Friday, January 07, 2005

Looking Politically Correct

Intellectual honesty is more than what's legislated; it is inherent in the best people, those who take a broader view of their action than simply "What's in it for me?"
Charles Sanford, Jr. (1936 - ), business executive

Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., proposed the United States take responsibility for building a global tsunami warning system and spending $7.5 million a year to maintain it, according to the New York Times.

Maybe out of the billion dollars going to relief efforts in the tsunami-ravaged areas, $30 could be extracted and spent on a network of buoys, wave gauges, and seismic sensors to warn of pending natural disasters?

Lieberman has his heart in the right place by proposing such a plan, but writing another check for the technology to predict a relatively rare occurrence should come out of the relief funds. The Misanthrope does not believe any country would object to a percentage of their donations used for preparedness. We are just going to ignore the $7.5 million in maintenance costs.

Forget political correctness to look compassionate. The United States is a compassionate and generous country, even if our president was a bit slow.

The $30 million Lieberman proposes should go toward ensuring that the very nation that is actively forcing or encouraging other countries to embrace democracy should set a shining example. In the United States it is an embarrassment that not every vote counts, that there are missing voting machines, defective voting machines, unusually long lines or other problems that plagued some Ohio and Florida districts, many in minority neighborhoods, in 2000 and again in 2004. Congress should find a way to guarantee that votes are counted and auditable. Voting machines without paper trails should be illegal.

“Our people are dying all over the world ... to bring democracy to the far corners of the world. Let’s fix it here,” said Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif.

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