Posted on 04/26/2004 5:56:43 AM PDT by weegee
SOUNDING BOARD
Now a fair, balanced liberal manifesto
By BILL COULTER
Copyright 2004 Houston Chronicle
"A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away." Barry Goldwater
Some readers, at least two or three, have complained that the Chronicle's opinion pages do not adequately express the liberal view. They're either blind or aren't reading the paper closely enough. They overlook E.J. Dionne Jr., Paul Krugman, Helen Thomas, Marianne Means, Maureen Dowd and the other liberal commentators whose work frequently appears.
Two weeks ago in this space, my friend and colleague James Howard Gibbons, a proud liberal, cobbled together something he called a conservative manifesto. He said he was doing so in the interest of fairness and balance, hoping it would be a useful summary of the agenda on the right. As a conservative, I have made a similar effort to provide a summary of the agenda on the left:
In peace, raise taxes. In war, raise taxes. The basic purpose of government is to redistribute wealth and provide for the welfare of the people. "We will spend and spend, and tax and tax and elect and elect," said Harry Hopkins, Franklin Roosevelt's top confederate in the New Deal. He knew what he was talking about.
Bush's $400 billion annual deficit is the result of giving his wealthy friends unfair tax breaks. If we stop the tax cuts, government can spend more on the poor and needy. The inequity of income between the poor and the wealthy is obscene. Even if the wealthy worked 12 hours a day, seven days a week for their money, they've got too much. "From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs" is a slogan liberals can get behind.
The Internal Revenue Service must be given more authority and personnel to root out the tax cheats and make sure all the loopholes are closed. They should increase their enforcement efforts against sneaky businesses and wealthy people who are doing anything they can to pay as little in taxes as possible. A 100 percent tax on all income over $200,000 would be a good policy.
The progressive tax on income is the fairest tax, because wealthy people are made to pay more. Proposed alternatives such as the flat tax or national consumption tax are regressive, designed by conservatives to make poor people pay more than their fair share.
Love of money is not the root of all evil. Republicans, predominantly white males of European extraction, are. Whatever is wrong in the world or in the history of this country can usually be traced back to those guys.
Illegal aliens should be welcomed to this country. In reality they are undocumented citizens who do the work most Americans won't do. They pay taxes. The nation's economy depends on undocumented citizens. The more that come, the better.
There must be no God in government. Period. Many people are terribly offended by any mention or reference in the public sector to God, and who can blame them?
It's true the Founding Fathers in 1776 signed their names to the Declaration of Independence, which recognized that certain basic rights and freedoms were given by a power higher than mankind. It stated "We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness." But that was more than 200 years ago. Most Founding Fathers also believed in the healing power of leeches.
The U.S. Constitution is a living document, meant to be bent and shaped to address whatever social goals a majority of the Supreme Court deems desirable. That is why it is imperative to keep conservative jurists off the court.
Marriage as a sacrament involving only one man and one women is an out-of-date concept some 3,000 years or 4,000 years old. Times have changed. Our country should change with them. All individuals should be entitled to marry whomever they prefer. It's about equality and tolerance. Anybody opposed to gay marriage is not only ignorant, but bigoted and intolerant.
Lack of room prevents me from listing liberal views on abortion, Big Oil, Iran-Contra, the death penalty, the legalization of drugs or SUVs. Nor is there room to go into the importance of political correctness.
Of course, liberalism is not monolithic. Not all liberals will agree with the above. Some hold ideas that are red, while others hold ideas that are only pink.
Fortunately for liberals, Americans are more and more inclined to believe the government owes them a living and should take care of their every need. That's what they are taught in public school, and that's what most politicians tell them. Democrats have become socialists and Republicans have become Democrats.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Coulter is an editorial writer and a member of the Editorial Board.
WHAT THE??????
The Chronicle can't win. Conservatives call it too liberal and the Left calls it a mouthpiece for the right.
The Carbuncle is constantly left-wing. The left whines about it being too far right to insure that not only the hard left line gets sufficient ink, but also so the extremist left gets sufficient ink.
This morning I made the stupid mistake of reading the Carbuncle's opinion section from the Sunday paper. It ranged from middle of the road to pure leftist spew. Smaller government and more freedom were nowhere to be seen.
The Chronicle can't win because it's a shill for the left. I buy it only when I want the want-ads. It certainly isn't much of a source of news.
My local rag's the same way. I've avoided it for over 10 years, but made the mistake of reading the Op-Ed page last Thanksgiving, thinking they would leave it alone for a day. Ha! What was I thinking?! Thanksgiving, the one truly American Holiday--a perfect target for a leftist newspaper.
I do get satisfaction knowing that their circulation is dismally low, and I occassionally get to unload on them when they're trying to hawk their paper at special events. One day I was walking into a supermarket and there was a guy in a suit and tie standing in fromt of a stack of newspapers. I mistakenly allowed him to catch my eye and he started his sales pitch on me. He was selling insurance and offered me a free paper if I would stick around to hear more. I laughed and told him I wouldn't use that paper to wipe my @ss. He got a frustrated look on his face and dropped his sales schtick and confided in me that he was from out of town and could I please tell him what it was with the local paper--he couldn't give it away! He said my reaction was the norm rather than the exception. That really made my day.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.