IF IT'S UTTER CRAP AND FASCISM, IT MUST BE STEYN
Mark, you and Levin are coddling the idea that Soc Sec is a 'entitlement'! I am you guys, but NOT on this. I was born and came rushing out of my mother's womb. I was cuddled by my family, nurtured, then delivered to the school system. When I got out I began to work. Immediately I paid FICA. There was no vote, no, 'sign here', no MSDS toxic info sheet, no schooling, no mild explanation of 'if you pay this, this will or can occur', No nothing, just PAY.I was buying something and it was A-ok!( as did my father who had 54 bullet and schrapnel wounds all over his body)I was giving several hundreds for the eventual retirement benefit, AND I was buying a insurance policy, from the government, for MY RETIREMENT>>>! I bought a product.
NOW, if I understand it correctly, you and Mark are saying it is a 'entitlement', and if I am correct, and you two are saying this, then I will say this, and I will say it loud and clear.
"I AM ENTITLED TO IT,AS I PAID FOR IT, AND YOU TWO ARE WAY THE HELL OFF."(OR) GIVE ME AND MY FAMILY AND MY FAMILIES' FAMILY THEIR GODDAMNED MONEY BACK!"
And you, with a British accent, are telling me I must do it for the good of the Nation....I do not know if you are a citizen, and I have heard you, and Mark, and all, and I ALways agree with you guys, But I am now beyond PISSED OFF. I pay for insurance for my car and now, according to your crap, the insurance company can now say,*"we have your money for your car insurance, and we will no longer pay for a accident, and we are keeping your money....?and too bad for you....."! Bull S---! *"hello, Mr Sherwood,this is Sears, and we have your down payment for the Refrigerator, and we are NOT delivering it, and we are keeping your money"!!!! BULL S---!
IF I am correct and I heard this as I aver, you two are in need of a 'Scientology' intervention, and I will become your adversary! Take the tact of fixing the damned thing, and I am all ears, NOT 45 years of additional 'donation to the Nation, cause my country needs that money crap ala Steyn's mouth', that they, the government, fugged up, and stole...!
I want to hear you two on thee air, and saying 'these are the politicians that stole that money, and these are the politicians that screwed up the entire world's economy, and we are going after them...'! Yeah BABY! That's the ticket.
Frankly, I am shocked at hearing that crap from you two. CRAP, Mark and Mark! UTTER Crap and FASCISM as well......!
Jim Sherwood
Carmel, New York
MARK SAYS: Okay, if you don't want to take it from a foreigner with a weird accent, why not take it from your own Supreme Court? They're not foreign, are they? No goofy accents there. And in 1960 they ruled on a case called Flemming vs Nestor. Instead of wearing out your CAPS LOCK typing CRAP CRAP CRAPPETY CRAP, you could do yourself a favor and go look it up. And, if you did, you would find that their Supreme Majesties ruled that you, Jim Sherwood of Carmel, New York, have no contractual right to your Social Security payments. The Government can take them away any time they want, as they did to Mr Nestor and a lot of his chums. The Court ruled on that way back in 1960, by the way, so it's not something me and Levin just cooked up.
As to your extensive comparisons with private insurance, it is truly pathetic to have to explain to you that an agreement between you and Main Street Insurance, Inc is not the same as an "agreement" between you and the Government because, in the latter case, they're the Government and you're not. And it's precisely because so many of your fellow "citizens" don't want the bother of a contractually binding arrangement with a private insurer that Social Security and other programs have metastasized to the point where they're an existential threat to the republic. In essence, a significant proportion of freeborn individuals say, "I don't want the responsibility of having to make private contractual arrangements for retirement and health and so on. Why can't the government handle all the boring grown-up stuff?" So they do. And then you're deluded enough to think it ought to be as binding as the private contract far too many Americans want the government to save them the trouble of entering into.
You make my point for me. If you want your pension to be as reliable as your car insurance, see your car insurer. If you're depending on the government, they are under no obligation to honor any "contract" - because a government tax is not a contract. When they "break" the contract (as they surely will in the years ahead), good luck with the CAPS LOCK.
A PONZI SCHEME WORTH SAVING
These discussions on the Republican side about Social Security remind me of the discussions decades ago about saving communism. "Socialism with a human face." "Yeah, we murdered millions, but everybody deserves second chances in life." "We need TRUE communism, not the kind practiced by Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, etc, etc, etc."
Now here in America, we've morphed from John Gross's summary of Obama's message— "America is the greatest country on earth: help me change it"— to the Republican message: "Social Security is a Ponzi scheme: let's work to save it for future generations!"
And we think Obama has a tin ear.
Ezra Marsh
Baltimore, Maryland
YOUR AFTER AMERICA LETTER OF THE DAY: A TALE OF TWO GOVERNMENTS
Hi, Mark. I'm half way through your latest book, After America, and thought of "The Circumlocution Office", which was in Little Dorrit (1857) by Charles Dickens— no doubt you have seen this?
Containing the whole Science of Government
The Circumlocution Office was (as everybody knows without being told) the most important Department under Government. No public business of any kind could possibly be done at any time without the acquiescence of the Circumlocution Office. Its finger was in the largest public pie, and in the smallest public tart. It was equally impossible to do the plainest right and to undo the plainest wrong without the express authority of the Circumlocution Office. If another Gunpowder Plot had been discovered half an hour before the lighting of the match, nobody would have been justified in saving the parliament until there had been half a score of boards, half a bushel of minutes, several sacks of official memoranda, and a family-vault full of ungrammatical correspondence, on the part of the Circumlocution Office.
Dick Arner
IRISH EYES ARE SEARCHING
Can't find sight nor sound of your book here in Limerick, Ireland. I mentioned your name to the woman in the book shop and she called security and had me escorted out of the premises, I tell thee. "But, but, Steyn is so good he was handed a P-45 by the Irish Times, the paper of record for eternal students," I protested. To no avail.
Meantime, 23 for your book over here… That's a bit Irish for a son of Hibernia to be charging with "unt" Germans at the door demanding outrageous interest rates on the bail out. Moreover, 23 spondolicks, as you are well aware, would buy you 4.7 pints of the black stuff.
Keep up the great work.
Bernard O'Neill
Limerick, Eire
PHYSICIAN, HEAL THYSELF
The "Everybody Hates Mark" edition of the Mailbox was the best one ever. Mexican-Canadian-Americans, pant-load/skid-mark, etc… great stuff. I have to ask, though: were they all real letters, or do you have a cousin Shecky Steyn who made them up?
Anyway, "Dr Mike Hunt" wrote the following in his letter:
Normal behavior would not have a person specializing in things they hate. More to the point, they (normally adjusted mentally stable adults) only focus on things that make them happy or give enjoyment. This is not the case when someone draws creative energy from hatred.
It's clear that this "diagnosis" does not apply to you. However, the same cannot be said of the learned doctor, the angry writer of one of the longest letters ever seen in Mark's Mailbox, soon to be expanded to an entire chapter in a book (albeit, most likely imaginary) about people he hates. So perhaps Dr Hunt needs to sidle down from the barstool from which he practices, walk to the men's room and take a good look in the mirror.
Frank Bennett
Pennsylvania
MIKE HUNT, MY ARSE
Apologies for being such an un-reconstructed Aussie, but his parents didn't really call him Mike Hunt, surely.
Jack Hoysted
Thank you for your kind (and unkind) letters from America, Canada, Britain, Australia and around the world. Mark reads all mail, but especially enjoys the vicious ones. Each day Monday to Friday we pick six of the best for our Daily Delivery. So drop a line to Mark's Mailbox, and on Friday if you're chosen to be the one and only Letter of the Week you'll join our roll of winners from four Continents and receive a copy of Mark Steyn From Head To Toe. It would help if you could indicate your city or town, or, at any rate, your state, province or country. If not, at least let us know what planet you're on.