It's generally a bad idea to respond emotionally to anything. It's even worse to put it in writing. And you'd have to be an idiot to publish it.
Trifecta.
I wrote the following letter to the editors of our local newspaper, the Wichita Eagle, in response to this "My View" opinion piece that appeared Monday on Social Security privatization... It was published today.
Hopefully in the process of pairing my words down from 678 to 200 so the Eagle's submission page would accept it, I made it less agitated. I need to send these things George before I submit them.
To the Editor:
The commentary, "Privatizing Social Security is Bad Idea," (Feb. 1 My View) made three incorrect claims.
Social Security is facing a real crisis. You and I cannot take out a $1 million loan and call ourselves millionaires, but that is how our government declares Social Security to be solvent.
Social Security did not "lift" generations out of poverty. Government can't wave a wand and --"poof!" --money for all. It was the ingenuity and hard work of individuals driving a productivity boom coupled with trade liberalization that produced the wealth on which Social Security feeds.
Finally, pitting "Wall Street" and slick snake-oil salesmen against the "workingman" is an insulting appeal to fear, not an argument.
Let's change this unfair system that doesn't allow the poorest of workers to keep what they've worked hard for but cannot save and pass on to their children. Let's be done with arrogant social "experts" who strip us of dignity in the name of "protecting" what can't be protected.
Give people the freedom and the responsibility that comes with it. Get out of their way so they can live as they see fit. Then watch the economic explosion it creates. That is social "security."
In retrospect, I wish I'd written the last two sentences differently --
Then watch the explosion of prosperity it creates. That is social security.
Ah well... next time I'll sleep on it.
