Stephen L. Goldstein The Sun-Sentinel

February 14, 2010

Stephen L. Goldstein
The Sun-Sentinel
200 East Las Olas Boulevard
Fort Lauderdale, Florida 33301

RE: Some comments on your wished for surge – if only this one could be as successful as the one orchestrated by President Bush in Iraq – in the never ending War on Poverty in which the lack of an exit strategy is conveniently overlooked. It is the column in which you speak ex cathedra after direct communication from the God of Good Intentions.

My dear Professor,

You say,

“Some people will brand my suggestions
naïve, socialistic – and laughable.”

Further, you say,

“Poverty is the reason for most, if not all
of our pressing issues.”

As to your first quote…

Of course it is “naïve”.

What’s the sense of being a card carrying modern American Liberal unless you can wallow in naïveté buoyed only by the hope that you can make it into public policy? The sooner you doubt Orwell’s adage that “stones are hard, water is wet”, the quicker you will believe that the laws governing gravity are optional. From there it is easy to believe that government has the answers to questions that haven’t even be asked.

Of course it is “socialistic”.

We know that “any public policy that involves robbing Peter to pay Paul will always have Paul’s support”. We know that modern American Liberals hope that that will never change. We know that Robert Owen and Norman Thomas are still held in high esteem by people who believe that “Midnight Basketball” is good public policy. Supposedly rational adults who believe that a country can tax its way to prosperity should not be allowed to operate heavy machinery or handle sharp objects. That they today constitute a majority of both Houses of Congress and occupy the White House is proof that God does have a sense of whimsy.



Of course it is “laughable”.

Swift is laugh out laugh out loud funny. The part about boiling babies is a real knee slapper. Bastiat’s “Broken Window” theory of Economics as outlined in his “Petition of the Candle Makers to Block out the Sun” can cause terminal enuresis. Your screeds don’t fall into that category. The “laughable” part is that you believe them. How many people have died in the futile attempt to remake society by remaking human nature?

The 3 leading Socialists of the 20th century – Stalin, Hitler, and Mao – killed 100,000,000 people. Despite Walter Duranty’s lies as many as 6,000,000 Kulaks died for Stalin’s blueprint for the new man. Hitler put 12,000,000 people into the ovens. Mao did his killing before the rise of the hand held calculator. The AFL-CIO estimated that he killed 40,000,000 to 50,000,000 people. I know that they aren’t laughing.

If, as you say, “Poverty is the reason for most, if not all, of our pressing issues” could you explain why the crime rate went down in the 1930s? You may recall that unemployment rates reached 30%. At one point 20% of the mortgages in this country were in foreclosure. Al Capone, James Cagney, and John Dillinger were crooks. America never resembled Beirut or East Los Angeles. Despite fireside chats, alphabet agencies, and noble intentions economic indices were lower in 1939 then they were in 1933. The crime rate decreased every year. Why?

Lyndon Johnson fought 2 wars.

At least the one in Asia ended.

The war against poverty goes on and on and on and on.

How many people were “poor” when Johnson declared war on poverty? How many people are “poor” 45 years after the “shock and awe” phase of the war? Would not the History of the past 45 years suggest that the treatments, rather than helping the patients, are hurting them?

Only in the dream world occupied by mush brained modern American Liberals does “hope triumph over experience” over and over and over and over again.

You say that “the state needs to set the pace and priorities for private philanthropy to fund”. Only large amounts of gin for breakfast will produce sentences like that.

It took 5 days for 4 levels of government tot get a truck filled with water into New Orleans. If they were in charge of D-Day the official language of France would be German.

Does the Department of Agriculture “grow” anything? How many barrels of oil has the Department of Energy produced in 35 years? The Department of Energy is more than 30 years old. Can Johnny read better today? HUD is the largest slum lord in the country. If History is a guide these things are not the exception; they are the rule.

The best news for lovers of liberty and defenders of freedom was the blizzard in Washington. The place was shut down for a week. Jefferson’s indictment of the King included the statement that “he has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers, to harass our people, and eat out their substance”. 5 days without those “little dogs” nipping at your ankles could be near orgasmic. A week without those lamprey-like parasites is like a week in Elysium

[A serendipitous bonus is that the tautologies of Global Warming are harder to swallow when you are up to your tuchis in snow.]

You say that the same people who gave, give, will give us the Post Office, the IRS, the Department of Motor Vehicles, “shovel ready” for the asinine term of the year, and then label it as Hope and Change are better suited to tell people how and to whom to give their money.

Madness.

No wonder you always express your support for absolutely unlimited abortion.

If you were a woman you’d always be pregnant.

Kevin Smith

PS – I grant you a respite from my enfilade of History and Logic. I am giving you up for Lent. You may stick your head out of the foxhole until noon on Easter Sunday