Opinions Matter... Unless I Don't lIke Your Opinion

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Last week Wednesday, the Janesville Gazette posted a letter from a fellow in Edgerton who offered his perspective about the obvious and common hypocrisies held by Tea Party activists. Among them, the letter writer who I'll refer here to as R.T., felt that senior tea partiers should turn in their Medicare cards to Congressman Ryan's office and have him arrange a private insurance plan for $96.50 a month. Afterall, that would be the right thing to do if they intend to stand with their convictions. R.T. then followed suit with Ryan's Social Security plan as little more than a Wall street investment scheme, he wrote...

Letter Excerpt:
...he also wants to take your Social Security checks and "invest" them with some of his banker friends on Wall Street.

A fair if not conservative assessment I thought with just the right amount of crony capitalism tossed in for good measure. However, the opinion expressed in the letter didn't sit too well with the opinion editor at the Gazette because he followed the letter with an editor's note, it began...

Editor's Note:
Regarding Social Security, as Ryan explains in his "Roadmap" proposal: "Individuals 55 and older will remain in the current system and will not be effected by this proposal in any way...etc, etc..

The editor essentially cut and paste an excerpt from Ryan's roadmap in rebuttal to the letter writer...to better explain Ryan's idea.

It's no secret Paul Ryan was handpicked by George W to write up a plan to initiate the phasing out of Social Security through privatization. Over the course of recent years however, Wall Street nearly collapsed from their own greed and the Big Banks were found to be little more than a legalized criminal operation. That didn't faze Ryan. His roadmap throws out a poisoned T-Bone for workers to bite on under the guise of false "choice" and creates another layer of government bureaucracy to manage private capital investments. Instead of writing up preventive maintenance legislation to regulate and oversee the capital markets, Ryan plods on and merely re-adjusts his Wall Street investment trap he's set up for Social Security. After the crash, he now refers to his novel as the Roadmap - 2.0. So whose friend is he anyways?

But back to the editor's note. This wasn't the first time the Gazette defended Ryan's position against a letter writing citizen. They did so previously to "correct" another writer's criticism of free trade agreements and the adverse effects they can have on the Janesville GM Plant. Again the editor posted a note in what amounted to an opinion from Ryan's office to contradict the writer's position. Of course the rest is history.

Yesterday, the Gazette's opinion editor blogged about meeting a person at a Janesville store who verbally expressed his opinion about the editor's note on R.T.s' letter, calling it "totally inappropriate." A very astute observation respectfully verbalized. But from the editor's blog entry, it sounds like he thinks it was rude to be confronted "off the clock" and not being given a chance to explain. Apparently, after making his statement, the person just turned and walked away.

From all accounts it didn't look like the person cared for an explanation. Anyways, what would be the point? But if he did, should've he called the editor before or after publication? Ironically, the editor's blog is named "Opinions Matter."

Note: This posting is the sole opinion and perspective of its' writer and is in no way associated with any of the persons described.