Y'know, I always thought profiling was a bad thing; liberals sure do hate it, even when it works. Maybe especially then; it often proves their ideological faiths to be misplaced.

I've been engaged for some time now, in an ongoing debate in my local paper's Editorial/Opinion pages. For several months, another writer has been blatantly ‘profiling’ me.

It’s amusing, really, this tendency liberals have, to assume that every Republican-voting, Limbaugh-listening conservative—we who so unreasonably expect able-bodied people to at least try helping themselves, rather than draining public-funded government entitlement programs—must unquestionably be wealthy, living in comfort and privilege. That we simply MUST be rich bastards, standing self-righteously on the weary, bloodied backs of the poor and working class, coldly exploiting them and blithely dismissing their suffering and plight.

Of course, that’s the Marxist nonsense they’ve long been spoon-fed and now readily absorb, accepting it without forethough.

She assumes that, “through….accident of birth, privilege or education”, my life is “tied up in a pretty little bundle”.

In another, earlier letter, she’d “wager” that I earn much more than the poverty level of $25,000/year. Well, she’d lose that bet, and I'd gleefully show her my W2.
I’m a factory-worker; my wife, the college-educated one in the house, does much better, but even together, we make less than $50,000/year.

Answering an earlier letter which I wrote in response to one written by yet another writer--suggesting back-handedly that we should dump Capitalism for "the liberal way" (which I, reading the whole thing, interpereted as a vote for Socialism, even Communism)--this woman deems it a "fairy tale that if you ‘work for it’ in a Capitalist system, you’ll have everything you need”.

Well, yes; I agree that failure and hardship are a possibility. In a Capitalist society, however, you can always try again. That’s the key; that's what's wonderful about it.
In that earlier letter, I admitted Capitalism’s imperfections; but I firmly stand by a statement that American-style Capitalism is still the best.

“Why are bankers getting bailouts?” she petulantly asked; I don’t know…that’s blatant Socialism; most true conservatives opposed it. I know I did, as did Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and the other talk radio conservatives she hatefully denigrates. Though, we unbdoubtedly opposed it for much different reasons.

The economy suffers, partly, thanks to abuse of the Community Re-Investment Act of 1977.

Passed under Carter and the Democrat-controlled Congress, banks were encouraged to loan to people who couldn’t afford to repay. This idea, though impractical, isn't so terrible, really, and probably seemed great to the ever-compassionate Democrat lawmakers at the time.

However, co-Presidents Clinton later usurped it as a means to buy votes from their poorer constituents. To this end, they strengthened it, compelling banks to loan to risky applicants; to make certain numbers of these loans, or else…ahem…future...ahem...problems could…ahem….arise in transactions with the federal government. Ahem.

That's called extortion, and the Clintons could give lessons to the mafia's Gambino Family.

For decades, billions in these bad loans, made much worse, of course, by the meddling of the Clintons, were carried, bought and sold between lending institutions.
Buying nothing for something only works for so long, until the stress it places on the economy has a negative effect. Which it obviously has.

In that earlier letter,I mentioned the fact that Fidel Castro, devoted Communist leader, is worth an estimated $500 million.

My opponent leapt to his defense, explaining that his presidency of Cuba places him in control of all the businesses there, and that the (Forbes Magazine) $500 million estimate stems from that.

This is akin, she said, to saying that a "bank president is worth (the total) assets of his bank".

Multi-millionaire Communist Castro isn’t a “bank president”, though; he’s a typically
corrupt, hypocritical Communist dictator, living in self-serving luxury, all the while, keeping his people in grinding, hopeless poverty.

That's why dozens of them every year remove the doors from their hovels and gather scraps of wood, to build rickety boats and risk death attempting to escape to Florida.
She also wndered what might happen to this poor, Third World nation if only the evil US would lift its shameful embargo. However, Cuba trades openly with many nations; yet, mysteriously, it somehow remains a hellhole of oppression and injustice.
Liberals love brutal dictators, especially communists; they’re archetypes of the big, centralized government, to which liberalism aspires.

Not all liberals are blatant leftists, of course, but many are; too often, they’re the ones writing the agendas. The rank and file liberals/Democrats never seem to want to accept this, though, and have simply allowed their ideals to be hijacked by the Radical Far Left.

One big difference between conservatives and liberals is this: conservatives won’t consider ourselves victims, shamefully blaming others for our shortcomings and failures, as liberals will.

We also tend more toward (pragmatic) optimism, while liberals gravitate toward pessimism. Except, of course, in the matters of social science. Here, liberals are always starry-eyed dreamers, endlessly expecting people to resist human nature and always do the right thing. They continue in this belief, despite ongoing disappointments and obvious, irrefutable proof that their ideals are impractical (see the first line, refering to profiling). They simpy ignore this proof, however, and roll on, obliviously.

Also, conservatives don’t engage in class envy; there are people vastly more wealthy than myself. So?

See, for myself, I don't lie awake nights, stewing spitefully over the knowledge that there are people who make more money than I do.

One of them---a very nice old man, by the way--employs me and signs my paychecks. I don't hate him for his years of hard work and success; I'm glad for him, and for the job he gave me. I don't want to punish him with higher taxes and stricter regulations; this could have the (typically unintended, surely) consequence of me losing my job.
Of course, that would, in turn, increase the chance of my having to go on the government dole, which is the preferred social status of liberals everywhere, for the masses (but not for the liberals themselves, mind you).

My well-informed, though typically caustic, liberal opponent in this debate, seeing everywhere evidence of ‘The Man’ keepin’ everyone down, has by now surely won her “Victim Status” merit badge; this, coupled with her staunch defense of Fidel Castro, has doubtlessly earned her the liberal/Left’s equivalent of “Eagle Scout”. I really pity her for her dim, constricted outlook on life.

Opportunity in America is what you make of it, or don’t.

It’s still up to you. And her.