than left-wingers to paralyze thought with their constant references to God, patriotism, and anticommunism.
ENTER NOW Lt. Col. Oliver North — sincere, God-referring, country-loving, anti-communist, warped, right-wing zealot. What the nation gets is his attempt to justify the corruption of basic institutions, plus a heavy dose of right- wing propaganda about U.S. policy in Central America.
All of this so far is just a preface to some deeper reflections about the Republicans as a minority party.
Since my teen-age years, there has been a pattern of abuse of basic institutions by right-wing zealots within the Republican Party — McCarthyism, Nixonism, and now Reaganism.
The numerous individuals well-deserving of respect and admiration within the Republican Party should be asking two questions: (1) Where will right-wing zealots take the Party next? and (2) Why is the Republican Party, in particular, so subject to this pattern of abuse of basic institutions?
In thinking about the second question, I came up with an important clue from a strange source, Sen. Robert Dole, when he spoke recently in Mankato on his presidential campaign.
Dole is a leader of Republican opposition to a bill providing for public financing and requiring spending limits, in congressional campaigns. When pressed, he finally revealed his main reason for opposing the bill: Since Republicans are a minority party, they need to spend more to get elected.
Dole is not a right-wing zealot (although he is moving pretty far to the right to try to win his party’s nomination). But his argument reveals a way in which the Republican Party contributes to the corrupting of basic institutions. As the money spent on campaigns gets out of hand, we get closer to the buying of elections, a basic corruption of the elective process. Yet the Republicans, as a long-standing minority party, find it hard to turn away from such a corruption.
The same notion applies, more intensely, to right-wing zealots.
As a minority, they find that they can only accomplish their goals in underhanded ways. The result is the resort to methods that corrupt our basic institutions.
RIGHT-WING zealots within the Reagan administration are leaders in such corruption. We see this not simply in the Iran-Contra scandal. It occurs when department heads are committed to sabotaging the mandates of their agencies and of the U.S. Congress. It occurs, glaringly, when Reagan appointments to the U.S. Supreme Court pack the Court with ultra-conservatives.
The Reagan administration may well succeed in furthering its right-wing Court agenda this way. But the net effect, over time, will be a loss of respect for the U.S. Supreme Court and, hence, a corruption of the institution itself.
As a minority party Republicans are also hesitant to suppress right-wing zealots, because they cannot afford to weaken their power base. As a majority party, on the other hand, the Democrats are less beholden to, and hence less influenced by, left-wing zealots.
Republicans, I am sure, are not eager to take advice from liberal Democrats, But perhaps that is also one reason why they will probably remain a minority party and will continue to be disgraced by what their right-wing zealots do.
Readers’ Points of View: Businesses should clean up messes, Ron Yezzi, Jan. 29, 1994
El Gunnick's generosity with other taxpayers' money ("Use common sense in pollution cleanup," Jan. 10, 1994) has one winner: businesses.
The losers are people's health, taxpayers, fairness, the environment, and, of course, real commonsense.
To avoid ligitation, taxpayers are supposed to foot the bill for pollution cleanup at landfills and businesses apparently are not to be prosecuted for violating current pollution control laws.
He regards recent government prosecution of a local trucking company as "unconscionable" harrassment and intimidation over "a minor violation"--and uselessly expensive litigation, besides.
Well, a gross misdemeanor for water pollution, a felony count for negligently discharging pollutants into the Minnesota River flood plain, and legal penalties of $37,500 do not strike me as being just like a ticket for an overdue parking meter.
The prosecution, conviction, and legal expenses would have been unnecessary--if not for the trucking company's uncooperativeness and for its self-admitted violation of the law through careless, inexpensive disposal of wastes.
Prosecution of the case also had this long-term benefit for all of us: It sends a clear message that businesses had better take hazardous wastes seriously.
In holding businesses liable for pollution at landfills, let's remember that you're responsible for cleaning your own dirty laundry--even if you weren't breaking the law and didn't realize how dirty things were getting.
And in the unlikely event that businesses garnered no financial benefits whatsoever from inexpensive dumping of hazardous wastes (as El Gunnick maintains), then we can reduce their liabilities somewhat in those special cases.
My View: Governor coddling business, thumping taxpayers, Ron Yezzi, Dec. 23, 1993
The governor's plan to let polluters off the hook by sticking taxpayers with the costs of cleaning up landfills is a typical Arne Carlson proposal: It's unfair by favoring business interests at the expense of everyone else in the state.
In a My View column ("How to clean up landfills, without the legal hassles," Free Press, Dec. 8, 1993), Charles W. Williams, Commissioner of the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, argues the governor's case.
According to Williams, "Identifying the so-called polluters of a landfill is like finding a needle in a garbage pile."
When the head of the state agency most responsible for controlling pollution seems to be in a state of denial and talks about "so-called" polluters of landfills, we're in deep trouble.
Worse yet, he negates his own statement two paragraphs later when he says, "Not long ago the major contributors of waste at the Oak Grove Landfill in Anoka were identified by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency."
Apparently there are ways to identify the primary polluters.
According to Williams, "neither the governor nor I want to see homeowners, small businesses and municipalities live in fear of the day they will be named liable for the multi-million dollar cleanup of a landfill where their waste was taken 20 years ago. That is simply, not fair. It is clear that landfills are a societal problem that requires all of us to share some portion of the blame."
This is a puzzling statement about fairness.
Rather than living in fear of what may or may not happen in the future, taxpayers will be socked with the multi-million dollar costs of cleanup from the start, while those most responsible for the pollution will never have to pay their fair share of cleanup costs.
I think that a truer concept of fairness requires those causing the most pollution to bear most of the cleanup costs, with the taxpayers picking up the tab only as a last resort.
There are at least two good reasons for this notion of fairness.
First, regardless what the laws said when the hazardous waste was dumped and what people knew or didn't know at the time, the fact is that somebody has to pay for the cleanup and those disposing of the wastes are the ones who caused the pollution at the landfills.
Secondly, since those disposing the hazardous wastes benefited financially through the inexpensive dumping, we are entitled to recover a portion of the cleanup costs from those financial gains.
Fairness aside, Williams argues that holding taxpayers liable is more "cost-effective"; and he supplies some impressive figures to support his claim.
Judging from the rest of his arguments however, I suspect that his figures are "cooked" to make the governor's proposal look good.
For example, his estimates of huge legal costs and an endless liability chain in a "polluters pay" process are very probably overstated.
Initially, the legal hassles will be costly and of long duration. As soon as legal precedents are set however, these problems will diminish rapidly.
Without more details, not much can be said about the accuracy of William's figures.
I think most Minnesota taxpayers realize that, sooner or later, cleaning up landfills is going to cost them some money. But they do not want to pay more than they have to, just because the current governor never heard an idea favoring business that he didn't like.
Readers' Points of View: A lesson in the Constitution, Ron Yezzi, April 17, 1991
Does anyone see some irony in the Daily Bugle preference for short, pithy letters to the editor when the newspaper's own editorials are much longer?
Short, pithy letters have their place, of course. But they also run the risk of trivializing themselves by reducing every issue to expression merely of a groundless personal opinion.
A good case in point is Stafford T. Harder’s April 8 letter applauding the judge's [Litynski]bible-based decision in the recent puppy exposure case.
According to Stolz, “Some have the mistaken idea that the Bible or God should be separate from the governing affairs of man. I've got news for you. America is unique because of the founding fathers' dedication to Christ and his teachings. Our legal heritage is based on God's law for the foundation of what's right and wrong--`one nation under . . .'”
This is groundless personal opinion just as inaccurate as Baghdad radio.
Nothing in the U.S. Constitution supports Harder’s view.
As for the founding fathers, Benjamin Franklin was skeptical of the divinity of Christ and did not accept Scripture unquestioningly.
George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison thought that a person's religious beliefs were a private, not a public, matter--so much so that they were accused of atheism.
Madison asked, “Who does not see that the same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion of all other Religions, may establish with the same ease any particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all other Sects?”
J efferson called for the “separation of church and state,” definitely denied the divinity of Christ, referred to Paul as the “first corrupter of the doctrines of Jesus,” denied that salvation comes through faith rather than good works, placed reason over faith, and redid the New Testament to eliminate what he took to be false or extraneous doctrines.
I n one letter he said, “Altho' I rarely waste time in reading on theological subjects, as mangled by our Pseudo-Christians, yet I can readily suppose that Basanistos [author of a satirical attack on the trinity by arguing for a quaternity, with Moses as the fourth person of the divinity] may be amusing. Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them; and no man ever had a distinct idea of the trinity. It is the mere Abracadabra of the mountebanks calling themselves the priests of Jesus.”
Your View: Religion has not brought perfection, Ron Yezzi, April 23, 1987
Attorney Peter Etzell’s case for the superiority of Christianity in the April 18 My View column may persuade an all-Christian jury. But a good judge should note its misrepresentations, faulty weighing of evidence, and changing of the rules of evidence.
According to Etzell, there is little truth to humanist-rationalist solutions to problems because their goal of a perfect world with loving personal relationships and an end to war has not been achieved. That is, for the humanist-rationalist approach to be true, the required evidence is a perfect world. For Christianity though, a remarkable change in the rules of evidence occurs. Etzell merely announces that spirit, mind, and will lead to discovery of truths revealed by the Christian God.
He refers to the truths of his personal religious faith seven times in seven paragraphs--as if the claim becomes more convincing the more times he repeats it.
Religion is older than humanism-rationalism. And, over the centuries, religious persons have always far outnumbered humanist-rationalists. So, if Etzell wants to fault some group for not establishing a perfect world, he should not be pointing a finger at humanist-rationalists.
Since allegiance to a humanist-rationalist ethic and to most religions inspires people to become better persons and also would prevent an AIDS epidemic, there is no reason why such considerations prove the superiority of Christianity, as Etzell thinks.
Finally, it is a misrepresentation for Estifel to suggest that all humanist-rationalists (1) reject the spiritual (or non-materialistic) side of human existence, (2) find the concept of faith abhorrent, and (3) tend to “indict all of Christianity.”
Most of us, however, do strongly object when persons unilaterally declare that God is on their side and claim infallible truth for personal, fallible, religious beliefs.
My View: About God, Religion, and Secular Humanism, Ron Yezzi, January 11, 1986
Does God exist? And if so, what is God like?
I've never seen any arguments or evidence that can finally settle these questions one way or another. Therein lies the wisdom in allowing individuals the freedom to form their beliefs about God and religion for themselves.
Society, however, has to protect itself from those who want to impose their religious views on others. In particular, that means protection from at least three naive religious prejudices:
(1) There is one true religion which everyone can and should agree on;
(2) Religious claims are as clear and certain as the conviction that you are reading or hearing words right now; and
(3) To be a good person, you need to be a Christian.
The founders of the Constitution, even when they may have held strong personal religious beliefs, had the wisdom and foresight to establish a clear separation of church and state to protect citizens from these naive religious prejudices. They probably did not envisage, however, the degree of secularization of life and pluralism that would occur over two centuries.
In 1986 A.D., we have a clearer historical perspective. Actually, the influence of religion on human affairs in Western civilization has been declining for about five or six centuries, since its high-point during The Middle Ages. This decline leads some non-believers to predict the eventual demise of religion. Believers, however, need not be pessimistic. There will always be enough mystery in the universe and human life to justify many persons in building a more constructive life on the foundation of religious faith. The decline also has the beneficial effect of freeing religious persons from the burden of trying to claim God-inspired expertise on every aspect of human knowledge and existence.
In the light of some current events, we can describe the situation a bit differently. In the free market of ideas and actions, the market share of religion has been declining. Accordingly, some believers demand that government now subsidize religion; for example, they demand prayer and the teaching of creationism in the public schools. Now I am not a slavish follower of the free market. In this case, however, I think that society is best served by the wisdom of the Constitution.
Some fundamentalist Christians think that we need protection from the materialistic values they associate with a religion they call “secular humanism.”
Personally, I do not see why any devoutly religious person would want to label non-God-centered human thought “a religion.” Nor do I see why the whole of non-God-centered human thought should be lumped together as “a religion.” Nor am I sure that the people being labeled “secular humanists” even know what they're being accused of. Secular humanism seems to be the first religion in the history of the world where opponents claim the right to define its doctrines and membership. But I am not going to argue about labels. I want to ask, Is “secular humanism” all that bad?
I see nothing inherently wrong with non-God-centered human thought. Human beings can be rightfully proud of many major accomplishments created and achieved within the secular dimension of life. And it is simply silly to attribute materialistic values to promotion of humanistic thought in the classroom, when capitalism and consumer affluence have far more to do with the spread of materialism. Indeed, much of secular humanistic thought turns us away from materialistic values.
One important document in the history of secular humanistic thought has to be the U.S. Constitution, which lays out the fundamental political organization of the United States. In doing so, it makes no reference to God, other than citing the word “Lord” in the calendar date. And it refers to religion just twice--in Article VI (“no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States”) and in the First Amendment (“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”). If a poll were taken in the U.S., I am confident that nearly all the persons being labeled “secular humanists” would support both the Constitution's prohibitions against governmental establishment of religion and the guarantee of religious freedom. I am not confident at all that the same can be said of their opponents.
On the subject of God, religion, and secular humanism, we should recognize the wisdom in the Constitutional separation of church and state. We should also recognize that just as you do not need to be a Christian to be a good person, you do not need to hang on to naive religious prejudices to be a religious person either.
My View: Secular humanism not anti-God, Ron Yezzi, Feb. 27, 1986
Responses to my remarks “About God, Religion and Secular Humanism” (Free Press, Jan. 11) prompt these questions and replies:
(1) Is secular humanism a religion?
No, unless one has some pretty odd notions about what a religion is.
Secular humanistic thought does not deal with God. There is no sacred scripture or divine revelation; no hymns; no sacred rites or ceremonies; no prayer to the divine or meditation. There are no churches or temples; no priests, monks, or ministers. And, of course, there are no TV evangelists to preach its gospel every week.
I understand that a group in Alabama is going to court, charging that secular humanism is a religion and that the publicschool system therefore violates the First Amendment's prohibition against establishment of religion. I would be truly shocked if they succeed--especially since the political thought embodied in the U.S. Constitution exemplifies secular humanism. Does anyone see where that realization leads?
(2) Is secular humanism “anti-God”?
No, unless the pursuit of knowledge is “anti-God.”
So far as I can see, “the pursuit of knowledge” is what religious fundamentalists are shouting against when they attack “secular humanism.” That is why education is their main target. Basically, they want to suppress four kinds of knowledge:
(a) any knowledge about the natural world which challenges their religious beliefs;
(b) any knowledge which raises doubts about the origins, authenticity, translations, or meaning of the Bible;
(c) any knowledge which makes people aware of worthwhile human values which are not based upon God; and
(d) any knowledge pointing toward solutions to personal and social problems which are not based upon God.
Consequently, they want to suppress parts of astronomy, physics, chemistry, biochemistry, geology, biology, sociobiology, sociology, social work, anthropology, history, economics, political science, psychology, literature, religious studies, and philosophy. Moreover, the attempt to suppress parts of these disciplines becomes an attack on all knowledge because the suppression would require that experts renounce the basic, accepted methods for the pursuit of knowledge in their disciplines.
(3) Is a criticism of some persons' religious prejudices an attack on all religion?
No, unless they insist that they possess the only true religion.
After centuries of controversy about the Bible and arguments for the existence of God, I am always amazed by the willingness of some persons to assert infallibility in these matters--and especially so when they try to prove a point by quoting some passage in the Bible.
Let me propose a simple test. Here are some passages: Leviticus 19:20-22 and 20:10; Matthew 5:2-12; Matthew 5:29-30; Matthew 5:38-40; Matthew 16:18-19; Matthew 19:23-24; and Mark 16:16-18. What is the infallibly clear meaning and significance of these passages? There will not be unanimous agreement.
It would be helpful if everyone, religious and non-religious alike, would grant the following: Approached with humility, the Bible can be a valuable source of inspiration in struggling with the agonizing moral dilemmas of human life; approached with arrogance or insecurity, selected passages from the Bible can become battering rams in support of whatever anyone wants to believe.
Your View: Tax cut bill favors the rich, Ron Yezzi, Dec. 13, 1995
In defending the Republicans’ $245 billion tax cut plan, Rep. Gil Gutknecht (C-Span, Oct. 24) says, "When people talk about giving these big tax cuts to the rich, the truth is they’re not being very honest to the American people — because the broad base of this tax cut will go to families earning (pause), in fact, 74 percent will go to families earning less than $75,000. This isn’t about a tax cut for the rich.”
Let’s find the truth here. I will use the Congressman’s own 74 percent figure, even though every other report I saw on this put it at 70 percent. According to the Statistical Abstract of the United States 1994, 11 percent of the nation’s households have incomes over $75,000 per year. So they are going to get that 26 percent of the tax cut Gutknecht doesn’t talk about. Now let’s set up two simple math problems.
1) Suppose the Congressman goes to an elementary school math class of 100 students, with $100 to distribute. Each of | the 11 richest students will get an equal share of $26 dollars, while each of the other 89 students will get an equal share of $74. Would you get more money by being in the rich student group or with everybody else?
2) Now the Republicans want to distribute $245 billion. For every $1 that goes to each of the 89 percent of households under $75,000, how much money will go to each of the 11 percent of households at $75,000 or above? The answer (rounded off) is $2.84. (If you use the 70 percent figure for percentage of the tax cut going to households under $75,000 per year, the rounded off figure jumps up to $3.4.)
Clearly this is a proposed tax cut that overwhelmingly favors the rich.
The actual situation, though, would be even worse, because money is not being distributed equally within the two groups, some lower-income families would get no tax cut at all and some others, because of the drop in earned income credit, would get a tax increase. Meanwhile, wealthy people would get a tax cut of $20,500 for each quarter million dollars in capital gains they declare, because of the drop in the capital gains tax rate.
A question: If a family’s annual household income is $50,000 or $75,000 or $100,000 or $200,000 and they think they need tax relief because they can’t "make ends meet,” what do they think life is like for many working families with lower incomes who would get almost nothing, or even a tax increase because of the Republican bill? The United States has too many other problems now to be a passing an unnecessary tax cut bill that favors the comparatively well off.
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“Middle ground” still best, Ron Yezzi, March 9, 1985
Regarding criticism of my view on abortion (Feb. 9), I still think that most people favor a middle ground between pro-life and pro-choice extremes: They don't like abortions and want fewer of them; but they also grant the need for a right to abortion. Moreover, they do not regard this middle ground as pro-abortion.
My reply requires some serious, careful thinking--a requirement that eliminates the blustering R. W.Anderson (Feb. 18) who is incapable of seeing anything but “garbage” in my views.
The letters by Gail Jensen(Feb. 13) and Kathleen Karvonen(Feb. 15) question the existence of a clear right to control one's own body. I say that the right is just as clear as the right to freedom, because controlling your own body is an essential part of what freedom means.
A clear right, however, is not an unlimited right. It has to be weighed against other rights and obligations. For example, even most pro-lifers, who insist that the fetus has a clear right to life, agree that the right can be overridden if the mother's life is in danger.
In the “weighing process” on the abortion issue, we need to determine carefully the status of the fetus. But here is the area of apparently unending controversy, which leads to my conclusion that the fetus has, at best, a hazy right to life.
The pro-life need to assert exaggerated or questionable claims only serves to establish more clearly the existence of controversy. For example, the Jensen-Karvonen letters assert or imply (1)that the fetus is not a part of the mother's body; (2)that science has proved that the fetus is an actual human being; (3)that the common distinction between potentiality and actuality is inapplicable to a continuous life process; and(4)that the fetus is a person.
For brevity's sake, let me focus upon point No.(2)--and, in particular, use of the sonogram of a fetus during an abortion in the film, The Silent Scream.
I suggest viewers first turn the volume down so one cannot hear Dr. Nathanson's commentary during the sonogram sequence and then ask,
“What exactly do I see here?” Afterward, replay the sequence with the Nathanson commentary.
One quickly recognizes that he offers one interpretation, but experts can give others. Just as, if we forget about what we've been told and look up at the sun, what we see lends itself to two interpretations--the commonsense one that the sun is much smaller than the earth and another one that the sun is much larger but only “looks” smaller because it is so far away.
What it means to experience pain or be a self or be an actual human being or be a person are not always easily answerable questions; and commonsense answers may not be the best ones.
Let me close with this: As a society, we should stop wasting energy in battle over extremes on the abortion issue, so that we can try to accomplish something worthwhile in the middle.
Finding common ground in abortion thicket, Ron Yezzi, Feb. 9, 1985
In recent debate on abortion, opponents have produced two especially noteworthy, challenging conceptions.
First, abortion is a civil rights issue, just like slavery and racial discrimination. And just as demonstrations, protests, lobbying, and consciousness-raising brought about a near consensus among reasonable people to outlaw slavery and racial discrimination, the same will happen with abortion.
Secondly, if there is controversy over whether or not a fetus is a human being, then we should act in support of life by giving the fetus the benefit of the doubt.
What moral status should we grant these conceptions?
Regarding the civil rights comparison, there is a basic difference. Unlike slavery and racial discrimination, a near-consensus against abortion by reasonable people is very highly unlikely, because a considerable percentage of reasonable people will always regard a fetus as a potential human being, but not an actual one. For example, to declare it unreasonable to judge a human zygote or embryo to be a potential, not an actual, human being is itself irrational. A Constitutional amendment banning abortions would more likely resemble the Prohibition amendment than laws against slavery and racial discrimination.
Regarding the benefit of the doubt argument, we first should realize that there is no reasonable hope that some new scientific evidence will settle the controversy. We also need to be careful about “benefit of the doubt” arguments. By them, we ordinarily mean, “All other things being equal, we should give the benefit of the doubt to ________. In the case of abortion however, those “other things” are not really equal because of the clear right of a person to control one's own body and the consequential hardships on individuals and society of unwanted children.
Although most people are not in the rule-formulating business, I think that, in practice, most accept the following general rules: (a) We should bend over backwards to protect a clear right even if there are consequential hardships; (b) a clear right outweighs a hazy right; and (c) in the presence of a hazy right, consequential hardships are a quite legitimate standard for making judgments.
When we apply these rules to the abortion controversy, we do not come up with a conclusion giving the “benefit of the doubt” to the fetus' right to life. The right to control one's own body is a clear right. The right to life of the fetus, as is evident from the nature of the controversy surrounding the issue, is a hazy right. So the woman's clear right to control her own body outweighs the hazier right to life of the fetus; and because of the fetus' hazier right to life, we are all the more justified in taking consequential hardships on individuals and society into consideration. (The life or death of the fetus should be weighed in considering consequential hardships so long as we do not do so under the presumption that the fetus has a clear right to life.)
Instead of turning the abortion issue into an American version of the wars in Northern Ireland and the Middle East, I would like to think that there is a common ground upon which most people can agree--one which takes account of serious moral concerns on both sides of the issue:
(1) A woman should have a right to abortion; and abortion can be the right decision for her.
(2) But granting that right does not mean that a woman should treat the decision lightly as if the fetus were a wartlike growth.
(3) Denying the right to life to the fetus does not strip the fetus of all worth.
(4) Abortion is not simply one more method of birth control.
(5) As a society, we should not take pride in there being 1.5 million abortions per year.
(6) Earlier abortions are better than later ones.
(7) Decreasing the need for abortion by reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies is desirable.
(8) So we should encourage greater sexual responsibility and promote more effective sex education and birth control.
Free market editorial praise is selective, Ron Yezzi, March 18, 1982
Ah, how the Free Press loves and selectively promotes the free market.
When the Reagan administration proposed dropping the four-cents-a-gallon federal subsidy for gasohol, I expected a gutsy editorial hailing this move to let the free market take its course--especially since the editorial writer believes that government subsidies cannot create jobs. It happens, of course, that the loss of the subsidy boded ill for the proposed alcohol plant here, thereby threatening harm to the local economy and not allowing the creation of new jobs. Instead of gutsiness, there was editorial silence. Apparently, it was time to “lie low” about the free market.
When, however, there is just a prediction (not an actual price, but just a prediction) of $1. a gallon gas, the Free Press revs up its propaganda engines (“Free market produces $1 gas,” March 9). Barroom. Barroom. The free market has triumphed. The “demagogues” have been defeated. Hurrah.
But wait a minute.
If we should be very happy that the free market might lower the price of gas to $1. a gallon, shouldn't we be very unhappy that the free market did in fact raise the price to $1.35 in the first place? If the Free Press wants to tie the value of the free market to the price of gasoline, I suggest that we have free market judgment day: Annually at the start of April for the next 20 years, the editorial staff can read in unison the March 9, 1982, editorial publicly to the citizenry and then announce the current price of gas. If the price is less than $1. a gallon, then we cheer; if it is more, then . . . .
Perhaps though we should look at all this more carefully.
The editorial attributes decreasesin gas prices to OPEC investors' need for cash and to the oil price deregulation--thereby ignoring the most important reason for decreases, namely, the worldwide economic recession (a recession caused, incidentally, to a highly significant degree by a free market system that pushed energy prices up enormously during the 1970s). If there were no recession and the economy were booming, does anyone really believe that gas prices would decrease? It might be interesting to see some data on the decrease in gasoline consumption over the last four years in those Michigan cities where there is 20 to 25 percent unemployment now.
Moreover, if the Reagan administration free market policies push us from a recession into a depression, the free market might drive the price of gas down to 80 cents a gallon. There is real cause for joy. Indeed, if there is total economic collapse, the price might slip back to 40 cents or lower. Then the Daily Bugle can celebrate “the final triumph” of the free market.
Friedman’s policies, Ron Yezzi, Oct. 17, 1980
Economist Milton Friedman’s free market policies have been referred to several times on the Free Press editorial page. Not much, however, has been said about what those policies are.
The Free Press could perform a great service by presenting an accurate, extended account of what Friedman advocates in his book Capitalism and Freedom . The article might deal with issues such as the social responsibilities of business and unions (or the absence thereof), the general role of government, governmental activities to be eliminated, and the money supply. The article might also state what specific changes Friedman’s policies would require in the Mankato area, both over the last 20 years and in the future.
With such an account, it would be easier to show that:
1. The world’s most successful economies over the last 50 years have departed significantly from what Friedman advocates.
2. Whether introduced quickly or slowly, any industrialized so-
ciety implementing his policies would create so much economic instability, social injustice, and personal tragedy eventually that a* _ dictatorship would be necessary to contine his policies.
3. Even greater concentration of power in the hands of large corporations than we have now would result because Friedman’s policies severely weaken the government’s ability to look after the public interest.
4. His desire to control the economy by controlling the money supply is an indirect way of controlling wages, prices and employment that produce enormous injustices, while also making it impossible to assign responsibility for, or correct, those injustices.
5. His fixation on the money supply as the key to economic wellbeing is an oversimplification — as shown, for example, in the way this fixation leads to his distorted analysis of the Great Depression.
6. By binding freedom to his form of capitalism, Friedman ignores the importance of democratic beliefs and traditions, makes freedom proportional to wealth, and moves out-of-step with the 20th century.
7. Friedman is not offering just a small number of policies (some of which may even be good) but rather a whole package of policies he thinks are necessary to maintain a consistent free market system.
8. And, numerous positions taken in Free Press editorials over the past 10 years or so are inconsistent with what Friedman advocates.
Regardless what serious study shows, however, Friedman’s policies are attractive as a simple solution to the nation’s economic woes. You need only believe that people trying to make as much money as possible will eagerly preserve free competition without your having to worry about their acting irresponsibly with respect to their communities, the nation, the world and the environment. That just might seem like a lot to believe. But simple solutions are always attractive to frustrated people. Ron Yezzi
Friedman’s economics, Ron Yezzi, Sept. 9, 1980
Pronounce a myth often enough, and somebody will start to believe it. Get a conservative economist to pronounce the myth, and it will turn up in a Free Press editorial.
As a case in point, consider the statement, “If Friedman’s free market policies are adopted, America will have a leaner, healthier, more competitive economy, but the political costs of unemployment might be high,” from the Aug. 19 editorial, “Friedman Policies Tried in Chile.” This statement is just as true today as it was during the Hoover administration — which means that it isn’t true at all.
As evidence for the statement, the editorial offers us Chile, a military dictatorship complete with torture chambers.
The U.S. Gross National Product is more than 100 times that of Chile. At least 10 U.S.-based corporations have annual revenues greater than the entire GNP of Chile. Yet we are supposed to compare Chilean capitalism with the U.S.
Worse yet, during the last seven years, the Chilean economy can best be described as “a free market with a gun to the head.” The government rigidly controls the economy in support of capitalism. No doubt, the economy has been helped by increased foreign investment. With lower wages and less labor unrest than elsewhere, foreign firms can make handsome profits — so long as they don’t concern themselves with such “trifles” as human rights and the plight of people. No doubt, the economy has also benefitted by the government’s driving a million or so Chileans out of the country. You taste the flavor of Chile’s “free market” from the information in the Free Press editorial that in recent months “the junta allowed unions to engage in collective bargaining” and the dictator Pinochet wants to put off elections until 1997.
Ironically, Milton Friedman talks about capitalism and freedom while his free market policies are supposedly being tested in Chile. Although he has yet to catch up with all the realities of human life and social justice, Friedman is such a likable, well-meaning person that it is truly unfortunate that he lacks the wisdom and scientific acumen to dissociate himself and his beliefs completely from what is happening in Chile.
So where is the evidence for Friedman’s free market policies?
Persons who take his Nobel Prize as proof show no understanding of the awarding of Nobel Prizes in economics.
If we examine the most successful world economies over the past 50 years, we find that they departed markedly from what Friedman advocates.
The best we can say for his policies is that they offer one desperate alternative at a time when economic theory is in a state of confusion.
If his policies are put into practice, they will probably produce short-term benefits for a lot of people, tragedies for others, and a disaster for almost everybody in the long run — a truly Faustian bargain.
Cause of inflation, Ron Yezzi, July 13, 1980
Pronounce a myth often enough, and somebody will start to believe it. Get a conservative economist to pronounce the myth, and it will turn up in a Free Press editorial.
As a case in point, consider the statement, “Government spending is the true cause of inflation,” from the Aug. 7 editorial, “Blame Carter, not Reagan.” (Forget about any other problems with the editorial.) Here is a myth rapidly becoming part of the litany of conservatism:
Suppose we examine this statement. Are there any other causes of inflation besides government spending?
As we know, higher prices, higher incomes, and excessive spending ail contribute to inflation.
If this high energy consumption society insists on importing 40 percent or more of its oil at ever-increasing OPEC prices, can we blame the government for the inflationary effects throughout the economy 9 If the energy industry — including the oil companies and the utilities —- are eager to satisfy this apparently inexhaustible desire for more energy at ever-increasing prices, can we blame the government for the inflationary effects?
If management and labor find it expedient to raise wages and salaries and then pass on the cost in the form of higher prices and if shareholders constantly push for greater profits through higher prices, who should be blamed for the inflationary effects?
If American consumers constantly demand higher incomes to spe nd more money on affluent lifestyles, is the government responsible for the inflationary effects? If private businesses constantly entice people with easy credit and the level of consumer debt soars, whe should we blame for the inflationary effects?
And if government spending does produce some of the inflation, is this always a problem attributable to government alone?
For example, government often has to increase spending in order to compete with the higher salaries offered in the private sector of the economy. Pilots provide just one glaring example of the problem. After spending a small fortune training a pilot in the military, the government finds private industry offering these pilots exorbitant salaries which it cannot match, but also must make some attempt to close the gap — for the sake of national defense,
As for government spending on social programs, does anyone but flic most hardline, elitist conservative really believe that most people in this affluent society will simply and permanently “turn their backs" on the disadvantaged? Social programs, for the most part, exist because a lot of people need and want them — and not because some government official wants to spend money.
“Government is the true cause of inflation,” Humbug!
Your View: Rationing by price is a cruel answer [RY], Ron Yezzi, submitted July 23, 1979
Rooty-toot-toot for the Free Press editorial salute to the law of supply and demand in a free market economy—as the solution to the energy crisis ("Rationing by Price," July 23, 1979)1
Forgive me though, if I have some reservations.
If the U.S.. "rations” by simply letting prices rise, doesn’t this mean that the energy crisis no longer exists for families with income over, say, $30,000 per year? After all, they will be well able to afford luxury gas guzzlers, recreational vehicles, joyously comfortable thermostat settings, long road trips, fuel-inefficient homes, etc. And will we draw comfort from knowing that, the more energy they can afford to waste, the more they drive up energy prices for everybody else?
When the Free Press solution refers vaguely to "some people” who "will be hurt more than others,” don't you really mean, ’’The amount of sacrifice will decrease as your wealth increases; so the poor will suffer the most”? Ah, it's so nice that the U.S. is a nation of Christian communities!
Doesn’t the law of supply and demand, which the Free Press endorses so enthusiastically, justify the price-Gouger's Principle: “Charge as much as the suckers are willing to pay!’’ Isn't this the principle 0PEC is following? So, why doesn't the Free Press applaud the OPEC price increases? (Before there's some muttering, let's remember that a free market economy always tends to produce monopolies and cartels—unless there is governmental interference. The OPEC cartel exists because there is no government with legal jurisdiction over these nations. But since governmental inference is a definite "no-no," as the Free press editorial page reminds us again and again and again, let’s hear no complaints about cartels.)
According to the law of supply and demand, shouldn’t the U.S. raise world food prices as much as the demand will bear—even if millions or billions of people starve because only the richer nations can afford the high prices? I presume, from the editorial, that the Free Press would endorse this.
Hidden in the conclusion of the editorial is the admission that rationing by government is cheaper than rationing by price. Why doesn’t the editorial elaborate on this point, since it hastens to tell people the cost of administering government rationing will be $1 billion annually?
The editorial also concludes by suggesting that rationing by government allows the country to “continue to turn its eyes away from the economic realities of energy.” Does the Free Press mean to suggest that the law of supply and demand is so firmly fixed an economic reality that “survival of the wealthiest” is the highest principle of “justice” human beings are capable of in the sphere of economics?
And even if rationing by price were the better alternative, couldn’t the Free Press at least call for fuel stamps for the poor, too?
Comedy of errors? Ron Yezzi, Aug. 23, 1975
Unfortunately for readers of the Free Press these days, an economic analyst is running loose on the editorial page. War has been declared upon taxes, government spending, foreign aid, and economic ignorance.
It is not clear whether students, simplistic idealists (editorialese for “liberals,” anti-business attitudes, the Arab oil cartel, or New York City is Public Enemy No. 1. The villains vary. But the “wisdom” of the editorialist remains the same.
In the Aug. 18 editorial, Theodore Hesburgh is the villain, that is to say, the simplistic idealist. In published bicentennial remarks (well worth reprinting), Rev. Hesburgh decries the injustice of a world in situation in which the Judeo-Christian few have so much while most people have so little. He points out the threat to peace involved. He is raising serious moral issues, for our bicentennial reflections.
The Free Press editorial passes over the moral issues, however. Instead, the editorialist implies that people like Hesburgh must be committed to distributing the world’s wealth equally among all nations. There is, of course, no sound reason for attributing this commitment to Hesburgh or other liberals. So, a straw man argument is the only result.
Readers should not be petty though. Rather they should save their attention for those dazzling economic statistics and directives offered in the editorials. Consider that statistical “big daddy,” the editorial of July 23rd, entitled “Profiting from Truth.”
First of all, U.S. manufacturing profits in 1971 were listed as being 2.3 percent. According to The World Almanac, however, profits were 7 percent before taxes and 4.1 percent after taxes, for that year.
Secondly, the editorial fails to include stock dividends as profits at one point. It reads, “Here is where the corporate income goes, on the average: owners (including stockholders), seven cents; depreciation allowances (including new plant), 10.3cents; taxes (including income and real estate), 16.2 cents; profits, 6.9 cents, and employees, 66.6 cents.”
Careful readers will not be too upset over such an oversight—since these figures are useless anyway. As a little simple addition shows, the corporate income dollar turns out to be $1.07!
Thirdly, the editorial is a good example of the misuse of statistics. As proof of rapidly declining profit margins, it makes use of figures for recession-plagued years, 1971 and 1974 (apparently). Moreover, it ignores 1972 and 1973. The dangers of such selection become obvious very easily. For example, General Motors showed a profit $2,398,000,000 in 1973, whereas profits slumped to only $950,000,000 in 1974.
Fourthly, the editorial’s attack on meager profits, compared with those of robber barons in the 19th century, fails to take account of enormous increases in sales volume.
Business persons know that you can settle for a lower profit margin and still make a lot of money, if sales volume increases. Sales volume figures are not near at hand; but one comparison of assets is a revealing indicator. In 1892, the Carnegie Steel Company was capitalized at $25,000,000; in 1968, the assets of United States Steel Company were more than 255 times that figure and stood at $6,391,000,000. In 1974, a very bad year for GM, the company’s profits for that single year were 38 times the capitalization of Carnegie Steel in 1892.
Fifthly, the editorial advocates lower taxes on business profits to stimulate more rapid economic growth. Readers may well wonder how this view accords with that offered in the Aug. 18th editorial, “We surely must start accepting, in a world of diminishing, finite resources, the responsibility for ‘thinking small.’”
Readers may also want to ponder consequences of the later editorial advocating smaller government when the earlier one is advocating tax incentives to help big business get even bigger.
The problem with the editorials do not end here, either.
With respect to the nation’s resources, the Aug. 18 editorial declares as a “fact” that we are “already giving much, if not all of it, away.” Readers can only wonder about the evidence for this “fact.” Precisely what percentage of the GNP is being given away this year? Perhaps “much” and “all” have new meanings.
This editorial goes on to attribute an increasing part of the “giving” to “economy-eroding vagaries of the shifting global economy.” If so much of the U.S. decline is due to capriciousness of the world economy, however, then a strange sort of “giving” is occurring.
More importantly, the editorial proceeds upon the dangerous assumption that the U.S. is entitled to whatever it has economically and that other nations only improve themselves through U.S. handouts, meanness, or the “vagaries” of the world economy. There is no hint that U.S. prosperity is at all due to “vagaries” or bountiful natural resources (similar to that oil of the “Arab Oil Cartel”) or the absence of war on U.S. soil for over a century, or economic imperialism. There is little if any recognition of hardworking efforts by other peoples to improve themselves. Perhaps the editorial should be passed along to CBS—for use by Archie Bunker.
This harangue leads to a modest proposal. I suggest that future editorials be signed. Thus, readers of the Free Press will not credit the whole editorial staff—when and if the economic comedy of errors continues. Ronald Yezzi
EDITOR’S NOTE: Rev. Hesburgh distinctly suggested in his ‘essay’ the U.S. must share its wealth.
“Profiting from Truth” appeared July 3, not July 23. The profit figure of 2.3 per cent for manufacturing in 1971 is based on U.S. government and University of Wisconsin Graduate School of Business figures rather than Mr. Yezzi’s handy World Almanac.
If the “useless” figures cited in the middle of the letter happen to add up to $1.07, that is no mistake. They represent raw, approximate average totals per category, and were connected from the same sources mentioned above (excluding, of course, the World Almanac).
My unpublished thoughts: (1) There’s a difference between saying that the U.S. should share it wealth and claiming this means that the world’s wealth should be distributed equally among all nations. (2) The distribution of the corporate dollar still should not add up to $1.07. And (3), that “handy World Almanac” does cite government figures, too.
Your View: Big oil companies seek profits[RY], Ron Yezzi, submitted Sept. 18, 1979
As Linda Thrane, associate director of the Minnesota Petroleum Council, tells it (Free Press, Sept. 11, 1979), the big oil companies are simply public servants pitching in with the rest of us to end the energy crisis and those huge revenues and profits are just a happy accident that they're reinvesting to serve the nation better.
Now, I would not want to go to the stake extolling the wisdom of every American voter. But most of us were not born yesterday.
It would be unfair to accuse oil company executives of dark conspiracies against the country. But you can bet that they will milk the market for as much as they can get away with. After all, they believe that doing this is what makes America great.
The oil companies will increase domestic oil production in a way which maximizes profits for themselves. They will oppose any windfall profits tax that would put money into development of alternative energy sources, because such development jeopardizes their future profits.
They will wash their hands of the effects of ever-increasing oil prices on the poor. And, instead of trying to provide energy at the lowest possible cost, the big oil companies will continue to use their profits to gobble up other industries quite unrelated to oil production.
In her letter, Ms. Thrane makes a point of attacking government regulation. But if government takes no steps to control the oil companies, then who will? Will Linda Thrane? Or will you, dear redder, personally get Exxon to shape up? And after Exxon which big oil company will be your next target?
As for the details of Ms. Thrane's letter, countering information is available on request.
Your View: Oil companies should support this national energy policy [RY], submitted Oct. 18, 1979
In her Oct. 18th letter to the Free Press, Linda Thrane of the Minnesota Petroleum Council calls for “a balanced national policy that directs governmental priorities toward using all existing and potential private and public resources toward guaranteeing this nation a stable energy supply.” Here is a statement that everyone can agree upon.
In accord with her desire for a “a balanced national policy,” I’m sure she would support the following specific policies:
1) The oil companies should turn away from any attempt to use the worldwide energy shortage to increase corporate profits;
2) A windfall profits tax should be passed to provide funds for development of alternative energy resources and to alleviate the burden of rising energy prices on the poor and elderly;
3) Oil companies should not use their profits to buy up companies unrelated to the oil industry so that they then can better use their resources to increase domestic oil production;
4) The oil companies should support conservation by providing funds to improve and develop public mass transportation as well as more energy-efficient vehicles and heating units; and
5) As necessary, the government should take appropriate steps to insure that the preceding policies are implemented.
Having reached agreement, we can now expect Linda Thrane to devote her full energies to getting the Minnesota Petroleum Council and the oil companies to adopt and implement the policies mentioned above
Darwin worthy of closer reading, Ron Yezzi, May 22, 1985
In a March 18 letter, Earl Jensen showed a lack of common sense by arguing that we cannot know what a human being is, unless one grants that a fertilized egg from the moment of conception is an actual human being.
Now, in a May 15 letter, he shows a lack of knowledge by labeling the collective findings of the scientific community over more than a century, regarding evolution, as “pseudo-scientism.”
No one, of course, can really debate evolution in a letter to the editor —
given the confirming and corroborating evidence from thousands of research studies in diverse sciences such as astronomy, physics, geophysics, geology, chemistry, biochemistry, biology and physical anthropology,
I can state, however, that any fair- minded person who checks out the claims of “scientific creationism” will find it to be overwhelmingly a mishmash of misrepresentations and false statements. For anyone with a respect for truth, the tactics of most "scientific” creationists are enough to turn one’s stomach.
Jensen himself offers a typical misrepresentation by quoting Charles Darwin out of context regarding the scarcity of transitional forms.
Here is what Jensen says, “ Even Darwin himself recognized that there is a problem with missing links and said, ‘Why, if species descended from other species by fine gradations, do we not everywhere see innumerable transitionarv forms? As by this theory innumerable transitional forms must have existed, why do we not find them imbedded in countless numbers in the crust of the earth?’”
Anyone who cares to can read chapters VI and X of The Origin of Species for an undistorted account of Darwin’s position on the scarcity of transitional forms. In addition to getting an accurate account, the reader will probably gain greater respect for Darwin as a scientist. And one also gets a clearer judgment of Earl Jensen-type religious zealots.
An especially unfortunate result of the fulminations of the “scientific” creationists is the way they obscure a possible distinction quite worthy of discussion — namely, the distinction between a scientific doctrine of God as a Creator and a religious doctrine of God as a Creator. Ron Yezzi
Forget injuries and legalize fireworks?, Ron Yezzi, July 7, 1982
Isn’t it time we got government off people’s backs by getting rid of laws banning the sale and use of fireworks in Minnesota?
A lot of people enjoy fireworks and are willing to use them at their own risk. In a free country, shouldn’t government quit playing Big Brother?
Fireworks can be dangerous. But we don’t ban firearms and cigarettes, which can be dangerous, too. The Reagan administration and its conservative supporters are rolling back regulations for polluted air, polluted water and hazards in the workplace. Why not roll back regulations against fireworks? Fireworks will never cause anywhere near as many deaths and injuries as these other hazards. Easing pollution emission standards on cars in itself would contribute far more to the killing and maiming of men, women and children than any use of fireworks.
Banning the sale of fireworks is contrary to the free market system, which made this nation great.
Conservatives often deliver harangues about the way liberal legislators wrecked the business climate in Minnesota. They often point to South Dakota as a state with a healthy business climate, because it is much more supportive of the free market system Just look at all those sales of fireworks in South Dakota. By not competing on the same level with our neighbor state, Minnesota is losing jobs. Don’t we want to be competitive with South Dakota?
Too many of the world’s fireworks are manufactured outside the U.S. If we got rid of some regulations, it would be more profitable to manufacture fireworks here. Why should U.S. business be denied the opportunity to be competitive in the free market?
Some people worry about deaths and injuries due to fireworks. But they forget the bottom line. When U.S. companies make good profits by selling weapons around the world, most people remember the bottom line and don’t agonize over the deaths and injuries due to these weapons. Most people don’t worry about these destructive weapons getting into the wrong hands. So why make a fuss over the relatively minor harm fireworks might cause? Some people think that the fireworks have cost in deaths and injuries without compensating benefits. But why should government weigh costs and benefits for people? In a free market system, consumers decide for themselves what products or services they want. The dangers of fireworks are not secret. If consumers choose to use them at their own risk, why should government interfere?
Some people oppose fireworks because they especially attract children, who might lose fingers, hands, eyes or even lives. But fireworks will never kill or maim nearly as many young people as incidents involving firearms do.
Persons worrying about harm to children fail to understand the genius of the free market system. If a company manufactures defective or unsafe fireworks, consumers will discover this and take their business to a more reliable competitor. Just let the free market take its course and competition will produce improved products without any need for the heavy, clumsy foot of governmental interference.
Isn’t it about time we quit coddling our children? In the real world of the free market consumers are expected to look after their own interests. If they choose to buy shoddy products and services or extend themselves beyond their means, the results are their responsibility. Shouldn’t we train children in the ways of the free market system as early as possible
Voluntarism, not government regulation, is the answer to any fireworks problems Instead of effective gun control, we have the willingness of the National Rifle Association to teach young people firearms safety to young people. Wouldn’t these fireworks safety volunteers be just as effective as the NRA in eliminating firearms deaths and injuries to young people?
Freedom and the free market are supposed to be what July 4 is all about for Americans. And getting rid of regulations against fireworks strikes a blow for freedom and the free market, doesn't it?
Just let the free market take its course and competition will produce improved products without any need for the heavy, clumsy foot of governmental interference.
Ron Yezzi
Comment: This was written as satire. But a letter to the editor was received from the head of the Minnesota Department of Public Safety. He said that he didn’t want to attack the free market system; but he presented arguments why fireworks are too dangerous to be legalized.
Reagan’s policy is a disgrace to U.S., Ron Yezzi, May 12, 1984
If U.S. voters prefer air freshener to reality, they have the right to return Mr. Renuzit to the White House for four more years. But they ought to know what their preferences are.
Ronald Reagan’s support for a school prayer amendment is a good example of air freshener instead of reality. Any Constitutionally acceptable prayer in public schools would be so watered down and so insignificant a part of the school, day as to be ineffective in accomplishing its primary, stated purpose: the raising of moral standards. If President Reagan wants to take a real step to raise moral standards, he can start by ending the moral hypocrisy of U.S. policy in Central and South America. And he will stop using any evils of Soviet communism as an excuse for lowering the moral standards of the United States.
The U.S. claims for itself the right of national sovereignty; but it denies that same right to the nations of Central and South America. This fact is so obvious from past and present evidence that only ignorance, concealment, outright lies, and/or self-delusion prevent Americans from admitting it.
Besides being morally hypocritical, our policy in the Americas has the long term effect of breeding more communism and subservience to the Soviet Union. By supporting rightist dictatorships and ‘‘death-squad democracies” (a contradiction in terms) the U.S. takes a reactionary stand which chokes off the legitimate aspirations of oppressed peoples. The revolutionaries of Central and South America are not fools. So like the colonials in the American Revolution who turned to Britain’s competitor, France, they turn for aid to the communist bloc. Once revolutionaries take power in a country, the U.S. then follows up its foolish policy with an even greater blunder. Instead of allowing the new government to work out its social problems independently, time after time, the U.S. launches a diplomatic, economic and military onslaught to undermine and overthrow the revolutionary government. In order to survive, the new government must seek massive aid from the Soviet bloc — which then entails considerable subservience to the Soviet Union.
In defense of its policy, the Reagan administration uses a series of tortuous, timeworn, flimsy, paternalistic, self- serving arguments:
1. That all leftist revolutionaries must establish communist governments wholly directed by the Soviet Union.
2. That communism will be worse than what these oppressed peoples have now.
3. That an association of unfriendly governments in Central and South America will somehow have enough military strength to threaten the security of the United States.
So the American people are asked to support and die for a flimsy policy that is morally hypocritical, runs contrary to the nation’s most basic principles, increases the misery of suffering peoples, and has the long-term effect of accomplishing just the opposite of its purpose.
The policy is a tragic disgrace to the United States. But then Mr. Renuzit has no shortage of air freshener.
Reagan’s record is one of blunders, Ron Yezzi, March 9, 1984
The battleship New Jersey lobbing shells into Lebanon is an apt symbol for the Reagan presidency. With guns blazing, the New Jersey makes for grand viewing on TV. But in reality it is an outdated warhorse, ineffectively firing salvos that do harm rather than good. So it is with Ronald Reagan.
His domestic and foreign policies are contrary to the long-term interests of the United States. But forget about his wrong-headedness for now. Even on his own terms, he has blundered around for over three years.
He campaigned for president on the principle that federal spending and deficits were the cause of high inflation. Now he tries to take credit for a lower inflation rate when federal spending is up and deficits are the highest in U.S. history.
He cannot deal with the deficits without. cutting defense spending and raising taxes. But taking these steps would be an admission oi the inadequacy of his policies. So he blunders around at the nation5s expense instead.
He decided to seek a military solution in El Salvador. Now no military solution is in sight. Meanwhile, he hails the development m democracy there — as if roaming death squads are compatible with democratically elected government.
He decided to make the nation “stand tall” by inserting a U.S. military presence in the world’s trouble spots. The ill-fated Lebanon adventure was the major result.
He insisted that deployment of cruise and Pershing missiles in Western Europe would force the Soviets to negotiate seriously on nuclear arms control. The Soviets reacted to the deployment by walking out on the negotiations.
He lifted the grain embargo on the Soviet Union. Then he angered our allies with the absurd insistence that our trade in grain was all right, but their trade on the oil pipeline was unacceptable.
His one great foreign policy “success” was the U.S. conquest of Grenada, a nation with a population about two and one-half times that of Mankato and North Mankato combined.
How does “Old Bluff and Blunder” get away with all this?
Over the last 20 years, three presidents made the people’s ignorance a key instrument of administration policy. The American people eventually caught up with Lyndon Johnson on Vietnam and Richard Nixon on Watergate. Reagan is next. It is only a question of how much damage will occur in the meantime,
It all looks like a boxing match, Ron Yezzi, Dec. 20, 1983
Watching the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. is a lot like /watching a boxing match: Uncle Sam vs. The Russian Bear. There’s plenty of propaganda hype about who’s the greatest and about how dirty the other guy fights. They’re willing to fight in a lot of places. But when they throw punches, spectators and even persons not interested in the match end up getting hit.
How does Uncle Sam look?
The Reagan administration decided that Uncle Sam needed to change tactics to win — more training and support, more aggressiveness and more low blows. Of course, for the more rabid Uncle Sam fans, there’s no such move as a low blow when it’s directed against The Russian Bear. Anything goes Some may worry that this boxing match is getting more and more uncivilized But since when did a rabid fan ever show much sympathy and understanding toward an opponent?
In the Korean Airlines incident, apparently The Bear didn’t see what was corning, countered with a wild punch, and hit 269 innocent bystanders. Uncle Sam's handlers saw the chance to score big points So they cried foul across the world — further convincing their rabid fans that there’s no such move as a low blow when it’s directed against The Bear.
In Grenada, Uncle Sam whipped a local Golden Gloves lightweight and treated it like a world championship victory. Uncle Sam’s not going to be pushed around the ring anymore. He’s ready to fight anywhere. Nicaragua? Cuba? Lebanon? Syria? Just name the place. But Uncle Sam is peace-loving and only fights in self-defense, mind you.
Uncle Sam’s ready to fight. And he doesn’t want any pansies sitting on the fence. You’re either for him, that noble boxer who never throws a low blow because there’s no such move as a low blow against The Bear, or you’re for the Evil Hulk, The Bear.
In this boxing match, the United Nations is an ineffective referee — being praiseworthy, contemptible or invisible to Uncle Sam, depending upon its calls. When the U.N. was not with Uncle Sam in Vietnam, it was invisible; when it voted to condemn The Bear’s invasion of Afghanistan, it was praiseworthy; when it voted to condemn Uncle Sam’s invasion of Grenada, it was contemptible. As the First Handler in the White House disdainfully put it, that Grenada vote didn’t spoil his lunch one bit. Uncle Sam seems to like the “John McEnroe’’ style toward referees these days.
People look around the world and see problems: poverty, disease, starvation, oppression, denial of human rights, torture, death squads, and genocidal warfare. Now Uncle Sam looks around and only seems to see one problem, The Russian Bear. Can The Bear really be there originating, or taking advantage of, every problem? Or is Uncle Sam getting punchy and swinging wildly?
So far, of course, this boxing match has had some sparring and serious rounds, but not an all-out brawl. Yet if Uncle Sam gets in that brawl, we won’t have The Russian Bear around anymore. But we probably won’t have anyone else around, either.
It’s not that The Russian Bear looks good and is free of blame. It’s just that Uncle Sam’s tactics look pretty bad. And you wonder what Uncle Sam’s going to look like when it’s over, if we’re around to judge.
If Uncle Sam supports every dictator who displays an anti-communist badge, takes a positive stance toward a nation supporting apartheid because of its anti-communist badge, allies with governments which allow death squads to roam, sells arms all around the world, increases its already huge defense budget again and again, invades other nations, provocatively places troops where “defensive reaction” strikes become “necessary” and keeps building more and better nuclear weapons — all in the name of fighting The Big Bad Bear — what will Uncle Sam look like? Will he look like the Defender of Freedom? Or will people have trouble seeing the difference between Uncle Sam and Uncle Adolph or Uncle Joe?
This whole boxing match is far removed from peace on earth, good will to all. Perhaps Christmas is for children. But then again, life is what we make it, isn’t it?
Your View: U.S.’s Asian role, Ron Yezzi, March 11, 1975
President Ford should cease his reduction of morality to a football which is kicked around according to the latest needs of America’s power offense.
When threatening oil countries with an invasion to fend off ‘‘economic strangulation” of the Western world, the President admits that the invasion would not be moral but argues that it would be acceptable because there are many historical precedents for it.
When pressing for more military aid to Cambodia, however, he rediscovers “morality” — one which consists mainly of maintaining U.S. credibility before our allies.
I wonder how many more Cambodians must be killed, maimed, or made refugees in order to maintain our credibility outside Southeast Asia.
So far, our “credibility” has cost the lives of some three million people in Cambodia and Vietnam. Although this may be a small sum by the standards of Nazi Germany, it is a heavy price for people to pay by the standards of a sound morality.
I wonder how many of the nation’s founding fathers would welcome a Bicentennial celebration where the ideals of the Declaration of Independence have given way to “Might makes right.”
The U.S. has two real, overriding moral obligations to Southeast Asia — namely, to bring peace there as soon as possible and to make reparations for the consequences of our moral blunder.
As for U.S. allies, the lesson of South Vietnam and Cambodia is clear enough — governments which do not serve the interests of their people do not deserve to survive and such governments should not expect to save themselves through foreign assistance.
Your View: Replacing Hubert, Ron Yezzi, Jan., 1978
Remember way back when Harry Truman magnanimously, courageously, and perceptively appointed Herbert Hoover to head civilian relief operations in Europe after World War II? Well, would you believe that the Free Press now resurrects this act of long ago as a model for filling vacancies in elective offices, when no special election is held?
In the interests of “non-partisanship,” the Free Press (editorial, Jan. 24) wanted Gov. Per- pich to appoint Ancher Nelsen to fill Humbert Humphrey’s seat in the U.S. Senate for 11 months.
I happen to think that there are significant differences between being a senator and heading relief operations — not the least of which is the rights to vote in the U.S. Senate. Also, I have trouble recalling any Free Press editorials pleading with Gerald Ford to appoint a Democrat as vice president to heal the wounds of Watergate. Where was the spirit of “non- partisanship” then?
Considering Hubert Humphrey’s national stature, his longtime championing of liberal causes, his position as the greatest DFLer of them all, and his landslide victory in his last election campaign, I find it quite reasonable for a DFL governor to appoint someone to the U.S. Senate who represents the spirit of what Humphrey stood for.
Muriel Humphrey can do that. Donald Fraser can do that. Warren Spannaus can do that.
But Ancher Nelsen?
And if the Free Press must have its Herbert Hoover analogy, I’m surprised to note no mention of Harold Stassen. Now, there’s a Republican who has been out of office for a long time and is willing to serve.
Ron Yezzi 418 Pleasant St.
EDITOR’S NOTE: The Free Press did not “want” Gov. Perpich to appoint anyone; the editorial in question merely suggested that if an interim appointment were made at all, appointing Ancher Nelsen would not be all that bad an idea. As for Harold Stassen’s senate aspirations, the Free Press dismissed them as unlikely in a Jan. 9 editorial entitled “Too late, Harold.”
Your View: Facilities for community use, Ron Yezzi, submitted Nov. 11, 1976
If taxpayers pay for a community facility, why should it lie idle while they must pay again so that a private group can make a profit? We want efficiency in government, I hope. When government facilities lie idle while citizens with legitimate needs must go elsewhere, we waste tax money.
I do not especially like the notion of kids learning to bash each others’ brains in [boxing]. But if the second floor of the Law Enforcement Center has space available for community use, it should be made available the community.
Or. to put all this another way: Should we ban all the kids from public playgrounds when the carnival comes to town?
Letter to MSU Reporter: Professor Hartzler’s response to article about the local adult bookstore, Ron Yezzi, submitted Oct. 28, 1975
In my opinion, the letters (Reporter, Oct. 28th) attacking Professor Harold Hartzler are deeply ludicrous.
The Reporter publishes a shallow article which is best described as free advertising for the local adult bookstore. The article includes a sensational picture which is well below the standards of the supermarket scandal sheets. In the article, one of Mankato’s A-1 rip-off artists, the “porno” dealer, embraces the glories of profit in the free enterprise system. He eagerly points out that a woman can quickly get a gas-guzzling Cadillac by working in the “adult” book business. He admits the “adult” book business makes money off of some young women who are drug addicts. In the article, he makes various statements whose truth is highly questionable. And finally, to a careful reader, he pretty clearly comes off as a man dedicated to making a sensationally good living off of sexual exploitation.
Along comes Harold Hartzler whose sense of decency is outraged. Hartzler questions the propriety of the article and the picture. And he claims that they are detrimental to the value environment of the campus.
Poor, poor, Hartzler!
Then come the attacks of letter writers, complete with some nasty personal abuse. The writers seem quite pleased with the quality and appropriateness of the original article. One writer finds the article a “refreshing” contrast in a society where violence is generally accepted. (An aside to the writer: Harold Hartzler has been a conscientious objector since before you were born.) The same writer even wants to expunge the words “obscenity” and “pornography” from the English language—if no one comes up with “working, viable” definitions. By the same reasoning, I suppose that the word “love” and a lot of other words will also have to go.
Without agreeing with what Harold Hartzler stands for, I suggest that the letter writers find a different target to attack and that they forego the personal abuse next time.
Ron Yezzi – Philosophy Department
Nuclear arms race is a desperate gamble, Ron Yezzi, June 16, 1983
If disbelievers rejected official government propaganda in the Soviet Union and started an independent nuclear freeze movement, some Soviet “patriots” would be outraged. These “patriots” would accuse the disbelievers of being dupes of U.S. imperialism; and they would insist that the CIA was behind the movement. These Soviet “patriots” would parade around quoting statements and statistics provided by government officials.
So what happens if disbelievers reject official government propaganda in the United States and start an independent nuclear freeze movement?
Sure enough, some American “patriots” are outraged. They accuse the disbelievers of being dupes of Soviet imperialism; and they insist that the Soviets are behind the freeze movement. And these “patriots” parade around quoting statements and statistics provided by the Reagan administration.
You only have to read some recent letters in this newspaper to get the point.
What these American and Soviet “patriots” share in common is a deep distrust of anything new and strange as well as an oversimplified view of the contemporary world.
American “patriots” attacking the nuclear freeze movement often show the oversimplification, for example, when they exhc rt us to learn the lessons of history and then confine the lessons to the Munich agreement with Hitler and past Soviet transgressions.
Suppose we seek out some other lessons of history.
When the U.S. and its leaders are likened to Great Britain and Chamberlain in the 1930s, look at the state of military preparedness in the U.S. Then ask: Has it often been a mistake to compare the present with the past for similarities, while also ignoring differences?
When persons treat nuclear war just like conventional war, ask: Has it often been a mistake to fail to adapt to new circumstances?
When persons proclaim the Soviet Union to be the focus of evil in the contemporary world, ask: How often has excessive self-righteousness produced a seemingly humble arrogance for which human beings have had to pay a heavy price?
When the Reagan administration provides evidence that we are falling considerably behind the Soviets militarily, ask: Have government officials often publicized data selectively so as to promote support for their policies? (Doesn’t our historical answer to this question provide ope of the best reasons for having freedomNpf speech and of the press?) *
Whenpersons advocate peace through deterrence based upon: mutually assured destruction, ask: How often have arms races ended in wars? And how often has the destructiveness of wars increased in proportion to the greatness of the arms
races which preceded them?
When you ask these questions, you find that the nuclear freeze movement does not rest upon a failure to learn the lessons of history. Nor is it a call for unilateral disarmament that would leave us at the mercy of the Soviet Union. The nuclear freeze movement just starts with the recognition that the nuclear arms race is a desperate gamble for which time is running out. Ron Yezzi
Does one ever wonder?, Ron Yezzi, Feb. 3, 1983
The United States is the only nation ever to use nuclear weapons in war: During the 1950s the U.S. kept the U.S.S.R. in line in Europe with its nuclear doctrine of “massive retaliation”; the U.S. used its nuclear missile superiority to force the U.S.S.R. to back down during the Cuban missile crisis; the U.S. refuses to pledge not to be the first to use nuclear weapons in a European war; and the Reagan administration insists upon our having nuclear superiority.
Does one ever wonder if some nations in the world might just get the impression that the U.S engages in nuclear intimidation?
President Reagan and his followers portray the U.S.S.R. as the villain and the U.S. as an angel in disarmament negotiations. Considering that not a single perfect human being exists on earth, does one wonder how the U.S. as a nation can be so perfect?
Does one ever wonder if Winston Churchill turns oyer in his grave every time he hears about columnist George Will comparing Reagan favorably with him regarding national defense? (And if Will compares Reagan favorably with Churchill, does one wonder if that means we can compare Vic Ellison favorably with George Will?)
Massive defense expenditures are severely threatening the U.S. economy. Does one ever won der if Yuri Andropov has figured out that it makes more sense to mess up the U.S. by provoking massive defense expenditures here than by trying to win a nuclear war that surely will destroy most of the U.S.S.R.?
The Great Communicator constantly attacks waste and fraud in the government bureaucracy; but he never attacks waste and fraud in the Defense Department. Does one wonder if he realizes that the Defense Department is a government bureaucracy? And if he doesn’t trust government bureaucrats, does one ever wonder why he trusts the Defense Department?
If one watches TV or has high-school age children, does one know how much money the Pentagon must spend on recruitment? Does one ever wonder if that huge advertising budget is being used wisely?
The nation is now turning away from Reaganomics. Does one wonder if it’s worthwhile to beat a dead horse — just because true believers such as “Dutch” Reagan and Free Press editorialists can’t give up the belief it’s going to win the Kentucky Derby?
Conservative economists harped endlessly about government spending and deficits as the cause of inflation during the 1970s. Now during the Reagan administration, we are getting deficits more than double those of the Carter years; yet the inflation rate is rather low. Does one ever wonder if those conservative economists had an oversimplified view of the real world?
The president keeps pronouncing his devotion to a “balanced budget,” when we are witnessing deficits far in excess of anything ever encountered before his tenure. Does one ever wonder if “the emperor has no clothes”?
The Reagan administration wants to tax health care benefits; but it shows no interest in doing away with business “perks” such as the deductibility of the business lunch. Does one ever wonder why?
The Free Press correctly points out that corporations do not really pay corporate income taxes ; they only collect the tax money from consumers of their products. So, does one wonder why Reagan deems it an injustice to shareholders to have corporate income taxes?
Moreover, if we do away with corporate income taxes, there is little likelihood that corporations will refund the $50 billion a year to the consumers who paid the taxes in the first place. So, does one wonder if all this talk about doing away with corporate income taxes amounts to nothing more than a $50 billion annual giveaway to corporations at a time when the nation is facing huge budget deficits?
Finally, when a Free Press editorial exhorts us to prepare for the 21st century, does one wonder why the best it has to offer is 19th century economics based upon 18th century views of human nature? Ron Yezzi
Yahoo conservatism, Ron Yezzi, Sept. 22, 1981
I have long suspected The Free Press editorial page leadership operates under the grand illusion that it is a moderate voice wisely judging from a viewpoint well above the battle between liberals and conservatives. Now comes confirmation of this suspicion in Tom West’s column, “About Opinions” ( The Free Press, Sept. 19).
In actuality, Free Press editorials do not take liberal positions. In actuality, they do often try to strike a balance between the conservatives and the yahoo conservatives. The Free Press then mistakes this balance for one between liberals and conservatives.
As evidence, we need only consider West’s own examples.
As a non-conservative position, he lists The Free Press9 support for the U.S. Supreme Court nomination of Sandra O’Connor. Yet O’Connor is a conservative jurist. And she was appointed by Ronald Reagan, who is not exactly a liberal. In supporting her nomination, The Free Press is simply being conservative in opposition to the yahoo conservatives.
A similar analysis applies to West’s other examples — IQ tests, Margaret Thatcher’s reaction to urban riots, the Planned Parenthood controversy in Le Sueur county, the MX missile, and political gag orders. In each case, it is conservative vs. yahoo conservative. If The Free Press wants to take a liberal position on Planned Parenthood, for example, let’s have an editorial generously praising this organization for its many past and present services and also calling for greater support for, and more widespread use of, its services in the future.
Who are the “yahoo conservatives?” Among others they include National Conservative Political Action Committee head Terry Dolan, Interior Secretary James Watt, Sen. Jeremiah Denton, the Rev. Jerry Falwell, the Rev. Richard Angwin, the Rev. John Michel, and Henrietta Tanley (who deserves some special praise for gutsiness so long as no one agrees with her.) There are also “sometime yahoo conservatives” who concentrate on governmental activism and economics —such as President Ronald Reagan, U.S. Rep. Tom Hagedom, economist Milton Friedman, state Rep. Mark Piepho, and the reigning majority among Blue Earth County IRs. There are numerous followers as well.
In addition, Hagedorn qualifies as a “hypocritical, sometime yahoo conservative” insofar as he nearly always supports government subsidies for agriculture while he usually opposes government subsidies for the poor, minorities, education, cities, and environmental protection. Since Reagan’s election victory, columnist George Will has mellowed out and shifted from a “yahoo conservative” to a “conscientious conservative.” Columnist James Kilpatrick qualifies as a “loveable, crotchety conservative.” He’s not a yahoo.
The Free Press only turns “yahoo conservative” on economic issues. But this is no minor matter. Aside from the “Moral Majority” types who are so sure they hear God better than everyone else, nothing warps a conservative’s judgment more than turning yahoo conservative on economic issues. It is a fertile breeding ground for oversimplification, illusion, and insensitivity. Thus, for example, we find a seemingly endless series of editorial harangues insisting that government is the only serious cause of inflation. And West can breezily announce that taxes “are a vehicle for consumption not investment.”
Aside from the editorials, fairness requires recognition that the columnists and editorial cartoons are reasonably well-balanced on The Free Press editorial page. It’s not a perfect balance; but this is not a perfect world either. The Free Press should be commended and admired for its willingness to publish letters sharply critical of itself. There are newspapers around the country which are less committed to freedom of speech and of the press.
Your View: ‘The Great Communicator, ’ Ron Yezzi, May 12, 1981
Once the nation sought statesmen and revered The Great Emancipator. Now the nation revels in the glories of The Great Communicator.
Once presidential “grace under pressure” meant the ability to show sensitivity and cool judgment in making agonizing decisions Now, according to the latest “Hollywood-hype,” it no longer refers to making decisions at all, but is simply the ability to deliver movie one-liners after having sustained a life-threatening injury. So in addition to showing sympathy for a wounded president, we must also credit him with showing grace under pressure.
Given the temptation to escape reality, it seems appropriate that the nation has turned for leadership to Tinseltown, USA — where “the movies are bigger than life” and where charm, confidence and good cheer are stairways to success.
The Great Communicator genuinely seems to be a nice guy. So it becomes offensive to criticize Him.
Having been spared by an assassin’s bullet, unlike John Kennedy and Martin Luther King, The Great Communicator sometimes seems to consider Himself God’s anointed messenger. So it may become sacrilegious to criticize Him.
Do we then dare to ask the offensive, unpatriotic, sacrilegious question: Is The Great Communicator hypocritical or just shallow?
The Great Communicator seems to believe in what He communicates. But what does He communicate?
The Great Communicator announces the time for something new. But He only offers old programs appealing to people nostalgically trying to recover the past rather than to face the future.
The Great Communicator portrays Himself as everyone’s friend. But He is a better friend to the haves than the have-nots.
The Great Communicator announces His desire to do God’s work. But His main goals seem to be material prosperity, opulence, and military dominance.
The Great Communicator calls for self-sacrifice. But He exempts the wealthy, who are best able to make sacrifices.
The Great Communicator exhorts the nation to virtue. But He embraces an economic ideology in which selfishness and greed masquerade as altruism.
The Great Communicator pronounces Himself a conservationist. But He favors rapid commercial exploitation of the nation’s resources, does not worry about their depletion, and belittles those concerned about pollution.
The Great Communicator celebrates freedom. But He willingly turns away from human rights violations by allies so long as they are certified anti-communists.
Yes, it is only three years to 1984.
But as a wise man optimistically said: “You can fool all of the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time; but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.”
Wondering about many topics, Ron Yezzi, Nov. 18, 1980
Do you ever wonder why the strongest advocates of unemployment as a cure for inflation turn out to be persons who are pretty well assured of a job or are financially secure?
Since Tom Hagedom supports nuclear power and is confident of its safety, do you wonder if he would sign a petition calling for establishment of a nuclear waste disposal site in the 2nd District, preferably on the farm property he owns?
Do you wonder if the Free Press, that keeps saying the government controls the money supply, understands that the Federal Reserve Board functions more like the Supreme Court than the president’s cabinet and that government printing presses and mints are not the sole sources for the creation of money?
Since a lot of people think that government wastes taxpayers’ money, do you wonder if they believe that I would be worse off by exchanging my state-supplied office furniture for what is available at those citadels of frugal free enterprise, the local banks?
If Minnesota offers financial incentives to improve the business climate so as to compete better with southern states, do you ever wonder if those states might then offer further incentives to which Minnesota would respond again, and so on? And do you ever wonder who wins and who loses in this sort of competition?
Do you wonder if political conservatives and the “moral majority” will ever realize that the largely unrestricted free enterprise and productivity they promote undermines traditional values and creates a need for bigger government and greater governmental control?
Do you wonder if you’ve heard a better joke all year than this one from a Nov. 12 Free Press editorial: “The U.S. auto manufacturers make a solid point when they say they didn’t anticipate the public’s changing preference for smaller cars five years ago because the government maintained gasoline price controls and thus encouraged consumers to continue buying larger vehicles?”
Do you ever wonder if Americans can scale down their life-expectations based upon the unusual period of overwhelming U.S. military, political and economic dominance in the two decades following World War II — before they destroy the nation’s real opportunities for progress?
And do you ever wonder how “things get so messed up” when the overwhelming majority of people possess a basic reservoir of good will? Ron Yezzi
Hooker Chemical's responsibilities, Ron Yezzi, June 18, 1980
Michael Brown's article on Hooker Chemical Co. and the Love Canal on the June 12 opinion page was excellent; the Daily Bugle editorial response that same day was pathetic.
The Free Press does not want to blame Hooker Chemical Co. for past sins: "Everything must be evaluated according to its time frame. To do otherwise would be naive. For example, if the early settlers on this continent knew smoking tobacco would someday lead to cancer, they wouldn't have begun the practice. It is ridiculous to assume those settlers are to blame for thousands of lung and throat cancer deaths each year."
We cannot blame the early settlers because it was impossible for them to establish a scientific link between tobacco smoking and cancer as well as heart disease. But Hooker Chemical Co. is not in their position. As Michael Brown points out, there was scientific evidence of toxicity in chemicals being dumped even before the 1950s. Moreover, Hooker Chemical was capable of doing all sorts of scientific research on toxicity—if they wanted to.
A passing note: If we cannot blame the early settlers, what should we say about corporations, advertisers, and farmers promoting the tobacco industry now that they know the harmful effects of cigarette smoking?
The Free Press is willing to absolve Hooker Chemical for following normal business practices: "Skeptics—such as Michael Brown on today's op-ed page—can blame 'bottom-line mentality' if they want, but it is common practice to minimize costs and hold down prices. That's our free enterprise system."
The point here (whether intended or not) seems to be that is all right to kill and maim people because "that's our free enterprise system."
According to the Free Press, "Social responsibility on the part of big business is a fairly new phenomenon." That statement bothers me. In the past, we would have blamed businesses for selling poisonous substances without warning. Why shouldn't we have blamed them for leaving poisoned garbage lying around where it could do harm? Social responsibility on the part of business is not a new phenomenon. Enforcement of social responsibility is what is new. And probably the best enforcement measure consists in holding businesses seriously responsible (liable) for the consequences of their actions, as Michael Brown points out.
In absolving Hooker Chemical for past sins, the Free Press ignores most of the evidence offered by Michael Brown to show the company's persistent pattern of subterfuge and neglect of the public welfare extending right up to the present.
By focusing upon the $10 billion in lawsuits filed by Love Canal neighbors, the Free Press ignores Brown's very sensible statement about liability: "It seems only fair that Hooker be made to pay for permanent remediation of its leaking dump sites and sued for damages commensurate with the amount saved by shortcutting in its waste disposal practices."
The Free Press wants us to be willing to learn, however: "The best we can hope for is to learn from mistakes such as Hooker's and try to be more careful in the future."
A reasonable person would conclude from this that we should be extremely careful about introducing technological innovations for fear of creating a future problem 20 or 30 years later. The Free Press, however, chooses to be unreasonable and concludes, "That does not, however, mean curtailing technological advances and risking stagnation for fear of a future problem."
One final, "daring," apparently frightening thought: Could it be possible that improvement in the quality of human life by curtailing economic growth and many technological innovations need not signify stagnation in the United States? Ron Yezzi
Intense religiousness can dull judgment, Ron Yezzi, Sept. 10 (or 11?), 1884
Religion can, and often does, raise many persons’ moral standards by becoming the focus for their serious moral concern; ample evidence supports this claim, (Let me emphasize the point, since critics of this letter will want to ignore its presence.)
Intense religious belief, however, can also dull one’s integrity and blind one’s judgment. Persons can piously invoke the name of God as a sanction for beliefs actually rooted in insecurity, ignorance, provincialism and resistance to change. Instead of pointing toward truth, religion can block the pursuit of truth.
Suppose, though, we move from the general to the specific for an example of dulled integrity and/or blinded judgment. Let’s consider the treatment of archaeopteryx, the reptile-bird fossil, by some fundamentalist Christians advocating “scientific creationism” as a scientific alternative to evolution. (Fortunately, one does not need to be an expert to recognize a misrepresentation.)
In his text Historical Geology (I960, p. 310), Carl Dunbar states, "It was a strange creature, more reptile than bird, and yet because of its feathers distinctly to be classed as a bird. It would be difficult to find a more perfect ‘connecting link' between two great groups of animals, or more cogent proof of the reptilian ancestry of the birds.”
Now let’s watch what some fundamentalist Christians do with these two sentences in Scientific Creationism (1974, p. 85):
"As Dunbar says: ‘It would be difficult to find a more perfect connecting link between the two great groups of animals, or more cogent proof of the reptilian ancestry of the birds.’
"Yet this same author, in the very same paragraph, recognizes that archaeopteryx is not part reptile at all, but 100 per cent bird. He says it is ‘. . . because of its feathers distinctly to be classed as a bird.’”
Here is a clear example where intense religious belief dulls integrity and/or blinds judgment to produce a misrepresentation by omitting half of a sentence.
Moreover, this example is typical of the thought that pervades scientific creationism.
If groups organize specifically to get government to impose their religious views on others, we all have good reason to worry.
How to persuade people without even thinking, Ron Yezzi, July 26, 1983
Has anyone else noticed how much shoddy think- ing is becoming quite the fashion these days? Ignorance, oversimplification, bigotry and insensitivity, of course, are always with us. But now they are becoming quite respectable. For readers wanting to get in on this latest fad, here is some handy advice:
*Be sincere. This is the key to being taken seriously. And remember: If you make outrageous claims, people will know that you’re really upset and therefore will be more sure that you’re sincere.
*Always include at least one reference to God and Christianity. (Selective quoting from scripture is really impressive.) If you can convince people that you’re a humble servant of the Lord and not just another person with an opinion, you can avoid the need for justification and offer all sorts of shallow views.
*To gather a following, attack government at any level. Since government mistakes are more likely to be publicly visible and nearly all government policies displease one interest group or another, a reservoir of discontent lies ready to be tapped to support any wild opinion.
*Use some misleading or irrelevant statistics. Remember: No matter how misleading or irrelevant, each statistic still counts as a fact.
*Attribute what you dislike or do not understand to a communist plot. Pinning a “commie” label on anything usually shuts off serious discussion.
*Identify The American Way with classical free enterprise. This tactic really simplifies the alternatives. Many serious attempts to deal with the complex economic, political, and moral realities of contemporary life then become un-American and are thus unworthy of further consideration.
*Read and listen carelessly. You can always avoid the need for serious thinking by not trying hard to understand what the other person is saying.
Whipping boy, Ron Yezzi, Jan 20, 1982
When conservatives want a government whipping boy, they usually cast their eyes on the U.S. Postal Service. Warren Greeley’s Jan. 13 letter is no exception. The waste and inefficiency of the post office is one more of those treasured myths held by conservatives to keep reality at a distance.
The wonder of the post office is not its waste and inefficiency. The wonder is that it does as well as it does. I cannot think of a single organization that has a more monumental task. The post office is expected to deliver unlimited amounts of mail quickly and conveniently to anyone anywhere in the country about six days a week, 52 weeks a year. In 1979, the post office handled 99.8 billion pieces of mail, up from 27.7 billion in 1940.
Regarding efficiency, readers may be interested in some data from the Statistical Abstract of the United States 1980. Between 1950 and 1979, the total number of postal service employees increased by 32.2 percent while the pieces of mail handled increased by 121.2 percent. The average number of pieces of mail handled per employee per year increased from 90,000 to 151,000 — or 67.7 percent.
During this period, the post office has also had to cope with social
factors such as movement to the suburbs, increased vacations, more frequent changes of address — all of which increase labor, equipment, and energy costs.
Like any other organization or individual, of course, the post office could do better,
Is there any hard evidence though that postal workers are lazier, more inefficient, more wasteful, and more discourteous than workers in any other occupation? These words surely don’t seem to describe the postal workers in the Mankato area.
As for wage increases, why single out postal workers as a group just because they demand their share of what passes for The American Dream in a commercial, consumption-oriented society? And if a movie-acting couple can have thousand-dollar boots and designer gowns without being considered greedy, why dump on postal workers who will settle for much, much less?
We all know about the greater efficiency of United Parcel Service. But do we ever wonder why UPS doesn’t have an office open to the public for nine hours a day in downtown Mankato? UPS specializes in professionally wrapped, commercial packages likely to be sent in bulk mailings.
Do we ever realize that UPS is more efficient than most other corporations as well?
For example, as an incentive for efficiency UPS requires that all stock be owned by managers and supervisors. And it depends upon its reputation for efficiency rather than upon advertising.
Seen any UPS commercials lately? How many corporations imitate UPS in these ways?
Topics
My First Free Press Op Ed (1)
International Issues (4)
Local Issues (2)
Your View: Men past their prime, Ron Yezzi, March 26, 1970
As a philosopher (one who dearly loves the Greeks), I honor any man who quotes Aristotle. In the interest of fair play, however, you may be interested to know the sentence immediately preceding the passage you quoted in your recent column:
“They [the young] are shy, accepting the rules of society in which they have been trained, and not yet believing in any other standard of honour.”
We might well wonder why young people are not shy and do not accept the “rules of society in which they have been trained.”
Perhaps the young have lost faith in older men who, through lack of wisdom, support and defend immoral actions like the Vietnam war.
Your readers might also be interested in knowing what Aristotle has to say in the following chapter (13) of the Rhetoric about Elderly Men:
“They are cynical: that is, they tend to put the worst construction on everything . . . They are small-minded, because they have been humbled by life: their desires are set upon nothing more exalted or unusual than what will help them to keep alive . . . They are not shy, but shameless rather: caring less for what is noble than for what is useful, they feel contempt for what people may think of them. They lack confidence in the future; partly through experience— for most things go wrong, or anyhow turn out worse than one expects; and partly because of their cowardice. They live by memory rather than by hope; for what is left to them of life is but little as compared with the long past; and hope is of the future, memory of the past.”
Aristotle prefers the judgments of men in their prime.
Before your readers judge Aristotle, I think that they should remember that the Rhetoric (from which these passages are taken) is a handbook for public speaking and is not a treatise on ethics. If anyone is interested in Aristotle’s ethical judgments, I would refer them to the Nicomachean Ethics and his Politics,
I suspect that those who do read Aristotle’s ethical works would derive scant comfort in judging their own lives. I also suspect that more of them would give public support to those ads opposing the Vietnam war.
Please forgive my intellectualizing and remember that, according to Aristotle, my body is in its prime, but by mind must wait until I’m about 49.
Ronald Yezzi
Assistant Professor of Philosophy
Mankato State College
Your View: Nixon will not change course, everyone suffers[RY], RonYezzi, submitted April 18, 1972
Richard Nixon does not want to be the first president to preside over an American defeat; but he is willing to be the first president to act Like Attila the Hun,
I seriously doubt that the president places any limit on the number of human lives he is willing to sacrifice in order to establish a non-communist ally in the southern part of Vietnam. Misguided U.S. foreign policy is already responsible, directly or indirectly, for the deaths of one to two million human beings in Southeast Asia. The President’s devotion to massive bombing only shows his willingness to cause many more deaths—of Asians, preferably.
As usual, Richard Nixon pursues his policy by deceiving the American people and by outwilling his critics. Ignoring the steady destruction of national spirit entailed by his policy, we must grant it some chance of success— unless the Congress and the American people pressure him. to act differently.
Your View: Time against Nixon, Ron Yezzi, 1971
One clear strategic result emerged during President Nixon’s Laotian invasion: Even with massive U.S. air, artillery, and logistical support, the Saigon government’s best troops cannot hold military positions against a determined effort by North Vietnamese soldiers.
As usual, administration officials will try to hide this major failure of “Vietnamization.” They may convince many Americans; but they will not convince the Saigon government troops retreating from Laos.
Administration officials must wish that they could win the war in Southeast Asia as easily as they can win a propaganda war in the United States. The President successfully backed anti-war people up against the wall: Given the present withdrawal rate, no normal political protest against the war and what it stands for is effective. Moreover, the President holds anti-war people very firmly by the throat: If they break the law, then they are anarchists or traitors; if they do not break the law, then they show silent support for his policies.
It happens, however, that time has Richard Nixon up against the wall; and time has him very firmly by the throat. Every day that the war continues, the President lessens the allegiance and respect of those persons most seriously concerned with the nation’s future. Even an apparently affable President in a TV conversation cannot hide from serious persons the shaky, swerving arguments used to support massive death and destruction in Southeast Asia.
To anyone interested in some serious thinking, I recommend Noam Chomsky’s At War With Asia.
Your View: Questions perspective, Ron Yezzi, 1970?
Questions perspective
All Mankatoans should thank Gen. Maxwell Taylor. He shows us how generals think. Of the Southeast Asian War, General Taylor says, “There’s really no military activity going on of any significance now” (Free Press, Oct. 21.)
Since the State of Minnesota is larger than all South Vietnam, I propose that the U.S. military should transfer its operations in S. Vietnam to Minnesota — for one day. Then we can invite General Taylor back to explain what constitutes “significant military activity.”
Personally, I doubt that he would show up.
Your View: Anarchy and Vietnam, Ron Yezzi, 1970
If President Nixon's desperate gamble with American lives in Cambodia fails, he not only will become a one-term president but also he will do far more to move this country toward anarchy than the burning of any college building.
The President's well-meaning practice of covering deceit with patriotism in his war speeches works only so long as he can count upon the ignorance of a majority of Americans. Abraham Lincoln notwithstanding, Mr. Nixon's low opinion of their intelligence, interests, and capacities may be correct. But he plays a dangerous game. Tf the “great silent majority" overcome their ignorance, the result will be a severe loss of confidence in the government and an. increasing susceptibility to anarchy.
If the President’s desperate gamble succeeds and he achieves a “just peace" wot bin a year (or even two years), then many of us who oppose the war, with considerable shock and chagrin, will have to admit to our misiudgments of the North Vietnamese. This particular war will be just as immoral and just as harmful to the best interests of the U. S. as it ever was; but we will have to admit to overrating the ability and determination of the North Vietnamese. In the unlikely event that we did overrate them, we still will have learned a significant lesson about the powerful alliance between ignorance and immorality.
Although there exists a strong temptation to “wash one's hands" now, it is to be hoped, instead, that people in this area will publicly declare their opposition to the war and that Mankato Citizens for Peace will redouble their efforts.
Your View: Questions perspective, Ron Yezzi, Oct., 1970?
All Mankatoans should thank Gen. Maxwell Taylor. He shows us how generals think. Of the Southeast Asian War, General Taylor says, “There’s really no military activity going on of any significance now” (Free Press, Oct. 21.)
Since the State of Minnesota is larger than all South Vietnam, I propose that the U.S. military should transfer its operations in S. Vietnam to Minnesota — for one day. Then we can invite General Taylor back to explain what constitutes “significant military activity.”
Personally, I doubt that he would show up.
Your View: The good ship 'Titanic,' Ron Yezzi, Oct.26, 1974
Surely, subscribers to The Free Press deserve better reading than the editorial of Oct. 22.
Regarding the grape-lettuce boycott at the University of Minnesota, the editorial argues that members of the university community need not abide by the results of a referendum on the issue — since only 5 per cent of the student population voted.
In passing, the editorial also 1) asserts that “detached neutrality is the only means by which a college or university can keep its wits about it,” and 2) accuses faculty and administrators of “selling out their principles” because of fear — during the late 60s and early 70s.
Such comments do not show much thought.
With respect to the stated attitudes toward a referendum in democratic societies, consistency seems to demand that the Free Press publish, along with all voting results, the ratio of actual voters to adult citizens. Then, whenever the percentage turnout is low, readers can determine for themselves the acceptability of policies voted on in a referendum or approved by elected officials. Moreover, a future editorial should point out that local residents need not abide by school board decisions — since voter turnout for elections of board members is notoriously low.
As for the reflections upon the nature of higher education, they seem to be vacuously vague or scandalously inept.
To do nothing about serious matters when your knowledge demands action is not “detached neutrality;” it is intellectual cowardice. And institutions which breed intellectual cowardice offer students a poor education.
To show humane concern in times of social crisis is not the “selling out” of principles due to fear.
Further, to lay bare the moral bankruptcy of the Vietnam war, the corrupting injustices of capitalist society, the existence of racism, the disregard for the environment, the dangers of uncontrolled technological development, the suppression of individual rights, and the tenets of Nixonism is not the “selling out” of principles.
If Americans applaud the current social impotence and all too prevalent intellectual stagnation in the universities, then they run the risk of enjoying themselves too long at the ball, on the ‘good ship’ Titanic.
Your View: Socialism for rich, Ron Yezzi, early 1970s
If the cities of Mankato and North Mankato buy the Ice Palace, it will be a splendid example of “socialism for the rich.”
Before local governments lay out any tax money, they should take a survey to determine the average incomes of families presently making use of the Ice Palace. (Note that I say “average” incomes so someone will not say, “I know John Doe who only makes $10,000 per year, but . . .”) I am confident that these average incomes are higher than the average incomes for all families in the Mankato-North Mankato area.
As a season ticketholder to MSU games and as a parent of a son going through the MARC program, I happen to like hockey very much. But I don’t see why the majority of taxpayers who are unenthusiastic about hockey and those with lesser incomes should foot the bill.
I worry that financially well-off members of the community who happen also to be influential locally will exert undue pressure on local governments here. I also worry that massive expenditure for purchase of the Ice Palace will lead to cutbacks with respect to the outdoor rinks, which are more conveniently available for everyone.
There are good reasons to keep the Ice Palace going. But the people who use it most should pay for it, I think. And I do have a suggestion.
Families should pledge the equivalent of what they spend to use the Ice Palace and to support skating for their families. If a couple just holds season tickets to MSU games, then they would pledge an additional $50 or so per year. If a family does it all — season tickets, season passes, skating lessons, summer hockey camp, MARC fees, traveling team fees, skates, equipment, etc. — and the cost goes over a thousand dollars, then they should pledge the equivalent per year.
In effect, this would double the costs for those who enjoy the Ice Palace. But it would also place the burden where it belongs.