Out with the obnoxious notion that someone’s worth matches his/her pay

To the Editor:

Sure, it's the crazy season.

Republican candidates will be poking fingers in each other's eyes for months. Super PACs and the bloviating, pontificating, self-righteous of the conservative media will be fabricating mis- and dis-information in encyclopedic form on a daily basis in hopes of hitting as many hot buttons of as many voters as possible.

And rather obviously, there will be those in every pocket of society who will simply regurgitate what they hear, eagerly assisting in the politics of personal destruction, giving little or no thought to what the truth actually is or registering little to no feeling apart from glee over the damage they might or actually accomplish.%u2028

So it appears with Neal Lee's vitriolic misrepresentation of what "economic equality" or inequality means in his letter to The Athens NEWS, Jan. 26.

Putting aside Mr. Lee's apparent disdain for particular persons, parties or policies, he misses two very long-standing points.

Income taxes in this country are by and large assessed against income/assets, not against color, gender or station.

In his derisive chiding, Mr. Lee also neglects the small fact that in any economic structure, not everyone can be pope, president, CEO, party or mob boss all at the same time. Some have to run the lathes, answer the phones, brine the fish, off-load the trucks, patch the potholes and nurse the next generation.

Until such time as Mr. Lee chooses to jump ship and join a truly communist country, where theoretically everyone is paid equivalently — and of which there are essentially none and never were — he has no reasonable right to assert that those who generate less income and tax revenue per breath or heartbeat than another are not carrying their own water.%u2028

Were this the case, Mr. Lee would be subject to his own offensive attack — a small matter which he seems to have overlooked.%u2028

Todd Swearingen
Guysville