To the Editor:
I missed Don Weathington, but I see he’s back. His column (TDB 2-3-12) sounds like he may have been occupying Wall Street.
In two consecutive sentences he upsets the entire apple cart of tenets of what has made this country the envy of the world (for a while, at least).
Sentence one: “The privilege of earning a lot of money shouldn’t be free.” Say whaaat? Citizens shouldn’t be free to earn whatever their talents, education and ambition can provide.
So, here is Bob, showing up at the national park at 6 a.m. to fish when the fish are biting. I’ve caught four by 9:30 and good fishing is about over. Along comes Ty Pover about 10 a.m. We fish til 10:25 and pack up together. I have four fish; he has none. At the gate I’m first. The ranger asks how many fish I’ve caught. “Four,” I say.
“Wait here,” he says.
When he finds that Ty Pover, just behind me, has none, he takes one of mine and gives it to Ty, then one to himself. Moral: doing well at catching fish ain’t free.
Sentence two: (immediately following) “High earners should pay to maintain the civilization they exploit.” Interesting word, “exploit.” As a noun – a noteworthy deed. As a verb – two meanings: either to “make use of” (neutral) or “to illuse” (pejorative), as in the ranger exploited his authority when he took my fish.
Locally, I assume Drs. Rosenburg, Perrault and Baker, as well as the owners of Sidestreet and IGA and Stott’s Ford are “high earners.” If Don and anyone else thinks they should be paying more then tell them so next time you are exploiting (neutral) their services.
That said, there are evil exploiters – Madoff and Corzine, etc. These are criminals and I’d happily take everything they have.
Speaking of evil exploitation, a peeve of mine is 99 weeks’ unemployment. Think back two years ago. How old were you then? Think you could have found work between then and now? So, who is exploiting who?
– Bob Neubauer