Dear Editor:
Republicans make a lot of noise about freedom, by which they apparently mean no restrictions whatever on Wall Street and mega corporations, and the right of states to enact laws in opposition to federal laws, even as established in the Constitution. They understand freedom to allow for emasculating our union, ignoring the carnage of the Civil War that tested whether our union would survive. We are, after all, the Untied States of America. In an aggressive expression of freedom, states like Alabama and Arizona have passed immigration laws in direct opposition to federal law. Other states have decided they can ignore EPA standards. Republican congressmen see freedom as the absence of any federal regulatory standards designed to protect the health and safety of the American people in their communities and workplaces. They support the predatory practices of Wall Street, the health care industry and cavalier mega corporations. The arrogate to themselves the right to impose their ideology on the rest of us to do away with Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, labor unions, disallow gay marriages, and to prevent abortions, even in cases of rape or incest. They promote a belligerent militarism and the use of torture. Of course they are against big government, except when it requires big government to carry out their regressive agenda.
The Republican solution to our economic woes is to blindly, brazenly continue the Bush-Cheney disastrous policy of reducing taxes on the wealthiest and eliminating regulations. They dont want to remember that Clinton produced a robust economy while raising taxes on the wealthiest. Our history demonstrates that the economy is healthiest when labor unions are strong and the distribution of wealth is more equitable.
Denton May
Cortez