Responding to ‘Citizens seem 
not to care’

This letter is in response to Stan White’s letter titled, “Citizens seem not to care.” Mr. White makes several points based on half-truths and a misrepresentation of the facts regarding current polices that he disagrees with.

First, he mentions the FCC attempting to regulate free speech on the Internet. Although Glenn Beck ranted about the FCC during a broadcast last week, the FCC is actually the good guy. It is attempting to regulate giant Internet service providers in order to protect Internet users’ access to an unrestricted Internet. It is seeking to block ISPs from prioritizing some Internet traffic as more important than other Internet traffic — essentially policing the Internet we all currently enjoy. Sen. John McCain is attempting to pass a law that allows ISPs to prioritize and filter traffic. This would be the end of Net Neutrality. If this bill became law, the FCC’s efforts to regulate the large corporate ISPs and preserve Mr. White’s ability to access an open Internet would be for naught.

Mr. White also argues that the White House should not promote volunteerism. I assume this stems from Glenn Beck’s Oct. 19 TV show, which he called volunteerism a conspiracy between the entertainment industry and the White House. He goes on to compare the United States to Mao Zedong’s China. I believe that no matter what Glenn Beck thinks, we can all agree that we are not living in China and that volunteering or helping others is a good thing.

I realize that Glenn Beck has spoken about “Czars” on 106 different occasions since the beginning of the year, but czars are not a conspiracy. Czar positions have existed in some form since the 1930s. As Time (magazine) said, “By some counts, George W. Bush had the same number czars as Obama — or even more — though not so early in his presidency.” And, for the record, the title of “Czar” is a media creation, because “Drug Czar” plays better than “Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy.”

Although the uselessness of the U.S. dollar is a favorite topic of Glenn Beck’s, I’m not exactly sure why Mr. White is so adamant about pointing out that the dollar is not backed by gold. This isn’t a new development. The gold standard has not been used in the United States since 1933. In addition, the gold standard has not been used by any major economy since Nixon’s presidency. All major economies currently operate on “intrinsically useless” money.