Opinions
I’ve been looking through the papers again so I could have some opinions. That’s what I do for a living – having opinions. I’m lucky. You probably make only a few friends mad with your dumb opinions. I get to make millions of people mad with mine.
President Clinton says we’re going to have the first balanced budget in thirty years. A poll showed that most people would rather make Social Security safe with the extra money than have their taxes reduced.
Public opinion isn’t that smart very often. It’s really surprising that a democracy works as well as ours does because, let’s face it, public opinion is usually pretty stupid. If we voted on everything, the average American would be wrong about three quarters of the time. Not me, mind you. I’m thinking more of you.
President Clinton plans to get another $65 billion from cigarette companies to help the budget. I don’t like that. Either make tobacco illegal or leave smokers alone. If it’s money the Government’s after, why don’t they make marijuana and cocaine legal and tax that the way they tax tobacco?
It looks as if we’re going to bomb Iraq. Boy, I don’t know about that either. I’m not for starting a war but you have to figure the President knows more about what weapons Saddam Hussein’s got than he’s telling us. He must know that Iraq’s getting close to being able to wipe us out or wipe someone out. Israel, probably. I still trust the President enough to believe that if we do it, we had to do it.
In Texas they offered a woman named Karla Faye Tucker the other night. She killed two people with a pickaxe鶴嘴鋤and then claimed she got religion in prison. It’s amazing how devout murderers become when they’re locked up.
The death penalty is barbaric for a civilized Country but if that’s the state law, Karla Faye sure had it coming. For one thing, I favor equal rights for women. In the past twenty-two years, 434 people had been executed in the United States; just one of them was a woman. That doesn’t seem fair. Women have a long way to go before they gain equality being capitally punished.
The single best story I read this week was about a new glue doctors have that they can use instead of stitches to put you back together after they operate and open you up.
I hope it works – glue is often a disappointment though. Too often it won’t do what they claim it will. Anyone who has ever tried to mend a broken dish or cup knows that.
I’ve been sewed up three times now…once for my appendix and twice for hernias脫腸. Never been glued together.
From Andy Rooney, Years of Minutes, pp. 379-380.
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