LETTER: Republican Congress is best choice

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I am writing in response to the columns by the Rice Young Democrats that have appeared each week in your paper this semester.

I applaud the efforts of the Rice Young Democrats in presenting their side of the issues for the upcoming election, and I would also like to register my disappointment in the Rice Young Republicans for offering only token opposition. If they can't offer a rejoinder, I will.

The most remarkable aspects of the upcoming elections are the general apathy among the public and the poor quality of the presidential candidates of the major parties. These phenomena are related and can be blamed on both parties.

In 1994, the Democrats suffered their worst electoral defeat in history. Americans were portrayed as "angry" for good reason.

The administration now poised to be re-elected had just tried to force them to accept government control over their lives in the guise of "free" medical care. The administration that declared "the era of big government ... is over," had shown that it was really committed to further expansion of big government. Americans were tired of working until after July 4 every year to pay confiscatory tax rates.

The Republicans triumphantly entered Congress with the promise to stop Bill Clinton. They won the battle, but a long campaign by the Democrats threatens everything the Republicans stand for.

The Democrats have smeared the Republicans for the past two years. They used Big Bird as window-dressing to portray the Republicans as mean-spirited when they tried to privatize public television.

When the Republicans tried to decentralize the school lunch program, the Democrats acted as if child starvation were a plank in the Republican platform. When the Republicans offered a plan to slow the rate of growth in Medicare by about the same amount as the president, the Democrats lied en masse, claiming that the Republicans were cutting the program. The Republicans helped them by not arguing for their principles.

The purpose of government is to protect the freedom of its citizens by preventing the initiation of force against them, be that force in the form of fraud, robbery or murder.

Man must be free to exercise his best judgment to live, meaning that to gain benefit from living in a society, he must be unafraid of dealing with others. For example, how can one man live by selling shoes if other men can simply take the shoes he cobbles?

But that is what our government does when it taxes us. Whether we want the "services" it offers or not, we are threatened with imprisonment if we do not pay for them by taxes. Since we must work to earn money, these taxes represent time from our finite lives. Taxation is a form of slavery. No amount of concern for the suffering of others can change this fact or justify it.

Mass defections have left the Democratic Party with only left-wing extremists in Congress, and these politicians will not lose the chance to radically attack freedom if given another chance to rule. Socialized medicine is high on their agenda, and that will be just the beginning.

I cannot offer you government handouts. I cannot show my concern with money taken from other people. I can only state the truth. My vote is not for sale to the Democratic Party and Big Labor. By comparison to the value of my freedom, they are offering me trinkets. I hope you will agree. When you chose to attend Rice, a major factor in your decision was probably the advantages afforded by your degree, one of which is the ability to earn money. There is nothing wrong with that.

Protect your stake in the future. Vote to keep Congress Republican. I regret that there is no good choice for president, but with a Republican Congress, our freedom at least stands a chance. I will not pretend I have a choice for president. I will abstain.

C.S. Miller, Jr.

Graduate student

Deptartment of Biochemistry and Cell Biology

This item appeared in the Opinion section of the November 1, 1996 issue.

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