Synonyms: correct, right
Like collectivists everywhere, liberal writer Bob Williams (Jan.10) seems to manifest a visceral hostility to the freedom of individual citizens to direct their own economic destinies responsibly.
The suggested privatization in Social Security is entirely voluntary and would involve only a small fraction of the whole, but he views it too risky to permit people to manage any part of their own funds.
After describing what is a Ponzi scheme, Williams is alarmed that Social Security privatization looks like one. His fear seems bizarre, since the entire existing Social Security program already is a pyramid (Ponzi) scheme. It has been from the beginning, as it depends on an ever-expanding pool of workers to provide benefits for an ever-increasing group of retirees.
The only difference between an illegal private pyramid scheme and the Social Security pyramid is that the government can change the rules at any time, regardless of prior promises.
During the 1930s debate over the proposed Social Security legislation, proponents vehemently denied that the wage money withheld was a "tax". It was not welfare, but was to be purely a government assisted
"insurance" program to help wage earners of modest income to supplement their own retirement assets.
The program did not apply to those who were self-employed in business and professions, because they could readily provide for themselves.
As the need has increased for additional funding for Social Security, the combined employer/employee contributions have been raised, both in the percentage withheld, and the total income from which it is derived. It has now reached about 12.5% on an income base of $90,000, and no one any longer denies that it is a "payroll tax".
In the 1960s our government showed its warm concern for the well being of all of its citizens by bringing the self employed into the program, largely against their will. Any who attempted to evade the government's loving protection could anticipate lengthy confinement in Leavenworth.
What of the future? I believe that it is unlikely that Bush's Social Security privatization will pass. The AARP and other leftist opponents have conducted an effective campaign of scare tactics. I do not think that the system will literally go broke. I suspect that the percentage of funding taxes will be raised continually and eventually it will be applied to all income, of any level. One AARP consultant has said that it is time to consider "targeting" pension payments to those whose need is greatest, not distributing them equally to every retiree.
If that occurs, the system is no longer "insurance" at all, but has become a transfer of wealth from those have earned it to those who have not. It then becomes "welfare" regardless of the denials of its 1930s proponents.
January 2005
In his KQMS interview with Ken Murray last week, the new BLM area manager Steven Anderson seemed to confirm the original impression that he had arrived with an attitude and an agenda. It serves to explain his immediate cancellation of the Redding Gun Club firing range application, which had been in the process for many years.
In anticipation of the program, there had been a small sidewalk demonstration that morning at the BLM office, which he rather disdainfully dismissed as insignificant in a county of 200,000 population. The Redding Gun Club numbers about 400, but they are family memberships, with multiple participants. Including guests, non-member shooters and law enforcement officers, actual users constitute several times that number.
Anderson declared that his sole interest was in proper management of the BLM lands, within the scope of the recreational multiple use plan. He does not explain why his view is radically different from his BLM predecessors, who had indicated that a firing range was appropriate.
Displaying a truly cavalier attitude, he said that since he had denied the Redding Gun Club application, it should simply seek out a location elsewhere, as had he and his wife. They had invested in two coffee shops in Washington, and when their first location choices were denied, they found others.
Any sizeable city will have scores of suitable coffee shop locations. It is preposterous to equate that with the search for a firing range site, which requires several hundred acres, with surrounding buffer zones for safety and isolation.
Everyone recognizes the adroitness with which accomplished bureaucrats can interpose obstacles to any program not to their liking. It is the disease of Bureaucratic Arrogance, an affliction which Mr.Anderson seems to manifest.
July 2004
There has been only limited public discussion of Proposition 54, which prohibits state and local governments from categorizing people by race, ethnicity or national origin. It contains specific exemptions in law enforcement and medical situations. Despite that, opponents claim that without racial labeling, disease processes would remain undiagnosed and untreated.
As a physician, I can state that diagnoses and treatment decisions are never based solely on group identity, but on individual patient history, physical examination and laboratory findings.
Many opponents seem to be those ideologues who insist that race, gender and ethnicity determine everything: one's role in life, experiences, victimhood, beliefs and attitudes. Humans have been enthusiastically mixing their genes throughout all history, so group boundaries are indistinct, and happily will become increasingly irrelevant.
If a private employer seeks racial or ethnic data on job applicants, severe penalties will ensue, for the evil of racism. Why should it be viewed as good and wholesome when government applies racial categorizations, which eventually result in treating citizens unequally before the law?
I think it is folly for government to concentrate on the superficialities of color and ethnicity, and hope that greater social harmony will result. In actual fact, it perpetrates divisiveness, aggravating group resentments and hostilities.
Government should get out of the practice of race labeling.
Vote "yes" on Proposition 54.
October 2003
Editor: The article, "Oscar victors pave way for minorities," is troubling. It implies strongly that nonwhite performers have been systemically excluded from Academy Awards because of race. That thesis seems difficult to sustain, given the overwhelmingly liberal makeup of the entertainment industry.
We are informed that Halle Berry's father is black, and her mother is white. Why then is it necessary to identify her as "black" rather than white? Isn't it enough to honor her as a talented actress who performed a role brilliantly?
This instant and pervasive race labeling is unpleasantly reminiscent of the bad old days in the segregated South, where "one drop of black blood" made one black, regardless of ancestry. Even worse was the obscenity of apartheid in South Africa, where fractional race ancestry determined one's occupation, place to live and even spouse.
I think that racism as an inflammatory and divisive issue is perpetuated more by those who persist in categorizing everyone in our society by racial/ethnic labels, groups with competing claims for advantage, than it is by the idiot fringe of skinheads and white supremacists.
Berry won because she was good, not because she was either black or white or in between.
March 2002
