Nothing makes me happier than to wake up in the morning and see another incoherent letter to the editor attacking me and the work of the Rio Grande Foundation. The latest such blast appeared on Tuesday of this week in the Albuquerque Journal and is copied below:
Free market not about roadblocks
FREE MARKET principles — a registered Republican trademark.
As a businessman and author, I am a real believer in the free market, but I have to put up with the constant barrage of “astroturf” groups proclaiming they are believers in the free market. Poppycock!
You believe in the values and talking points of the current Republican coalition. Grover Norquist is head of the no-tax-pledge group. I saw his head explode on TV when asked about marriage equality. He and his group are bigots. They have to be, they are Republicans.
The head of the Rio Grande Foundation (Paul J. Gessing) recently opines in the executive’s desk column (“Economic growth best cure for income inequality,” Feb. 17) and his first priority was to declare for school choice. School choice is code for guaranteeing people that their religious school, private school, or charter school continues to drain the public coffers.
New Mexico charters schools — technically public schools — continue to cost more than regular public education and don’t take people with disabilities! This is not free market principles; it is supporting the vested interests of people that currently have money. It is the ideology of Proposition 13, the 1978 initiative that makes California have the highest income tax rate in American. Certainly not a free market principle.
Free market principles provide avenues for economic activity, not strengthening the current roadblocks. Said “astroturf” groups complain bitterly about the tax subsidies in alternative energy but won’t say out loud that a practicing physician cannot receive a tax credit for investing in solar energy; only available for gas/oil investments. A New Mexico cabinet secretary brags about the new copper rule and how it will help Grant County, my former home. The copper rule just requires that future taxpayers pay for the polluted water that is left decades after the mining company has spent the profits. Free market principles indeed!
Where do I start in deconstructing such loony garbage. For starters, Grover Norquist who I know personally and believe to be a brilliant guy, is on the board of GOP Proud, a pro-gay rights Republican organization. Hardly an anti-gay bigot as the author claims all Republicans to be.
But how about the Rio Grande Foundation and our dastardly work on behalf of school choice. Yes, we believe strongly that parents and students should make decisions about where to get an education, and, that if education is funded by tax dollars (not a given in our view) that the customers should be given a choice whether that be traditional, private, charter, religious, or home schooling. The woefully-misinformed letter-writer is demonstrably wrong when he claims that charters cost more than regular public education and that they don’t take students with disabilities.
School choice would improve our state’s and our nation’s educational attainment, but more importantly, it would restore some semblance of individual freedom and even a “free market” in education.
Letter writers like this one are the reason that I love the following Mark Twain quote so much: “What gets us into trouble is not what we don’t know. It’s what we know for sure that just ain’t so.”
Somehow, many people really, really want to control the world, and the people in it, by extension. I think the desire to control others is the driving force behind what we term modern liberalism. That, plus the desire to feel good about themselves.
Several years ago a friend of my wife’s was visiting us; this particular woman was the Chair of the Dept. of Geology at a _very_ large University in the Mid-west. I had always considered her, to use a phrase, an eco-wacko.
Anyway, when she left to return to the Mid-west, I ended up driving her to the Albuquerque airport. Along the way we spoke about Global Warming briefly. I mentioned to her that, even if the IPCC predictions were correct (a prediction that I think is completely off-base), cutting carbon dioxide emissions to the levels required by the Kyoto treaty would make no difference.
Her reply said much. She said, “You’re right; it won’t matter. But it would make me feel better.”
That is liberalism in a nutshell. They don’t mind spending gobs of _your_ money to make themselves feel better.
Yes, Allen, and I do believe there is a significant element of control as well.
I love the term “Looney left” – wish I would’ve thought of it! I read the article you’re referring to and I could not understand one word of what the guy was talking about. I’m going to speak to Allen Cogbill’s comments: I’ve been reading so much lately about how the looney left doesn’t really care about global warming, but alarming everyone about it does make them feel better. Not to mention that they know nothing about “the other side of the story” and don’t want to know.
So help me understand: The 98% of climate scientists around the world who accept the overwhelming Scientific evidence for anthropogenic Global climate change, are involved in a “loony left” plot against America. Really? This begs the question: what’s in it for them? Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen, Science has no ideology, is neither liberal or conservative, left or right, Democrat or Republican. It is Science, based on evidence, studied, tested, replicated, verified and subject to peer review by other scientists in the field. You may not like Science’s conclusions in a given area, but until you have evidence that proves otherwise, that’s the way it is. Burying your head in the sand in denial because the consensus of scientists around the world conflicts with your ideology only makes things worse, not better.
Nonsense Ken, scientists are human and driven as much by self interest as the rest of us. They compete with each other for funding of their research grants which mostly come from taxpayers funneled through the political system. Whereas pure science is in fact done the way you describe it, when it comes to tapping the government pot, pure science takes a back seat.
Amen.
Ken: what is the source of the “98% of the world’s scientists…” assertion? I hear this often but the source is never cited.