My - admitted rather long--and unpublished--Letter to the Editor
To the Editor:
The farce that Fox News presented to us as a ‘debate’ last
week prodded me to come up with questions of my own that actually, perhaps
desperately, need to be asked concerning the Presidency, or any public office
for that matter. Since no one, neither moderator nor candidate seemed to have
the ideas and/or principles I hold concerning proper government, I’ve decided
to interview myself as a candidate.
Moderator: Since we
now face a crucial time in our nation’s history, it is imperative that an
actual, serious, authentic debate occurs concerning our path to the future, so
my first question is:
What is your political philosophy? How would you govern as
President?
Me: Thank you. I hold that the proper and only purpose of
government is to protect the individual rights of its citizens. The human soul
is a sovereign entity. Individual rights are the bridge between ethics and
politics. Our Founders knew, from studying history, the flaws of each form of
government that had been tried, and they designed the checks and balances aimed
at preventing those mistakes from happening here. Even democracy, they held,
was a form of tyranny, as it always descends into chaos. They wrote the
Constitution as a limit on government power, not as a restriction of what
individuals can do with their lives. Re,
our Declaration’s ode to Individualism, ‘Life, Liberty and the pursuit of
Happiness’.
Moderator: We are
seeing burgeoning unrest here in America. What do you see as the problem of
race relations?
Me: There are several factors for this unrest. First, a
century of government encroachment in every area and facet of our lives,
regardless of race, causes disruption of all kinds. My belief is that the
various forms of welfare programs allegedly designed to ‘help’ have actually
kept us from advancing in our lives and have been no benefit at all. One of my
first acts as President will be to undertake the dismantling of all welfare
programs. They should be phased out over a generation.
Moderator: Do you
favor minimum wage laws and do you support the current movement to raise it to
$15 per hour?
Me: No. There should be no minimum wage laws. I would
automatically rescind them upon entering office. Honest economists know that these laws
actually restrict young, inexperienced, people from entering the job market.
Moderator: Continuing then, in this vein, there’s some talk
in congress of restricting and monitoring CEO pay. Are you in favor of this?
Me: Certainly not! Do you want your pay monitored by the
government? It’s no one’s business what CEO’s make, number one, and it is the
province of the Boards of Directors and shareholders of these companies to
decide that. Not congress. I consider this idea profoundly unjust and immoral.
Moderator: Do you blame Wall Street and the banks for the
housing debacle that occurred in 2008 and 2009?
Me: Only partially, and please listen carefully here. The
real, fundamental blame belongs to government policy. The policies of easing
restrictions on borrowing lead to people buying homes they could not afford
.Yet ‘the market’ is blamed for erroneous policy that business was forced by
law to abide by. Blaming capitalism for bad government policy is again, both
unjust and immoral. Yet, businessmen are partially to blame due to the fact
that very few, if any, stood and spoke out against these horrendous policies.
Moderator: Climate change is a very real danger to the
world. What is your policy toward restricting our ‘carbon footprint’?
Me: It is most certainly not a ‘real danger’ and I resent
the politicization of science to ‘prove’ some ‘fact’ or other. Fossil fuels are
the life-blood of civilization and in no way should be restricted, but used
even more than they are, as they have been an enormous benefit to the human
race and are vital to human progress.
Moderator: Both Left
and Right are making attempts to undermine free speech. What is your position?
Me: As President, I swear an oath to protect and defend the
Constitution (and the Bill of Rights) from foreign and domestic challenge. I
stand by that oath and favor no restriction whatever on the dissemination of
ideas. Bad ideas can only be overcome with better ideas; therefore, open
dialogue is crucial, fundamental actually, to human harmony and progress.
Moderator: Although there are many other issues and
questions to discuss, I see that we are almost out of time. Do you have a
closing statement you’d like to present to the people?
Me: Yes, I do. I love America and the promise it has for
every individual, and for the world. I will never apologize for our
exceptionalism, for our greatness. America was the first nation in history to
subordinate the government to the individual, leaving him free to rise to his
ultimate potential. We have retreated from that ideal and we need to advance
toward it once again. Therefore, in
homage to our past, and welcoming the future with open arms, I stand before you
pledging my life, my fortune, and my sacred honor to strive to reach that ideal
once again. Thank you.
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