Stephen L. Goldstein The Sun-Sentinel

November 28, 2010

Stephen L. Goldstein
The Sun-Sentinel
200 E Las Olas Blvd
Ft. Lauderdale, FL. 33301

RE: GOVERNMENT ENEMY? “Federal Initiatives Help Us All” – Bless you. I finished your column and I stopped drinking my breakfast Gin.

My dear Professor,

If I understand your premise correctly you say that all good things come from the Government, a Government run by Democrats. Further, you say that all bad things come from selfish “malefactors of great wealth”. They are usually Republican with the exception of that old corsair, Joe Kennedy. I can’t leave Senator Jay Forbes Kerry off the list and it wouldn’t be complete without George Soros, a real sweetheart.

And now I know why baloney rejects the grinder.

You list 7 reasons why we would still be stinkers if it weren’t for our pals in D.C.

Here is my starting point.

In my lifetime, up to the arrival of the great Reagan, the United States Government did 2 things superbly well.

#1 – Fighting World War 2.
#2 – Being the General Contractor of the moon shot.

You say that the Feds gave us the Internet. Alas, you are spending too much time swooning over the speeches of former Vice President Alpha Gump. Since imitation is the most sincere form of flattery your predilection to be a HORSE’S ASS is understandable. Can you tell me which Federal agency Bill Gates or Andy Grove worked for? I think we can rule out the Post Office, can’t we?

Would it be fair to blame the National Hurricane Center for rising insurance rates? It is true that some of their employees fly into storms endangering their lives. For this they deserve our thanks. Does that mean we can expect a column praising our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan?

Your praise of the Interstate Highway System needs some fleshing out.






General MacArthur asked his clerk, Captain Eisenhower, to find out how long it would take to move a completely outfitted division across the country. Infantry, artillery, armor, trucks, field galleys, field hospitals. From ocean to ocean. When would it be ready to fight? “6 weeks”, was the answer. “Weather permitting”, was the codicil.

Thus, when the automobile industry, the oil industry, the agricultural community, the retail industry – Let me tell you that the common denominator here is Jobs, “Shovel ready jobs” – were looking to expand – That is to say more Jobs – they found a friendly ear in the White House.

It is bitter gall indeed for a modern American Liberal to credit pursuers of filthy lucre as getting Florida out of its “backwater” status. Your disdain for developers “making billions” is automatic and reflexive. It is also asinine. Why would I build a hotel if there were no way to get to it? Eleemosynary motivation is fine if you are a discalced mendicant. It’s not what makes the dog hunt. Only someone who believes that raising taxes in a recession is sound public policy would expect these things to appear as if they had sprung fully grown from Zeus’s forehead.

You mention the Intracoastal Waterway as if it was a by-product of a storm several centuries ago. Missing in your assessment is the simple fact that the citizens of the United States wanted it and paid for it. Your penance for being so uninformed is to read what Kipling thought of military engineers. He called them “sappers”.

I hope you know that your support of the Intracoastal leads to an increased use of fossil fuels, Global Warming, and drowning polar bears. Plus, you are putting our manatees at risk. And here I thought you were just another mush brained bleeding heart Liberal. I’m sorry.

In New Jersey, where I was born and raised, the Everglades would be called by its rightful name, a swamp. In New Jersey it would be sacred what with Tony Soprano using it as his corporate burial plot. The casinos would be run by Indians named Vito and Nunzio. At least we would be spared the crap about the great Manitou decreeing that slot machines provide a “green” environment. The food would be better too.

Do you remember “mad cow” disease? I suggested bringing them from England. Release them halfway across Alligator Alley as an environmentally friendly, not to mention being the ultimate in recycling, way to give the endangered Florida panther, a cursory hunter. a better shot at survival.

When Margery Stoneman Douglas died, and may I add that while she is not in the class of 20th century female fakers, chicks such as Margaret Sanger, Margaret Mead, and Rachel Carson she gave it a good shot, I suggested that she be strapped into a floating funeral pyre so that her last full measure of devotion would also give her furry and finned friends a final meal.

That one failed to gain traction.

Given the choice of rejecting Federal [read taxpayer] money or doing nothing at all for Everglades restoration I am on the side of the Angels Let nature reign! While we’re at it, let’s shoot all the alligators. How my life style is enhanced by having an 8 foot bull gator eat my dog and eyeball my 3 year old is beyond me. There is a case to be made for raising boa constrictors so we can have an alternative to Obama Death Panels. Python wrestling for Seniors will go a long way to cutting back on senior surgery.

If there is any “shovel ready” loot still left use it to fund private ownership of alligators. Unlike Beaujolais there is no need to create demand. Alligator meat, alligator shoes, and alligator luggage guarantee that buyers abound. Let the private sector take over from PETA unless you think the gropers at the TSA could do a better job.

There is a scene in “The Right Stuff” that shows President Eisenhower, after listening to some academic prattle about what type of Americans should go into space, says “Get me some jet pilots”.

Churchill we had to go to the moon to use it as a forward base for going to Mars.

And this was before the Military/Industrial complex!

NASA didn’t invent anything. They figured out what they wanted and they put it out for bid. One of the original astronauts was suppose to have said he soon would be going 18,000 miles per hour on a machine put together by the lowest bidders.

You speak of desegregation as if it occurred in a vacuum.

Start with 600,000 Americans dead in a war to free the slaves. Surely that must count for something. I have a relative who stepped off into the Wheat Field on July 2, 1863. He is still at Gettysburg, “wrapped in his faded coat of Blue”.

It is well to note that it was a Republican President who made a Republican Governor the head of the Supreme Court. This Judge was able to mold a unanimous legal opinion about school segregation. 4 years later it was the same Republican President who sent the United States Army into Arkansas to enforce that law. It was vehemently opposed by a Democratic Governor. Further, for the next 15 years, a “small band of willful men”, [Senator Gore, Senator Byrd, Senator Fulbright, Senator Irvin, inter alia] spent 100% of their working hours trying to keep Black boys from going to school with White girls. Would it make me a cad to point out the overwhelming majority of Congressional opposition came from one party? Would you think ill of me if I were to point out that the named Senators were all Democrats?

You say that absent the Federal Government “we’d be living like New Orleans after hurricane Katrina – swamped by compelling needs, with no help in sight”. I suggest that it was a failure of 4 levels of government, compounded by criminally incompetent local politicians, that prevented trucks filled with water from getting over the bridge.

The lesson here is that Government does not make a people great; it is the people who make a Government great.

It is in the nature of a free people to correct their mistakes. 2 years ago this country elected a man who had never done anything in his professional life. To quote that political sage Jesse Jackson, “He never run anything but his mouth.” [He said this before he threatened to “cut his nuts off” but that’s a different story] We were told he was “clean and articulate”. Reason enough to make him President. This month we began to correct that error.

You bemoan the fact that Florida is now a one party state. I search in vain for any columns bemoaning the same set of facts for the country 2 years ago. As we began to change the country Election Day last we can do it again.

One of the “fatal conceits” of modern American Liberalism, an unfocused set of ideas that is being proved wrong on a perpetual basis, a belief system that lacking any coherent past is unprepared for the future, is that they don’t trust the people.

It was the people, not the Department of Commerce, who developed the Internet, who built the Intracoastal Waterways, who built the Interstate Highways, and went to the moon. Along the way we freed the slaves, beat polio, saved and fed the world, built the DC-3, ran the Green Bay Packer sweep, ended the scourge of Disco, beat the Russkies, and became the “shining city on the hill”.

It is in the nature of free men, who when finding an unclimbed mountain, climb it.

It is in the nature of government to tell us why we can’t climb it.

In the end, as the legendary Big Mike from Bayonne, sportsman, restaurateur, and now leading public servant, always says, “That’s why you never see anybody swimming to Cuba”.

May God continue to bless America.



Kevin Smith