A call for critical thinkers
Editor:
“Putting thoughts into words is vastly different from putting truth into words. For words are not truth.” — Lionel Fisher, “Celebrating Time Alone: Stories of Splendid Solitude”
Asserting something without explanation or demonstration is known as empty assertion. I have observed that this practice has become a cultural norm fostered by Fox News and even the Clear Creek Courant. In his Jan. 18 column, John Riddell makes a case for the rise in nationalism and cites the Obama administration concessions to energy policies, international climate agreements, foreign trade, defense policies and immigration law as evidence of conceding Americans “exceptionalism.” While I do agree that many of these issues are the fodder for loud commentary on talk radio, the data actually show that President Obama has very high ratings as a world leader and over eight years we have accomplished some exceptional things, namely:
Bouncing back from a serious recession; we have seen the longest streak of total job growth in U.S. history — our economy has added 15.8 million private-sector jobs since February 2010.
With the Affordable Care Act, 20 million Americans have gained quality, affordable health care, as our country’s uninsured rate has fallen to its lowest level ever. Important to note also is that the rising costs of healthcare have shown signs of stabilizing.
We’re leaders on climate change. President Obama finalized the Clean Power Plan, the first-ever national carbon pollution standards for power plants. Just a few months ago, nearly 200 countries came together to adopt the Paris Climate Agreement, the most ambitious global climate agreement ever created.
Our country took a big step forward in the fight for equality for all, as LGBT Americans in all 50 states gained the right to marry who they love.
In our civil discourse, let us provide verifiable sources and require the same from our partner in dialogue. We may disagree on the interpretation of the source information, but let us become critical thinkers related to the information presented. Our country’s real strength is built upon smart, educated people who have taken the time to learn and evaluate the facts.
Please check the empty assertion made by Mr. Riddell that the “world of equality outcomes does not square with the reawakening and resurgence of American ideals” with the evidence that was demonstrated all over this country last weekend by those willing to show up and march for the American ideals of social justice in American and throughout the world that we believe in.
Laurie Beckel
York Gulch
Riddell needs greater knowledge of economics
Editor:
It would be nice if your conservative columnist had a greater depth of economic knowledge than just calling Bernie Sanders and Barack Obama communists and regurgitating Republican talking points.
Any economics student could inform Mr. Riddell that free markets do not exist anywhere other than societies that still use barter economies. Once a form of currency replaces barter, society, i.e. government, steps in to regulate the market.
Society places rules on such things as what can be owned (property), what can be bought and sold, and on what terms (contracts), what happens when the purchaser cannot pay (bankruptcy), and what the enforcement is when someone cheats.
Mr. Sanders and others of us who are concerned with the income inequality in this country simply want the market rules changed to benefit the 99 percent at the bottom of the economic scale rather than the top 1 percent. Not since the gilded age of the late 19th and early 20th centuries have we seen such a “rigged” marketplace, and unfortunately the “noise” from the 1 percenters drowns out the reality of the problem.
Here is just one example of the rules that I would like to ask Mr. Riddell to comment on. Do you think it is fair that corporations can declare bankruptcy and walk away from pension funds, leaving thousands of employees without retirement income, while college students with enormous debt are not allowed to use bankruptcy as a reorganization tool?
Jim Blugerman