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Wednesday, October 14, 2015 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
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Robert B.
Reich
American Voices
Letters to the Editor…
The Nugget welcomes contributions from its readers, which must include the writer’s name, address and phone number. Let-
ters to the Editor is an open forum for the community and contains unsolicited opinions not necessarily shared by the Editor.
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To the Editor:
Thank you for your very thoughtful piece
last week about not accepting repeated horrific
killings in America as just another day at the
office. Your comment about ours not being a
very caring society as being an element of the
problem particularly rings true. A cultural shift
in our attitude toward the possession of weap-
ons similar to what has happened with our no
longer accepting excessive drinking of alcohol
and the use of tobacco, needs to occur.
Unfortunately, the misconception that we
all have a right to own guns only exacerbates
the problem. The notion that the Constitution
bestows a right upon all of us to “keep and
bear arms” just isn’t so. We are not all part
of a “well-regulated militia” as stated in the
Second Amendment. One thing we can do is
to clarify what the authors of the amendment
intended. The suggestion by former Justice of
the Supreme Court John Paul Douglas that the
Amendment be changed to read, “A well-regu-
lated Militia, being necessary to the security of
a free State, the right of the people to keep and
bear Arms when serving in the Militia shall
not be infringed” would be a good beginning.
Roger Detweiler
s
s
s
To the Editor:
I applaud Jim Cornelius’ editorial on gun
rights and gun responsibilities (The Nugget,
October 7, page 2).
His editorial provides compelling insights
about this national tragedy. The USA has the
Constitutional right to bear arms. The USA
has a responsibility for a safe society. These
can be bridged together.
I endorse Jim’s quote: “We gun-owners
seem to have forgotten that our right comes
with a very serious responsibility — and
that includes participating in the crafting of
EFFECTIVE regulations that keep weapons
out of the hands of people who are liable to
use them to terrible purpose.”
Dave Johnson
See LETTERS on page 8
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Crass distortions of the
choices facing the nation
sometimes come masked in
the media as “political anal-
ysis.” But whatever they’re
called, they can’t be allowed
to stand.
Such was the Washington
Post’s front-page piece last
week, ostensibly an analy-
sis of the policies proposed
by Sen. Bernie Sanders of
Vermont.
Sanders, wrote the Post’s
David Fahrenthold, “is not
just a big-spending lib-
eral. His agenda is not just
about money. It’s also about
control.”
Fahrenthold claims Sand-
ers’ plan for paying for stu-
dents’ college tuition at pub-
lic universities with a tax
on Wall Street trades would
mean “colleges would run
by government rules.”
Apparently Fahren-
thold is unaware that three-
quarters of college students
today attend public universi-
ties financed largely by state
governments.
And even those who
attend elite private universi-
ties benefit from federal tax
subsidies flowing to wealthy
donors. Meg Whitman’s
recent $30 million donation
to Princeton, for example, is
really $20 million from her
plus an estimated $10 mil-
lion she deducted from her
taxable income.
Notwithstanding all this
government largesse, col-
leges aren’t “run by govern-
ment rules.”
The real problem is that
too many young people
still can’t afford a college
education.
The move toward free
public higher education that
began after World War II
with the G.I. Bill and was
extended in the 1960s by
leading public universities
was reversed starting in the
1980s because of shrinking
state budgets. Tuition has
skyrocketed in recent years
as states slashed education
spending. It’s time to resur-
rect that earlier goal.
Besides, the biggest
threats to academic freedom
these days aren’t coming
from government. They’re
coming as conditions
attached to funding from
billionaires and big corpo-
rations that is increasing as
public funding drops.
When the Charles G.
Koch Charitable Foundation
pledged $1.5 million to
Florida State University’s
economics department, for
example, it stipulated that
a Koch-appointed advisory
committee would select pro-
fessors and undertake annual
evaluations.
Fahrenthold similarly
claims that Sanders’ plan for
a single-payer system would
put health care under the
“control” of government.
But health care is already
largely financed through
government subsidies —
only they’re flowing to
private for-profit health
insurers that are now busily
consolidating into corporate
leviathans.
What we do know is that
they’re far more expensive
than a single-payer system.
Fahrenthold repeats
the charge that Sanders’
health-care plan would cost
$15 trillion over 10 years.
But single-payer systems
in other rich nations have
proven cheaper than private
for-profit health insurers
because they don’t spend
huge sums on advertising,
marketing, executive pay
and billing. So even if the
Sanders single-payer plan
would cost $15 trillion over
10 years, Americans as a
whole would save more than
that.
Fahrenthold trusts the
“market” more than he does
the government, but he over-
looks the fact that govern-
ment sets the rules by which
the market runs.
The real choice isn’t
between government and
the “market.” It’s between
a system responsive to the
needs of most Americans
and one more responsive to
the demands of the super-
rich, big business and Wall
Street — whose economic
and political power have
grown dramatically over the
last three decades.
This is why the logic
of Sanders’ ideas depends
on the political changes he
seeks.
Fahrenthold says a Presi-
dent Sanders couldn’t get
any of his ideas implemented
anyway because Congress
would reject them. But if
Bernie Sanders is elected
president, American poli-
tics will have been altered,
reducing the moneyed inter-
ests’ chokehold over the
public agenda.
© 2015 By Robert Reich
Opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer and
are not necessarily shared by the Editor or The Nugget Newspaper.