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thatcrazycajunWhat follows is the text of a letter I sent to our local paper regarding a letter from a reader printed in today's dead-tree edition (the website's "Letters to the Editor" section is about a day behind). Due to their 150-word limit on letters, it will be severely bowdlerized if it appears in print at all, so I am posting it here to get it off my chest. (Responses welcomed, even from conservatives who feel I've maligned them unfairly--yes, a_phoenix_afire, I'm looking at you. :-) )
a_phoenix_afire, I'm looking at you. :-) )—————
George Mitchell's letter in the Sunday 9/16 edition of your paper, ranting about what it supposedly means to be a liberal (which I am), has me so furious at all his blatant falsehoods, I don't know where to begin responding. So let's take it in the order of his listed claims:
"Once you become a liberal, you can wax eloquent on the glories of the public schools while sending your kids to private school."
I don't have any children (that I know of, anyhow)...and if I did, they would be in public school--with additional tutoring and involvement by me and their mother(s) as needed. And I would be, and am, demanding teachers be paid better and given all the money for supplies they need, and adequately sized, safe buildings in which to hold their classes. What I don't believe in is defunding public schools to pay for parents like him to take their kids to parochial schools, then claim that they were right when the public schools fail to perform adequately on the reduced funds. Conservatives always like to say throwing money at the problem hasn't helped; of course it doesn't help if you don't throw it at the right parts of the problem!
"You can wax about the greedy rich while making a fortune on the side."
I have nobody's idea of anywhere near a "fortune" in the bank, and I have never said that all rich people were greedy and/or evil. They run in about the same proportion of good to evil as the rest of society, I find.
"You can buy 'carbon credits' while you fly in your private jet and ride in your chauffeured limo."
Again, none of the above is true in my case. Is Mitchell thinking of so-called "limousine liberals" like Michael Moore or Al Gore? If so, I would think he'd be glad to see them at least making an effort to offset their consumption in some way. Or is it really that Mitchell resents being asked to do his part to clean up the mess he helped make -- by anyone, famous or not?
"You can even use the government to impose your values willy-nilly—from racial quotas and confiscatory tax rates to draconian environmental policies and sex-ed for grade schoolers—all of which will be paid for by people who disagree with you."
Last I checked, racial quotas and sex-ed were both being shut down all over the place by courts, politicians and administrators, at the behest of "movement" conservatives and the religious right. I only wish we liberals were as effective in "using government to impose our values" on society! And isn't this what private-school vouchers (which I'd bet real money Mitchell favors) would do: force people who object to the religious indoctrination of helpless children to pay for it? (Or does he claim parochial schools wouldn't get any of that cash?) In any case, I certainly don't espouse sex-ed below 8th grade; but not having it at least by then dangerously ignores the reality displayed in survey after survey by both sides of how early/often teenagers are "doing it." As for the rest, I suspect we disagree on what constitutes "draconian" environmental policies or "confiscatory" taxation, and that he would set the bar much lower than I would on both counts.
"There was a time when a 'liberal education' meant a broadening of horizons. Now, to be a liberal means that you've taken on the mantle of ever-tightening, government-imposed restrictions: from narrowing acceptable speech to ever-more impositions upon gun ownership to increasing taxation."
I do not advocate any of the above, and never have (aside from a reasonable check of medical history and criminal background, to prevent any more like VTech psycho-killer Seung-Hui Cho from buying guns). As for Mitchell's claim of confiscatory tax rates, he evidently has never been to Europe, where nations such as France routinely tax their citizens' income as much as 50 percent. Trust me on this, Mr. Mitchell: if you've only ever lived in this country, you don't know from "confiscatory" tax rates. We get off easy in the USA.
"To be a liberal means that your goal in life is the amassing and consolidating of power for its own sake. To be a liberal means that the Constitution's 10 specific, written prohibitions against government's expansion are to be ignored or reinterpreted according to the whims of the moment."
Excuse me, Mr. Mitchell, but OUR side is not the one that's been doing these things the past six years. Liberals didn't gut habeas corpus, initiate warrantless wiretapping of citizens, jail people without charge or access to courts for years on end, fire people for refusing to violate the law to suit a partisan agenda, out their covert-agent spouses for expressing public dissent, or issue "signing statements" justifying Presidential ignoring of key parts of Congressionally passed legislation. Your buddy George W. Bush and his regime have done all of these and worse.
Mr. Mitchell either has never met an average, "man on the street" liberal and is writing out of resentment and ignorance; or he is deliberately misrepresenting what we liberals believe in order to advance his agenda. I could make similar hyperbolic statements about what conservatives supposedly believe -- but I will not, because I happen to know too many good and decent conservatives, both in the news media and in my own personal life, to be so deluded. (Some of them are even in my own family.) I emphatically object to their being the only ones allowed to run things, but unlike Mitchell, I don't see them all as monsters to be demonized.
Signed,
TCC
George Mitchell's letter in the Sunday 9/16 edition of your paper, ranting about what it supposedly means to be a liberal (which I am), has me so furious at all his blatant falsehoods, I don't know where to begin responding. So let's take it in the order of his listed claims:
"Once you become a liberal, you can wax eloquent on the glories of the public schools while sending your kids to private school."
I don't have any children (that I know of, anyhow)...and if I did, they would be in public school--with additional tutoring and involvement by me and their mother(s) as needed. And I would be, and am, demanding teachers be paid better and given all the money for supplies they need, and adequately sized, safe buildings in which to hold their classes. What I don't believe in is defunding public schools to pay for parents like him to take their kids to parochial schools, then claim that they were right when the public schools fail to perform adequately on the reduced funds. Conservatives always like to say throwing money at the problem hasn't helped; of course it doesn't help if you don't throw it at the right parts of the problem!
"You can wax about the greedy rich while making a fortune on the side."
I have nobody's idea of anywhere near a "fortune" in the bank, and I have never said that all rich people were greedy and/or evil. They run in about the same proportion of good to evil as the rest of society, I find.
"You can buy 'carbon credits' while you fly in your private jet and ride in your chauffeured limo."
Again, none of the above is true in my case. Is Mitchell thinking of so-called "limousine liberals" like Michael Moore or Al Gore? If so, I would think he'd be glad to see them at least making an effort to offset their consumption in some way. Or is it really that Mitchell resents being asked to do his part to clean up the mess he helped make -- by anyone, famous or not?
"You can even use the government to impose your values willy-nilly—from racial quotas and confiscatory tax rates to draconian environmental policies and sex-ed for grade schoolers—all of which will be paid for by people who disagree with you."
Last I checked, racial quotas and sex-ed were both being shut down all over the place by courts, politicians and administrators, at the behest of "movement" conservatives and the religious right. I only wish we liberals were as effective in "using government to impose our values" on society! And isn't this what private-school vouchers (which I'd bet real money Mitchell favors) would do: force people who object to the religious indoctrination of helpless children to pay for it? (Or does he claim parochial schools wouldn't get any of that cash?) In any case, I certainly don't espouse sex-ed below 8th grade; but not having it at least by then dangerously ignores the reality displayed in survey after survey by both sides of how early/often teenagers are "doing it." As for the rest, I suspect we disagree on what constitutes "draconian" environmental policies or "confiscatory" taxation, and that he would set the bar much lower than I would on both counts.
"There was a time when a 'liberal education' meant a broadening of horizons. Now, to be a liberal means that you've taken on the mantle of ever-tightening, government-imposed restrictions: from narrowing acceptable speech to ever-more impositions upon gun ownership to increasing taxation."
I do not advocate any of the above, and never have (aside from a reasonable check of medical history and criminal background, to prevent any more like VTech psycho-killer Seung-Hui Cho from buying guns). As for Mitchell's claim of confiscatory tax rates, he evidently has never been to Europe, where nations such as France routinely tax their citizens' income as much as 50 percent. Trust me on this, Mr. Mitchell: if you've only ever lived in this country, you don't know from "confiscatory" tax rates. We get off easy in the USA.
"To be a liberal means that your goal in life is the amassing and consolidating of power for its own sake. To be a liberal means that the Constitution's 10 specific, written prohibitions against government's expansion are to be ignored or reinterpreted according to the whims of the moment."
Excuse me, Mr. Mitchell, but OUR side is not the one that's been doing these things the past six years. Liberals didn't gut habeas corpus, initiate warrantless wiretapping of citizens, jail people without charge or access to courts for years on end, fire people for refusing to violate the law to suit a partisan agenda, out their covert-agent spouses for expressing public dissent, or issue "signing statements" justifying Presidential ignoring of key parts of Congressionally passed legislation. Your buddy George W. Bush and his regime have done all of these and worse.
Mr. Mitchell either has never met an average, "man on the street" liberal and is writing out of resentment and ignorance; or he is deliberately misrepresenting what we liberals believe in order to advance his agenda. I could make similar hyperbolic statements about what conservatives supposedly believe -- but I will not, because I happen to know too many good and decent conservatives, both in the news media and in my own personal life, to be so deluded. (Some of them are even in my own family.) I emphatically object to their being the only ones allowed to run things, but unlike Mitchell, I don't see them all as monsters to be demonized.
Signed,
TCC
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no subject
Date: 2007-09-17 12:07 am (UTC)His entire argument seems to revolve around not admitting that most of what Bush has done he has done under false pretenses.
The rational of once done is done doesn't apply.
BonaFide disagreement
Date: 2007-09-17 12:45 am (UTC)I would point out that I think the guy is attacking the leaders of the Dem party and Lib movement, and only attacking by extension, the people who support them. It's one of the reasons I try to attack the rhetoric and not the individual. Sometimes I fail, but that's the high ground I aim for.
no subject
Date: 2007-09-17 01:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-09-19 06:29 am (UTC)Why? And, perhaps more importantly, "what"?
For point of reference, our Orthodox Jewish but Coed day school starts sex ed for girls in fifth grade and for boys in sixth. Why, because trying to do it jointly prompts a lot of giggling and immature behavior and shutting down of necessary discussion. And while many girls in fifth grade are already starting to change physically (and emotionally), the vast majority of boys aren't until 6th grade.
But the arguments you present are general ones for sex ed. The question of when and how to introduce sex ed, and how you follow up, makes a huge difference.
From what I can tell, most sex ed curricula are (a) one shots with no reenforcement on any of the lessons taught; (b) do absolutely no tracking for effectiveness; and (c) do not even have well articulated goals. Prevent teen pregnancies and STDs appears to be the only agreed on goal, and even that appears up in the air.
I recognize that the reality gets controversial, but I never see anything that remotely resembles anything like a real theory in this discussion that matches the thought and theory that goes into a math curriculum or English.
So while I'm not averse to "sex ed" (whatever it means) before 8th grade any more than I am averse to introducing geometry before 8th grade, a theory on why and what exactly one expects to accomplish is needed.
no subject
Date: 2007-09-19 06:33 am (UTC)I'm also not sure what "Ten specific written prohbitions against government's expansion of power" he means. Has any liberal seriously proposed we quarter troops in violation of the 3rd Amendment? And I expect that most conservatives think Liberals are way to easy on Amendment's 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8. And I know most conservatives dislike Amendment 9 and its all too broef application in Grisewald v. CN.