opinion
tea’s Dissent
Champíes support “off the wall”
Editor’s note: This com-
lentary was received in
esponse to an Oct. 10
guest shot” column in The
'rint, written by Dan
Ihampie.
yDea Shepherd-Kent
fThePrnt
wrists” of congressmen who
degrade our legislative body.
Why do you believe that
voters “would stay away (from
the polls) or vote for Reagan?”
You will find many voters have
very weak feelings toward the
Republican or Democratic par­
ties today, and the numbers of
voters registered as “Indepfen-
dent” are rising even though
this causes them to miss voting
in the primaries.
It isn’i surprising that Mr.
hampie was having some dif-
:ulty convincing his friends
at Senator Ted Kennedy
lould be our next president.
The arguments he uses are,
Citizens are becoming more
my opinion (and apparently and more aware that party af­
orida’s) certainly “off-the-
filiations mean very little until it
jll.”
is time for re-election. Wit­
Do you, Mr. Champie, truly
ness-even the congressional
>lieve that because of the
members crOss-over party lines
reat of the “New Right,” we
in their voting practices.
lould then swing to the ole’
¡ft? Haven’t we all had a pret-
Why should anyone believe
good taste of Kennedy that to have a Republican
leralism already?
president and congress would
As for the Senate Judiciary be any worse than having a
ommittee, in my opinion we Democratic president and
eed a chairman who isn’t congress? Certainly you are
raid to do more than “slap controlled the congress for over
a decade and have refused,
aware that Demoncrats have
repeatedly, to deal with either
inflation or energy problems.
Mr. Champie seems to have
some inside information regar­
ding
Senator
Kennedy’s
thinking, for I have failed to
come up with a statement
which indicates what Kennedy
would have done regarding
price controls on the oil in­
dustry, inflation or energy, for
that matter.
As for more governmental
intervention (which translated
means bureaucracy), do we
really need more people on
government payrolls, or do we,
American citizens, need more
self-control in areas of personal
debt and energy uses?
If Kennedy is going to run,
why doesn’t he declare himself
in the race so he will have his
campaign
funding
more
scrutinized, as are the other
candidates’, and stop being a
“bank walker.”
Then, talk with British
medical personnel, as I have,
and you will find that care is
minimal, costs high, and it has
actually become a status sym­
bol to afford your own private
medical care. To carry the
thought of government control
of medical care one step fur­
ther, who, if the government
was in charge, would have
anything to say about the prac­
tice of euthanasia if the
politicians someday decided
there were too many U.S.
citizens?
When are we, ordinary
citizens, going to awaken and
realize that the more gover­
nment control, i.e., medical
and welfare plans we “fall for,”
the
more our personal
freedoms are eroding?
Kennedy’s Health Plan
would be more costly than any
of us could imagine. Take a
close look at the inequities of
the government-controlled
medical and welfare plan which
we are paying for now,
multiply those costs and unfair
practices several times over,
and you have a good picture of
what Kennedy’s Health Plan
probably means—and who in
hell will pay for this, Mr.
Champie?
I, for one, want to hear the
platform he has composed.
Right now all he seems to be
saying is, “I’ll run if you really
want me”; and “I’ll see to it the
government takes care of all
people”—whether they need it
or not!
As stated in your commen­
tary, Mr. Champie, “we all
have a choice to make. We can
either go extreme right or
moderate left.” The question
is—if, after all the rhetoric of
the campaign, we will have the
ability to tell the difference!
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