Change Could Usher in Extinction CHANGE IS in the air— or so we hear. That is the mantra. All our presidential candidates, to some extent or another, are promising change. But change to what, and for whom? Plans for additional governmental control over human activity seems to be the theme. Education and health care are major topics. Yet increasing bureaucratic involvement in these areas has resulted in poor performance, fraud and a waste of taxpayers’ dollars. Producers of current energy supplies will be hampered by more regulations and taxed to near extinction in favor of subsidized “designer” alternative fuel companies. Damn the market, the politicians and environmentalists know what is best. Do not question them, they are inspired and determined and not deterred by facts. Producers of goods and services will face energy shortages, government manipulation of the money supply and blatant political favoritism. Businesses asking for handouts will be the norm. Integrity will become an antiquated notion. Stores filled with food, clothing and consumer goods will be a thing of the past. Shortages will abound, lines will form and primitive man will emerge. We may be the most prosperous nation in history to self-destruct and the last generation to enjoy what we have today. What we eat, drink, drive and do will be controlled by our saviors. Crises will be constant and control absolute. What is left of property rights and individual liberties will finally be laid to rest. We will live in fear, unable to think beyond our own survival. As in most of the world, and throughout the history of man, life will be brutal and brief. AB
Nuclear bombs are of practically no use in the so-called war on terror. Although this is the war that we have, this is not the war that pits can be used for. Nuclear bombs cannot be used in Islamabad, or in Mosul, or to protect nightclubs in London or Bali. They can’t be used in Al Anbar province and they can’t be used—except to level the mountains—in Waziristan; they can’t be used to uncover subversive cells in the United States and they can’t be used against the Chinese or the Russians without starting a final holocaust. They aren’t practical for anything at all except as a jobs program for the defense oligarchy. …
Building bombs creates the impression of great danger. Assuming great danger gives excuse for assuming absolute authority. Assuming absolute authority, Mr. Bush regularly says that he will suspend all, or parts, of laws with which he disagrees. It does not matter that a statute has been enacted exactly as the Constitution requires; if Mr. Bush does not—or thinks he may not some time in the future—agree, he issues a signing statement saying that he will not enforce that law. In so doing he attempts to suspend, not only the law, but also Articles I and III of the Constitution which were intended to give legislative and interpretive authority to the congress and courts. He just plain, flat out, restructures government. The Boston Globe reports that he has declared his intention to suspend legislation over 1,000 times.
When the constitution of the republic is willingly overridden, when the priorities are to build bombs rather than find the water, or fund the trains, or maintain the forests, when a ruling oligarchy of defense contractors is funded while at the same time ignoring all those who actually educate, carry the rifles for, and feed our nation, ignoring all those who wrap up our wounds and inspire us with poetry and song, the time has come to find someone else to draw up the budget.
I am an atheist. As you could imagine that it is hard for one of my persuasion to want to give thanks to anybody for any reason. About a year ago I was diagnosed with CLL, one of the forms of leukemia. …
All of the above and many many more deserve my best wishes. I wish there was a Santa Claus so I could send a letter to him in your behalf.
BOB DYE
Albuquerque
I am always interested in public declarations of atheism. While there is no need to convert people to atheism, other atheists need to know it’s safe to come out and speak up. So bravo to Bob Dye for opening with that. Further, I’m very glad he has survived his cancer. (And, I add ruefully, without some sickbed conversion.)
My only quibble is as “one of (his) persuasion,” a fellow atheist: I am grateful every day. I see no reason that atheism should play any role in reticence to give thanks, to love one’s neighbors or strive to live by the Golden Rule. These are humanity’s best qualities, not god’s or religion’s. mjh
I’VE HAD IT! If you think humans are directly responsible for global warming— which we aren’t— I have a great solution: Sell your car and ride a pony to work and sell your house and live in a tent.
That way you will be doing your part while those of us who don’t believe we are responsible for global warming can keep driving our SUVs and live in warm houses. This way, global emissions will be cut and we’ll all be happy!
Come on “activists,” really do your part and sell those polluting Subarus and live in a tent. Let’s do it for the children.
CHARLES PAEZ
Albuquerque”
For the past eight years, AmeriCo has been ruled by a coalition of self-serving biznizmen and gaggle of idiots. I’m not sure which Mr. Paez is. mjh
EXCUSE ME all you politicians objecting to the Gen. David Petraeus ad. Did any of you object to one of the most vile ads of all time— Georgia Sen. Max Cleland, a triple amputee Vietnam veteran, whose opponent in a 2002 campaign ad placed his photo between images of Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein?
PEG BRINEY Roswell
It’s Not Unpatriotic To Oppose the War
WHILE I personally don’t agree with the “betray us” ad, I find it laughable that the Republicans are so outraged and injured by it. This is the exact same tactic that was used to smear one of their own in 2000, Sen. John McCain— a Vietnam POW— and also Sen. John Kerry in 2004— both decorated veterans!
Calling into question the patriotism of good, decent, patriotic Americans simply because they want to end the slaughter of our young men and women is reprehensible. Yet the Republicans continue to self-righteously accuse anyone who does not blindly and mindlessly agree with this president’s hysteria of being unpatriotic. I think their outrage comes more from the fact that this extreme left organization has taken a page straight from the Republican National Committee’s play book of dirty politics and used it brilliantly. Getting a taste of their own bitter medicine has left Republicans reeling. They don’t like it, but since they perfected the art, perhaps they should get used to it. …
But with organizations like MoveOn.org now willing to mix-it-up with them, this election cycle promises to leave no mud pie left unthrown.
Further proof that people in government have lost their minds is the unapologetic call for a plastics tax by a Santa Fe city councilor.
Yeah, like we’re not being taxed enough as it is.
I don’t when it happened, but there’s been a complete takeover of government in this state by a bunch of bossy, busybody, (and to use the old Saturday Night Live term) anal-retentive environmentalists who worry over what we eat, what we wear, what we drive, what we smoke, and what we think.
Using the phony crisis of environmental warming and the new green idiocy, we’re being forced to jump through every conceivable hoop these fools dream up. Couldn’t they get together and buy a life so they could get out of ours?
About the only solution I see is a state law that demands that for every tax anybody raises, an equal amount be cut from government spending and from taxes to curtail this continually growing socialist monster that’s eating its way into our lives.
Either that or the people in New Mexico are so stupid they deserve to have every dollar and every freedom they have taken away from them.
DEMONSTRATORS are kept 170 yards from President Bush and the ACLU, a Journal editorial and others protest concerning freedom of speech.
If memory serves me correctly, back in the 1990s, Bill Clinton came to town. Demonstrators were not even allowed on the same streets that Clinton would travel. There was no outcry from ACLU, the Journal or other liberal cry babies.
Why? Perhaps it was because Clinton is a liberal and they have different rules. Liberal, thy name is hypocrite. The name of the morning newspaper is most appropriately the “Albuquerque Hypocrite.”
DAVID BERND
Albuquerque
Does Bernd vaguely recall whether all demonstrators were treated equally? Does he have a copy of a Clinton manual on protecting the ego of the prez?
Vague recollections do not counter photos of the “good” demonstrators practically in Duhbya’s lap while the “bad” demonstrators are out of sight. (At least they aren’t in pens, anymore.)
Remember: Clinton and Raygun are the pairing, whether talking to conservatives or liberals. Fans of each swoon while enemies seethe. The incomparable Duhbya is in an unprecedented class by himself. (Thank Gawd!) mjh
"It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds." — Sam Adams
