Letters To The Editor: Editorial Treated War as Afterthought
Editorial Treated War as Afterthought
Editor, Times-Dispatch: In your lead editorial, "Civic Spirit: History, Arts, Sports," you made the excellent point that Richmond's unparalleled array of cultural attractions has us well-placed in the major league of cities and distinguishes us far more than minor-league baseball. And, much to your credit, you proceed to list many of the city's greatest attractions.
But your mention of the Civil War seems almost an afterthought. In his great book on Richmond, your predecessor, Virginius Dabney, wrote that if Richmond ever loses its mystique as the Capital of the Confederacy, it "will be just another city." (Think minor-league baseball.)
Richmond's top draws for outsiders continue to be Monument Avenue and the Museum of the Confederacy. Recently I edited an article written for the Sydney, Australia, newspaper about a trip to our museum, written by the former prime minister of New South Wales. Then I hosted two museum members from California who are bringing people from China to help them understand the American experience. I will wrap up my day hosting John Bruton, the former prime minister of Ireland and current ambassador to the U.S. from the European Union.
Richmonders, including you, should recognize the very special Civil War assets that we have here and what they do for the city, rather than relegating them to a post-script. S. Waite Rawls, President and CEO, Museum of the Confederacy.
Richmond.
Good Americans Will Forego the Gas Guzzler
Editor, Times-Dispatch: Most of us have set ideas about a lot of things. Anything different from what has been generally accepted goes against the grain and is resisted or dismissed as unworthy of serious consideration. For example, how about our love for big, fancy, and fast cars? We are somebody if we have one or more of these. A plainer, fuel-efficient car with a little less pickup just doesn't cut it with us. Only when fuel prices spike and stay up there a while do some of us opt away from the flashy, road-domination gas guzzlers that we have been brought up to admire.
What does this mean to us as Americans? First, increased dependence on foreign oil (purchased from countries that don't like us or are in political turmoil). Second, worse air pollution and road congestion in heavily populated areas. Third, a bigger bite out of our pockets for status-symbol, low-mileage vehicles with all the bells and whistles we can put on them.
The patriotic thing to do is to buy a car that satisfies our needs but not all our wants. Do my fellow citizens want to do what is good for our country?
One further note about breaking out of our old ways for the sake of our country: Those who can would do well to park near entrances in parking lots and walk to where they are going to do business (and this includes fast-food shops). Not only will this save precious fuel but also burn calories to help fight obesity.
I want our homeland to get better. All of us are accountable to make it happen.
Neal C. Wallace.
Quinton.
Clean Energy Must Be Virginia's Future
Editor, Times-Dispatch: As the president of a local green business, I represent the future of Virginia. The heads of Dominion, American Electric Power (AEP), and Duke Energy, who authored the June 7 Commentary column, "Virginian Leads Sensible Climate Change Efforts," represent the Virginia of the past.
I agree with them on one thing: Rep. Rick Boucher has played a pivotal role in crafting the federal clean energy bill. The American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 could create millions of green jobs, boost clean energy production, and limit global warming pollution. Yet Boucher worked alongside Dominion, Duke Energy, and AEP to gut some of the bill's most important provisions.
As the president of a company that designs and installs solar energy systems, I can assure you that a strong bill could create thousands of green jobs in Virginia. The resources here for solar energy collection are tremendous. Imagine: With the help of a solar system on your roof, your meter could actually run backwards -- your house can pay your utility bill. All we need is some investment on the federal level to help get the technology off the ground.
Instead of strong renewable-energy goals, the bill now includes billions of dollars of handouts to the coal and oil industries. Thanks to Boucher's negotiations, half of all the permits to pollute will be given away directly to the fossil-fuel industry. These giveaways will be made at the expense of working families, according to the EPA.
This dependence on traditional energy, promoted by Dominion, Duke Energy, AEP, and Boucher, weakens our economy by keeping us on a track to use unsustainable fuels as the foundation of our economy. It is time for Virginia and the nation to get serious about clean energy and pass a stronger clean energy bill. Kent Baake. Alexandria.
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Reader Reactions
“All for ourselves and nothing for other people” - that’s funny, but, the wealthiest people, like Bill Gates et al are extremely charitable as are highly paid athletes - there money goes straight to their cause without passing through government so it can “get it’s cut”.
All of this faith in the government getting things done better, more efficiently, more cost effectively is delusional.
Are we are brother’s keeper? When they fall upon hard times and are trying to work their way out, we certainly are - but, how much do you think, of every dollar in tax money allocated for all of these government programs, go to the person who needs it? How about $.30 at best. I’d rather give directly and leave the government out of it. That’s not being your brother’s keeper, that’s being the government’s keeper.
We’ve fallen a long way in this country and it didn’t happen in just 10 years. It happened when well intentioned government programs got too big, too expensive, too corrupt, too powerful and too perverted.
Economics 101: If you want more of something, subsidize it, if you want less of something, tax it. Well, that’s certainly gone upside down.
Studebaker/Blackbird: How much money that I have earned do you believe I owe you to subsidize your life? Without a lecture, an ad hominem attack, a philosophy monologue and a long winded history lesson, do give me a straightforward answer to that. I’ll repeat the question:
How much money, that I have earned, do you believe I owe you to subsidize your life?
Please do tell me how you arrived at that figure and why you think I owe you the money.
Your parents and my parents are from the same generation. My parents taught me not to envy, begrudge or attempt to penalize the wealthy for their riches, nor look upon the poor with contempt. They also taught me not to get on the government dole because it was there for extreme circumstances. They taught me to “earn it” not “eat at the trough”. I’ve held a job since I was 14 years old.
The government, while somewhat corrupt during the lifetime of our parent’s generation, pales in comparison to the corruption you’ll find today. The government cannot be trusted with duties and endeavors outside of what is prescribed by the constitution. All of the departments and government agencies you’ve described today were started with the best of intentions - they aren’t what they’re supposed to be anymore.
The current tax system is not fair at all as it puts an undue burden on a small percentage of the population.
I didn’t trust George Bush with this much power and I don’t trust a government run by Barack Obama whose staff’s motto is to “never let a crisis go to waste” - you’ll note we’ve had crisis after crisis after crisis and after each crisis, we’re deeper and deeper in debt and have less personal autonomy. You recalled our parent’s generation - did they spend money like this? No. They worked hard so we’d have a better life and this is how the Baby Boomers and Generation X repay them - by being corrupt and screwing everything up?
Thanks for the comments Studebaker, and glad you now have the record for the longest message!
I agree the “greatest generation” would be the first to question the fairness of CEO’s and stockbrokers who earn millions while their company goes broke. The first thing you hear from people of that generation is that “we were all in it together”. Somehow we’ve lost that now it’s…everyman for himself…that’s ok if you are playing “Survivor” on TV. If everyman IS for himself, then why even bother with government, why worry about country, or god, honor or family or anything sacred? Just show me the money and I’m out a here…who cares about you and your problem.
Well, this housing crisis is a wake up call to that thinking….when a neighbor’s house get forclosed it causes your house’s value to go down also, whether it was your fault or not.
No matter how independant and self sufficient we want to be we are still our brothers keeper in many ways. Some might call that kind of thinking “leadership”.
continued
RANDY: My generation, on the other hand, beginning in the late 70s & 1980 shifted to the right and helped dismantle the fair, progressive tax policies & regulations that the Great Generation of my parents fought so hard for. The leading edge of the “Baby Boomer” generation didn’t begin to vote until the 1970s when the right to vote was changed to 18 years old: [United States: 1 July 1971 (XXVI Amendment to the Constitution)].
Today, the very wealthy & and their middling class & below stooges whine about proposed tax hikes on income over $250,000 when we have a WAR TO PAY FOR! While young men and women VOLUNTEER life, limb, family & loved ones.
My father retired from General Motors after working as a salaried book keeper (without union representation) for many years. He only has one lung, being a survivor of cancer. All of a sudden, GM has increased his payments for health insurance and reduced coverage for treatment & medication.
RANDY,your (and others) BASELESS, egocentric, neo-libertarian fulminations about fairness, freedom & “freeloaders” does no one any good; but also harms my country, my fellow countrymen, and, especially, friends & family whom I love.***
“Please do tell me on what basis we compel people to pay for other people’s healthcare through the government.” ( Randy )
“For those who think that health care is a right - please note that it isn’t a right when somebody else is imposed upon to pay for yours.” ( Randy )
“Profits are a beautiful thing. People talk about them like they’re an obscenity. Those people are usually politicians and under acheivers.”( Randy )
“Do I get a say in telling the free loaders that they can’t smoke, do drugs and have unprotected homosexual sex? I mean, if I’m paying into something, I should have a say in their lifestyle choices. That’s fair wouldn’t you say?” ( Randy )
This is legalized stealing and it’s immoral and just plain wrong.( edrebber)
“I agree that a dramatic government overhaul of health care is the answer - that is if the overhaul involves getting the government out of the business.” ( Randy )
“Government is not the solution to the problem; government IS the problem.“( The Dutchman )
“I’m still looking for proof that the government can run ANYTHING better than the private sector.” ( mrright ) ***
I have excellent health care/insurance & my employer pays 100% of the premium. I could say that the private sector, free market or whatever is doing an outstanding job providing health care. But, if I am to be honest, I must admit that “the invisible hand” has not done right to my country and many of its people.
Adam Smith, the moral philosopher & economist who coined the phrase “invisible hand”,did not claim that all self-interested commerce benefits society, or that all public goods arise from individuals and businesses advancing their own interests. Sometimes, in free markets one party will profit at the expense of another & of the public—instead of the good. Such outcomes contradict Adam Smith’s moral requirements for free markets & the fundamental ethos of social morality: do as you would be done by.
Smith understood that the whole of a nation is not, & ought not to be, merely a sum total of commercial enterprises—that, in free societies, a government’s duty is to insure the common well-being rather than the wealth of a given class of owners. He would be devastated if he heard some of the talk that goes around in the name of “free markets” these days.
ADAM SMITH:intervention of governmen:
“In the progress of the division of labour destroys intellectual, social and martial virtues unless government takes pains to prevent it.”
progressive tax:
“…The subjects of every state ought to contribute towards the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities; that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the state.”
unbridled economic self interest:
“All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind.”
“Whenever the legislature attempts to regulate the differences between masters and their workmen, its counsellors are always the masters. When the regulation, therefore, is in favour of the workmen, it is always just and equitable; but it is sometimes otherwise when in favour of the masters.”
“Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defence of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all.”
http://www.econlib.org/library/Smith/smWN21.html
“The purchase of war bonds was voluntary and the greatest generation managed to take care of itself without anywhere near the amount of help from the government that there is today…If men stepped up and took their roles as the providers and protectors of their wives and children seriously - as their number 1 priority - we wouldn’t be haggling over who should run healthcare and who can or can’t afford it.” Posted by ( Randy )
RANDY, you’ve gone way over the top on this one! The greatest generation (that of my parents) insisted, in the tradition of Adam Smith, that the wealthy “contribute towards the support of the government…in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the state.”
My parents generation, who endured the Great Depression, who fought & struggled & sacrificed through WW II, is the same generation that voted for Federal Civil Rights, Worker & Consumer Protection, Public Safety, Pure Food & Drug, Air Pollution Control, Water Quality, Cigarette Labeling & Advertising, National Traffic & Motor Vehicle Safety, Fair Packaging & Labeling, Child Protection, Wholesome Meat, Flammable Fabrics, Fire Research & Saftey, Automobile Insurance, Coal Miners’ Health & Safety, Consumer Credit Protection, Interstate Land Sale Full Disclosure, Wholesome Poultry, Radiation Control for Health & Safety, Child Protection & Toy Safety, Environmental Policy, Consumer Products Safety, Fair Credit Reporting, Truth-In-Lending, Equal Credit Opportunity, Fair Credit Billing, Public Broadcasting, Toxic Substances Control, and Fair Debt Collection Practices……Legislation and much, much more.
The purchase of war bonds was voluntary and the greatest generation managed to take care of itself without anywhere near the amount of help from the government that there is today.
If men stepped up and took their roles as the providers and protectors of their wives and children seriously - as their number 1 priority - we wouldn’t be haggling over who should run healthcare and who can or can’t afford it.
Thanks for the note “Dogtown”...I don’t see why these alternatives ...Solar and Wind have to be available 24/7…all the energy is free…so who cares?
Sure we have a grid to run..so let the Natural Gas and Coal keep it up.
Solar and Wind can supplement. Every house, every business, every roadway, every factory, warehouse, building…should have solar cells on it and a wind turbine to boot. What’s stopping that?
I know it’s too expensive…but that’s just all relative. It comes back to what I was talking about earlier…we don’t pay the FULL costs of using Oil and Coal…we just don’t. They are subisidized by the military budget, and future generations who will be paying higher prices for fuel as these sources start to dwindle. All I am saying is why don’t we start trying to lessen that price increase by “artificially” increasing it now, “tax it to sustain it”...for future generations..“see it’s all about the kids”. We WILL run out of Oil at some point…but we won’t run out of Sun and Wind…will we? This is a known fact…it’s not an assumption based on “peak oil”...it’s a physical reality of the commodity.
Randy,
I know you have interest in saving money, that’s a very worthy response, but it just seems almost sad when we are faced with such problems.
I wonder if people said during the
“greatest generation”...I don’t want to participate in the US War Bonds program…they don’t give me enough interest for my investment…that’s also a response that could have been given…you could read into that…
I don’t want to stop facism…it’s too expensive.
I am interested in saving the world and making money, in that order.
The interests I was talking about though, were political. What about the politicians on the other side of this issue that stand to gain from maintaining the status quo…mainly those from Oil producing regions, or who have been involved in the Oil industry and still have investments there. Pres. Bush and the former VP are two, although they are not in Congress, I am sure you could dig around alittle and find some Congressmen that have Oil ties in Congress. It’s not that unusual and it’s not against the law. I don’t like it anymore then I like Pelosi having investments, but it really seems to be part of our shining example of government. I just was wondering if you could research a few Republicans that have Oil interests and who are against this bill and place them in your next note. I am sure they are out there, actually they don’t even have to own stock, the fact that they “represent” Oil interests, means that they vote according to those interests because they want to represent their constituents who may be big Oil man or employ a lot of people in their district, but also because they want to hold their job…
there is nothing really wrong with that, it is really how democracy works, but it just seems to tie everything back to the influence of making money…not making good policy decisions that might be good for the WHOLE country.
Clean or cleaner energy are laudable goals. Unfortunately, some proposals have severe limitations: For example, given we cannot control the velocity of the wind, we cannot assume there will be sufficient wind to power turbines consistently. That does not mean, however, that wind farms should not be built to generate, and perhaps store, electricity when possible. Solar has a similar limitation. A good idea which has not received much attention, is hydroelectric pumped-storage generation in which water flow is used during peak periods to generate electricity, stored downstream behind a second dam, and excess electricity during periods of low demand is used to power pumps to pump the water back upstream to be reused. Smith Mountain lake was created to implement this methodology. Admittedly, like other clean methods, this has limitations: chiefly inadequate water supplies in many areas. However, it deserves careful attention where it is feasible.
West Virginia University’s College of Engineering along with Virginia Tech, and many other doctoral-degree-granting and research universities is engaged in extensive research exploring the possibilities of cleaner fossil fuel generation.
Clearly a combination of methods will be required, including nuclear and cleaner fossil fuel generation. For any real solution to be achieved, however, radical extremists will have to be ignored in favor of implementation of a combination of all the reasonable solutions that can be devised.
Blackbird - you can own all the clean energy stocks you want and I earnestly hope you make millions from your investments. However, you aren’t trying to craft legislation that will enrich your position at the expense of other people with no say in the matter. There’s a huge difference.
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