home,” namely “politics and policies that serve corporate profiteering and America’s wealthy minority.”

Yet the two wealthiest Americans, Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, and billionaires Oprah Winfrey and George Soros, all supported Obama. Surveys by Prince & Associates show that individuals worth more than $30 million favored Obama 2-to-1 over McCain, while in 2004, 59 percent of individuals worth more than $10 million favored Kerry over Bush. Michael Barone’s column, “The Trustfunder Left,” reveals that the idle rich “tend to be very liberal politically.”

Batchelder extols “working together, not dividing in fear and anger” and “quieter voices, calling for a respectful listening,” while he claims to pray “that Americans of all stripes — regardless of politics … — can pull together in dialogue toward solving critical challenges facing America and the world.”

So how does Batchelder’s spreading falsehoods about Beck and Fox save people from “dividing in fear and anger?” Where is Batchelder’s “respectful listening” when requests for proof of his assertions are answered with more false assertions?

If Batchelder desires genuine dialogue, he should “think globally, act locally” by personally manifesting the moral and intellectual integrity necessary for dialogue. He should research a topic before writing to get his facts straight. When challenged on his facts or logic, he should respond directly to the challenge with argument and evidence, rather than muddying the water by regurgitating gratuitous attacks on Fox. When found to have asserted falsehoods, he should acknowledge the fact and take responsibility for misleading people.

Even George W. Bush admitted he was wrong about the presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, a display of humility and integrity Batchelder has yet to match in his smearing of Beck and company.

TAX CUT REACTION

—K.A. Straughn Norman

As I write this, our president is attempting to justify caving into Republican blackmail. The party wanting to kill government spending held our nation’s unemployed hostage until we extended tax cuts to the wealthy. Apparently, we do negotiate with terrorists.

The Republicans like to claim that extending these tax breaks will create jobs. Well, I have to call shenanigans on them. The wealthy have enjoyed these tax benefits for years, and it did nothing to prevent this recession.

Frankly, the only thing preventing us from being owned by the Chinese in the next 50 years is taxes! How about we make tax incentives for investing in companies which have all American workforces? Doing so would encourage investment in those companies, which would result in growth of the American economy. As a byproduct you’d have less unemployed sucking at the teat of federal and state governments, and more people paying income taxes, which will help reduce the deficit.

Sadly, the manner in which capitalism functions is not designed to help a waning economy. When businesses see less business, they lay people off. That means there are fewer people with money to buy goods and services. And then the process becomes cyclical. Companies with stockholders have to show annual gains, lest those stockholders lose interest and sell. This need for business to best itself every year only causes layoffs and cutbacks during a slow economy. It’s a real chicken-and-egg scenario.

If you had consensus among businesses willing to accept short-term losses, recessions would be short or even nonexistent. So how about tax breaks directed toward businesses who did the right thing and didn’t lay anyone off? Businesses that operated at a loss in lieu of keeping people on the payroll could be exempted from all federal taxes until they return to profitability.

They say there are only two things that are guaranteed in this life: death and taxes. Well, I can say with 100 percent certainty that without taxes, death will come to us all a lot sooner. If we don’t work toward making sure every American has a job, then we simply aren’t being American. We must not give away tax incentives to just anyone. We must find a way to reward people and businesses with tax incentives for taking steps to maintain our nation’s economic security.

Something given has no value.

—Brandon Wertz Oklahoma City

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