Too Bad He Missed the Point

4 comments October 1st, 2008

I got my first “complaint” letter to the editor a couple of Sundays ago. The write was taking me to task for what I said in my first post, “Choices, Choices”, about the subject of abortion and how the Democrats feel one way about it and the Republicans feel quite the opposite, at least according to thier platforms. I said it seemed strange logic to me for the Republicans to not want to allow a choice to have the child, but did want to give parents the choice where to send the child to school.

The writer made the assumption that I was a supporter of abortion and proceeded to blast me for that belief. Unfortunately, I made no such assertations in the article one way or another. I believe it’s a personal decision. What the writer failed to grasp, in his zeal to trumpet his opposition to abortion, was the dichotomy of the Republican stance. On one hand, they are staunchly supportive of your “right to choose” where you want to send your child to school. If your child’s school is not up to par, you should be able to choose to send him or her to another, better, school regardless of what that costs the educational system. On the other hand, they don’t want to allow a family a choice as to whether having a child at a particular point in time is right for them. I’m not making any judgements on whether abortion is right or wrong. I don’t know an individual’s personal situation. It’s just that the logic of the two stances seems odd. How does one support choice for one thing and not the other?

Anyway, it’s nice to know that someone took the time to read the post and to write a letter, even if he didn’t get the point I was trying to make.

Gary Tiffany

Debate #1 - A Tie

Add comment October 1st, 2008

I’ve had what was to me a surprising number of people approach me in the last few days asking what I thought of the first Presidential debate. While I know that people do read this blog, it was interesting that they would take the time to approach me to see what I was thinking.

I must say that I wasn’t surprised by what I heard in the debate. Both candidates performed pretty much as I expected them to perform. Nobody went into much detail on any of their programs. I did think it was interesting that neither candidate, when asked what new programs they were proposing they would consider cutting back in light of the financial situation the country was in, would give a straight answer to the question. That’s too bad. Unfortunately, they don’t give the electorate enough credit. We haven’t heard anything from either candidate about “sacrifice” and how Americans are going to have to “tighten their belts” to get through this. Oh, no, we CAN’T do that!

Senator McCain did suggest the possibility of a spending freeze on everything BUT defense, veteran affairs and entitlement programs, but those programs make up the bulk of our government spending. Medicare, especially, is an entitlement program that needs better control. If you take those programs “off the table”, you’re not left with much room to cut spending.

But getting back to the debate, as I said earlier, I didn’t learn anything. I was really hoping that one of the candidates would say something to “capture the imagination”, but no such luck. Maybe next time. We’ve got the Vice Presidential Debate coming up Thursday, so we’ll see what happens there.

Gary Tiffany