Left or Right?

You've read Bruce Pierce's first sounding off. Now, from the left we bring you Stewart Jennison.

Stew's Views

WOMI

January 28, 2011

Welcome to my little corner of the WOMI web world. I'm Stewart Jennison and I have been recruited to provide a left / liberal / progressive viewpoint alongside Bruce's right-leaning opinions. Just by agreeing to this, I have reluctantly succumbed to the labeling and pigeon-holing that discourages open-minded folks of all persuasians from having a constructive political discourse. But such are the times we live in.

I was born and reared in Madisonville, KY and picked up a degree is something called "telecommunications" at the University of Kentucky. I was a newspaper reporter or editor for nearly 30 years, mostly at the Madisonville Messenger and Owensboro Messenger-Inquirer. I always tried to be "fair and balanced" (a phrase which had meaning before Fox News made a mockery of it) and was careful not to be lumped in with the "liberal news media." For one thing, it's hard to do any slash-and-burn writing when you're likely to run into an important source or local official at Kroger the next day. I never had any complaints about misquoting. "Mean what you say," I'd tell a nervous source, "and I'll say what you mean."

There will be no ranting under my name. No pompastic bombast. My model is the newspaper editorial -- an opinion with supporting facts. I will seek to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. To me, there is no higher calling for a journalist.

On the whole, I consider myself only slightly left of center. If Glenn Beck is 10 steps to the right of true center, I'm two steps to the left. I share the small-town values of hard work and personal responsibility. I have some conservative opinions that would allow Alan Colmes and Rachel Maddow to label me a Certified Redneck.

But for the purposes of entertainment and elightment, I'll throw out some liberal sentiments that we can explore in greater detail in the weeks ahead:

Health Care Reform: Republicans did the country a great disservice by stonewalling the debate in Congress when the opportunity was there for a meaningful compromise plan. Young and healthy Americans should be required to buy into a national health plan the same way they share in supporting the military, social security, schools and infrastructure. Access to overpriced health care has to be rationed in some way. We can't all afford Cadillacs; we can't all afford heart tranplants. Sadly, convervatives already have killed any rational discussion of allocating health resources by equating it to "Death Panels."

Immigration reform: Expect it when you see it. Democrats like adding Latinos to their voter base; the business interests that bankroll Republican want the borders open to provide cheap labor.

Gun control: Am I the only one who finds it ludicrous for “Tom & Harry’s Sporting Goods” to offer a wide assortment of automatic rifles and 33-shot handguns? If you're that afraid of encountering an angry mob of white-tail deer, I say stay out of the woods. So long as Americans insist on ready access to guns, American will continue to have a disproportionate number of adults and children dying by accident or suicide in "the safety or their own homes."

The "Nanny State:" San Francisco (where else?) is outlawing fat and salty Happy Meals if they come with a toy. Shouldn't that be left to parents to monitor? In a perfect world, perhaps, but, as Bill Engvall likes to say, "You Can't Fix Stupid." So we allow the government to step in an make it harder for Stupid to hurt himself and require a long hospitlization at taxpayer expense. So we require food safety inspections, nutrition labels, regular aircraft maintenance, seat belt and motorcyle helmets and that stinky stuff they put in natural gas so you can smell a leak.

Anything less would encourage the Stupids to thin their own herd.

Love me or hate me. I'm too old to care. But I hope you'll come back for more.