PROGRESSIVE: It's not a dirty word
Ignoring the personal criticisms directed at me, it was with some interest that I read the recent reactions to the My Turn article (2/13/10) in which I was critical of some writers to The Press who call the President names and question his patriotism. Some of the ideas in those letters over the last few weeks were interesting and thought-provoking and others were simply a restatement of the negative labels and falsehoods that one regularly sees from the far right in the Coeur d’Alene Press. (For instance in just the last few days one writer called our elected government, not for once just the Democrats, as the “the anti-Christ of Liberty” which most common sense Idahoans would not agree with).
No one including me is objecting to the people’s right to criticize or protest the government and the President. Nor do I believe as one writer said in response to my article that I was suggesting that people should just “sit down, shut up, and pay your taxes.” And I do agree as this same writer suggests that people should “speak openly and freely for your love and pride of this great nation.” I have my own very serious concerns about some of the things our government does. But to call President Obama a Marxist or other radical label or unpatriotic is simply a lie and adds to the political polarization in this country.
To read some of the letters one finds in The Press one would think President Obama somehow managed to sneak by the scrutiny of Homeland Security and is some foreign-born Islamic extremist intent on introducing a radical anti-American agenda.
As I watched the recent health care summit it was obvious that many of the senators and congressmen have profoundly different views about how the country should proceed with health care reform. However I doubt anyone present felt members of the other party or the president was unpatriotic. It would be helpful if such civility was shown by others.
One of the writers critical of my article concluded his letter by saying “I see Obama as a classic progressive and a serious danger to our Republic.” Being a progressive on such issues as health care, the environment, or promoting reasonable regulations of the financial industry that brought our economy to its knees, does not equate with being a “threat to the Republic.” By such logic President Franklin Roosevelt who gave us Social Security and minimal regulation of the banks during the Great Depression, President Kennedy who gave us programs like the Peace Corp, President Johnson who introduced Medicare and some war on poverty programs, and President Nixon who gave us the Environmental Protection Agency and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration were all progressives and therefore “threats to the Republic.” (Actually Nixon’s criminal behavior in Watergate was a threat to the nation, but many of his domestic programs were quite “progressive.”)
Though I understand and agree with many of the concerns for a smaller and more responsive federal government, to equate being a progressive with being unpatriotic is simply untrue. Reading such letters on a regular basis in The Press I agree with former Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan who said, “Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts.”
TOM HEARN
Coeur d’Alene