My wife emailed me a letter to her hometown newspaper that aroused her ire (as did most of the 46 comments). I took a look (it was typical boilerplate ranting about Obama's "Marxism", "socialism", "czars", how we need to go back to the founding fathers, yadda yadda. So in a kind of Colbertian spirit, I decided to try the old "if you can't beat 'em..." schtick, which I will now reproduce for your reading pleasure (below the fold):
I agree with you, Monte. Liberal Democrats have ruined this country with their socialist agenda. Problem is, most folks don't even notice how much socialism has crept up all around us. We're going to have to get busy if we want to "de-socialize" this once-great country of ours.
Start with public schools. What gives the government the right to take my tax dollars and use them to educate someone else's kids? If people who have kids want them educated, they can homeschool them or use their own money to pay for a private school.
Then there's Medicare. Why is socialized medicine okay for people over 65? Ronald Reagan warned back in the early 1960s that passing Medicare would take away our freedoms, but unfortunately people did not mobilize to stop it. Now that Americans are finally waking up and joining the Tea Party movement, maybe we can finally make the Gipper proud and repeal Medicare.
We also need to get rid of all this socialist red tape that strangles the capitalist system. Liberals passed all kinds of rules saying businesses have to have all these safety protections for workers, they can't pay women less than men, they can't pollute the water or air, they can't sell "unsafe" products, and on and on and on. It's no wonder China's economy is going full steam while ours is sluggish: the Red Chinese of all people have figured out that businessmen need to be allowed to do what they do best: make profits, instead of having to worry about all these regulatory hassles. Sure, this might result in the occasional poisonous dog food, or lead in kids toys, but once a company gets a reputation for that sort of thing, you can bet people will buy a different brand for their surviving dog and/or child!
One more thing that really bugs me: last I checked, the Second Amendment gives us the right to bear arms, and doesn't say anything about "except on airplanes". So what gives these federal goons (the "TSA") the right to tell me I can't bring my gun on the plane? Maybe if we get a good conservative president in to replace Obama, he can appoint a Supreme Court that understands that my right to bear arms is absolute, regardless of what kind of transportation I use.