Mazzuca: Matters of common sense

Sometimes when discussing politics, one just has to cut through the nonsense and apply a bit of common sense.

• When politicians talk about taxing big corporations, the only people they fool are the gullible and uniformed. Corporations do not pay taxes, people pay taxes. A corporation’s treasurer may write and sign the check, but the money that goes to the IRS comes first from the corporation’s employees and stockholders, but most of it comes from its customers! When a corporation’s tax rate goes up, it has two options, lay off workers and/or raise the costs of their products.
• Gas prices have risen considerably since President Joe Biden closed the Keystone Pipeline, yet few want to discuss the fact that the same amount of petroleum is still being delivered to the refineries. The difference is that now the oil is being transported by rail and road instead of by pipeline, a situation that increases greenhouse gas pollution; begging the question, how does this benefit the environment?
• I, too, want clean air and water, but I also want the truth. So, before spending billions on the Green New Deal, Americans would be wise to consider the words of Dr. Ottmar Endenhofer, co-chair of the IPCC working group on Mitigation of Climate Change who told the World Global Warming Policy Forum, “We (the UN-IPCC) redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy. … One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore.”
• The border situation will not change until we have a new occupant in the White House, so get used to it. Actions speak louder than words and if the Biden administration wanted to stop illegal crossings, they would — but they don’t, and they won’t. All the talk about the “root causes” of illegal immigration is a canard. If Americans don’t know the “root causes” of illegal immigration by now we never will, to wit; corrupt governments that fail to provide basic physical protections while offering little economic opportunity and even less hope. And if there weren’t oceans separating us from Africa and Asia, we’d have millions surging across our borders instead of thousands.
• From 2015 through 2019, the nation averaged 10,500 gun homicides per year. During the same period the nation averaged 360 mass shooting deaths per year. So, if curbing gun violence is the issue, wouldn’t it make more sense for the nation to focus its energies on preventing the 97% of violent gun deaths not associated with mass shootings, i.e., crime on our city streets?
• I believe the Democrat Party’s obsession with race is dangerous. In fact, I cannot think of a single ideology since Germany in the 1930s and ’40s that has focused so much attention on race. Every executive order, every piece of legislation, every accusation against their opponents, every aspect of American society, and now even the MLB’s All-Star Game is framed by racism. As Joseph Goebbels infamously said, “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.” Adding that “the lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the … consequences of the lie.”
• And speaking of Major League Baseball, was it really necessary to move the All-Star game from Atlanta to Coors Field, especially considering the fact that Colorado’s voter ID requirements may be even stricter than Georgia’s? This is an abject falsehood. As you no doubt know by now, the law does not close polling places “at five o’clock when working people just get off,” and the food or water sections of Georgia’s law are designed to prevent electioneering close to a polling place. Polling-place workers are allowed to hand out food or water, so why the lies, Mr. President?

The Jim Crow laws that denied Black Americans their right to vote were all about Billy clubs, fire hoses, poll taxes, bogus literacy tests and the threat of violence by the Ku Klux Klan. But new Georgia voting law does nothing of the kind. Black voters like all other Georgians will still be able to register and vote in-person on Election Day; they can vote before Election Day or vote by mail without an excuse if they are 65 or older. Even the uber-liberal Washington Post gave Joe Biden four Pinocchios for his grossly misleading comments on the law.

Thought for the day: Government has been unsuccessful in fighting homelessness, hunger and poverty; yet now it tells us it will be successful fighting climate change — let that sink in for a moment.