Letter to Newsmax

11-6-08

I am the host of a radio show in New Rochelle, NY called The Advocates, website – http://advocates-wvox.com. It is a show devoted to “public policy” and one can access all of the broadcasts, if they wish, at the above website. I would call myself a moderate, traditional New Deal Democrat. I stay active in local politics and I am called, now and again, to be a “talking head” commentator on politics. I read NEWSMAX, on my computer, and quite often I find its content alarmist. I have nothing against traditional values, the nuclear family and certainly the rule of law. I believe fervently in an active two-party system, which allows our society to have not only meaningful debate, but checks and balances.

I have been happily marries to the same woman for 39 years. In my forty plus years of running a business, raising two smart Ivy Leaguer children, and being active time in politics I have seen the deterioration of the GOP in Westchester County, NY. I believe that decline has come about because of narrow, flat-earth thinking. On just has to look at the map of the United States and understand where the culture, the ideas, the advancement of science and literature comes from. It is from the coastlines, the so-called blue states, and the people who are more cosmopolitan, worldly, diverse, tolerant and educated. Yes, we have our problems in the core center cities, we have our mindlessness also. We have problem schools and violence also. But overall, the Reagan moral and cultural revolution has led to two distinct conclusions, concentration of wealth in fewer and few hands doesn't work in the long run, and the moral high road of the rural and interior sections of America doesn't exist. Whether it is a debate over guns, choice, gay-marriage, drug use, cloning, stem cell research, censorship, education, or separation of church and state, both sides, and arguments for and against, have some merit. But there is no evidence that the interior and rural areas are immune from rape, violence, sexual abuse, illiteracy, or anything else. In fact, statistics show that these “red state” areas have much higher rates of abuse and problems then the coastal regions.

At times I read Dick Morris's views in NEWSMAX and he is an abject hypocrite who has buffaloed your readers. Your news outlet and the GOP's promotion and featuring of “Joe the Plumber” is farcical. The fact that John McCain mentioned this guy's name hundreds, if not thousands of times, demeaned his whole campaign. His opinions no more reflect anyone but his own uninformed self. Most people have opinions, so what? In a more serious vein, Sarah Palin is one of the reasons that the GOP's future is extremely cloudy. She is uneducated climber, whose reputation among many in Alaska is quite questionable. How social conservatives could rationale her family, her values, her language, her ethics and her conduct is a question that should be answered. Besides her daughter's extra-curriculum activities with a teenage hockey lout, her personal conduct regarding compensation, and many of things in her past, she certainly did not help McCain except with his core voters who needed some “red meat” he could not deliver.

Look for a blood-bath between these two groups in the coming days. Hopefully, as bad, old and out of touch as McCain has now become, his people will win this fight and she will stay where she can do the least damage. If the conservatives let her emerge with her brand of neo-McCarthyism, they will rue the day. My suggestions for a return to a real two-party system, all over the country, is to emerge from flat-earth, creationist thinking, look for a realistic value-based society, and understand that taxes have a place in society. Remember that the famous and revered Oliver Wendell Holmes said that paying taxes is a price for civilization. Get off the foolish “big government” is your enemy argument. Hoover, Nixon and Reagan all supported and believed in big government, their type of big government.

RJ Garfunkel