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Friday, September 22, 2006
CDC, Chavez, photo ID, sales-tax votes
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Thinking Right’s free-for-all Friday. Pick a topic:
• Of course the city administrator of McDonough, population 15,523, should be paid more than the governor. He’s got to prepare the city for the population and tourism explosion that will come when the nearby Lovejoy commuter rail line opens.
• Loser leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, defeated in this year’s presidential campaign in Mexico, forms a shadow government in the streets, complete with Cabinet positions and a treasury. Of the duly elected president, he said: “They can have their bootleg institution and their spurious president, but they can’t have … our conviction. We will never give up.” CNN does cover the world and plant American ideas abroad.
• There are always dangerous fools on the world scene, as Venezuelan President Hugh Chavez revealed himself to be in Wednesday’s address to the United Nations. His Bush-hating over-the-top rhetoric is, however, a reminder that domestic politics has been globalized. The Dixie Chicks-Jimmy Carter left doesn’t know where to stop, or which forums to choose, and neither does Chavez.
• A beautiful headline: “Disease detectives on trail of outbreak.” Bull’s-eye. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention doing precisely what it should.
• Lunacy reigns. That U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss’ comment that “If Gen. J.E.B. Stuart had better intelligence, we’d all be meeting in Richmond right now” generated a line of type or a minute of air time is evidence of political correctness run amok. That and that an election is near.
• Wonder how chat-room, pretend-pedophiles from one law enforcement agency avoid luring Internet pretend-pedophiles from another? So many are gathered there.
• Left, right and center agree: There ought to be a law. Proposals to borrow money or to impose local-option sales taxes should only be on the ballot during a primary or general election — or, I’d allow, during the month of April. It is absurd to schedule one less than two months before a general election, when hordes of voters will be coming to the polls.
• Aw, pshaw. Liberal Democrats won’t allow capital punishment for repeated child sex abusers, as Lt. Gov. Mark Taylor proposes. He knows that. It’s near-impossible to get the death penalty, even for murderers.
• A national government-sponsored voter ID by 2010, recommended by a commission headed by Democrat Jimmy Carter and Republican James Baker, is good. But a free state-required voter ID now, as passed by the Georgia General Assembly, is bad, sayeth the Democrats. And requiring photo ID is unconstitutional because it is a “prerequisite” to voting, but requiring other forms of ID isn’t, says a Fulton judge. My, my. How the opponents do contort themselves.
• Headline: “Military stages coup in Thailand.” Possible here? Not in my lifetime, but yes. The prerequisites: 1. The generals can trust the privates to do what they order, lawful or not. 2. Military service is not a shared national experience. 3. Those in uniform start distrusting civilian leaders. We aren’t immune.
• CDC grumblers get a 24-hour hotline. Shouldn’t somebody declare an open-door policy? That’s what reformers always promise.
• Two of the good-sense members of the state transportation board, Mike Evans and David Doss, say tolls on existing Ga. 400 lanes should be prohibited after the road’s debt is settled in 2011. “The original deal was the tolls would come off when the bonds were paid off, and that’s in 2011,” said Evans, the chairman. “And I think really for public confidence in the system that has to be what happens.” That nails it. On this and all other transportation/congestion issues, it’s a matter of trust. Can decision-makers be trusted to spend money wisely? If not, taxpayers can’t — or shouldn’t — give them another dime. Trust.
• Four Asian students were attacked and robbed in three separate incidents near the MARTA Five Points station in the past month. Hate crimes? Since their attackers are generic “three to five young males” and possibly “one or two females,” no hate crime suspicions are raised. Otherwise, if it’s a minority attacked and the perpetrators aren’t that minority, it’s presumed to be a hate crime. Them’s the rules. Are we going to have hate crimes or not?
• A Norcross man has six wives. Don’t jail him. Require him to support them.
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