In Praise of Rall

(Re: Rant 'n' Rall, Dec. 27-Jan. 2)

Dear UTW:

Very pleased indeed to be referred by a Tulsa friend to a publication with the guts to publish a tough, morally principled essay like the recent Ted Rall piece on the drone war.

Keep it up.

--John Eller, Des Moines, Iowa

One More Election Rehash

Dear UTW:

I don't know where to start. I don't know if I should defend against misconceptions about Mitt Romney or what a large portion of Americans wants.

You say he can't lead. He was a governor of Massachusetts, which is very successful state. As for the oversea bank accounts, they were a blind trust. The president also has a blind trust. As for his money, this is a direct quote from an interview from Mother Jones: "What I got from my parents when they passed away I gave away to charity and to my kids." So while he may have inherited money he did not keep it.

He doesn't brag! How novel is that? When he makes a mistake he says he makes a mistake. He is a kind person. If you want to see some of the good things he doesn't brag here are some stories that people told about him:

After Joey O'Donnell, 12, died of cystic fibrosis in 1986, Romney built a playground in his honor: "There he was, with a hammer in his belt, the Mitt nobody sees," the boy's father and Romney's neighbor, Joseph O'Donnell, told Michael Kranish and Scott Helman, authors of The Real Romney. A year later, Joey's Park needed maintenance. "My wife calls me up and says, 'You're not going to believe this, but Mitt Romney is down with a bunch of Boy Scouts and they're working on the park.' ... He did it for like the next five years, without ever calling to say, 'We're doing this,' without a reporter in tow, not looking for any credit."

In 1995, Romney heard about the Nixons, a family who moved to Boston. A car wreck soon left their sons paraplegic. Romney called and asked if they were available on Christmas Eve. Romney, his wife, and sons arrived with stereo and other gifts for the crippled boys. Romney offered to put them through college and supported them through numerous fundraisers. As their father told Kranish and Helman, "It wasn't a one-time thing."

Melissa Gay, Bain Capital partner Robert Gay's daughter, vanished while visiting New York City in July 1996. Then-CEO Romney closed Bain's Boston headquarters and jetted to Gotham to find the 14-year-old. Romney flew in his 50 employees and transformed a Marriott Hotel into a command post. He consulted the New York police department and recruited private investigators. He dispatched staffers to enlist Bain's colleagues. Bain's printer, R.R. Donnelly, produced 300,000 missing-person fliers. Bain's CPAs at Price Waterhouse placed the handbills all over town. Duane Reade, a Bain portfolio company, stuck leaflets in shopping bags at 52 local outlets.

Five days after Melissa disappeared; someone rang Bain's tip line to ask about a reward. The New York Police Department traced the call to a New Jersey home, where a 17-year-old had hidden the disoriented and drugged child, unbeknownst to his parents.

Enough said about that. Let me tell you what we want in America. We want a president who defends the Constitution.

We want a president who balances the budget. Any person who has ever ran up a huge debt knows that sooner or later it is all a house of cards and it will fall, but since it is not the president's money but the working people's money, we are the ones to suffer. We want a smaller government. The government sticks its nose in everything you do and they pass more bills that interfere with your life. A lot of the regulations you don't know even exist until you get that knock at your door from the government.

Recently, people think the government should take care of us. Is a nanny state something I want? It is right for me? Is it something that I can do or should do for myself? Will it take away any motivation? Will it take away my rights?

I work because I have no reason not to work. I don't have a felony, my choice. I don't do illegal drugs, my choice. I did finish high school, my choice. I don't drink alcohol, my choice. These things make me employable. I enjoy working. I don't like paying taxes any more than anyone else, but I do. I don't make much money therefore you are not getting much taxes from me but I am paying. I am not rich because I have never tried to be rich. I have never studied how to be rich. That is my choice. I had a family and two kids and focused on them. If you got rich honestly, whether you earned it or inherited, that is good. It is not evil to have money so why are the rich people getting penalized? The government and the American people are trying to covet other people things and they sound and act like they are jealous so they don't want anyone to succeed.

We think they should take care of the whole world while we sit on our butts and get free phones and food stamps. If you can't work or if you have very low income, then I don't begrudge you, but don't make the people with money evil.

It is not a sin to be poor any more than it is a sin to be rich.

We are all equal but we are not born equal. You may have a lower or higher IQ than me. You may be prettier or younger than me. You may be in better health than I or you may have been born sickly. Those are things we can't always control. The point is to do the best you can with what you have. If you expect the world to give you anything free, then the world is free to give you want it wants to give you. You may yell and holler and scream but beside the basics things in life everything else is optional. What the government gives you, it can also take away.

--Carol Waltman