Letter: Payne wrong on his facts

Dear Editor:

Bernard Baruch, Wall Street financier

and presidential advisor to both Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D.

Roosevelt, remarked, in 1946, that “Every man has a right to be

wrong in his opinions but no man has a right to be wrong in his

facts.”

Such is the case regarding the latest

comments by William Payne in the Feb. 11 edition of The Western

News. His commentary, “In favor of small government” (page 4) is

blatantly wrong in one instance and ludicrous in another.

To begin with, Payne declares that

“Only until the Bill of Rights (contained in the first 10

amendments) was added was the Constitution accepted by the

states.”

Not so! The U.S. Constitution went into

effect in June 1788 after the necessary nine of 13 states ratified

it. The Bill of Rights, on the other hand, was not added until Dec.

15, 1791.

In the second instance, Payne declares

that “In terms of individual rights and freedoms, we are worse off

than were the colonists when they revolted against England.”

Really? On the eve of the American

Revolution, approximately 4 million African-American men and women

were enslaved, seaboard Native American populations were on the

path to extermination, women were universally denied the suffrage,

public educational institutions were virtually non-existent, only

aristocratic, large landowners could either vote for or hold public

office, and the act of expressing anti-government outrage – as Mr.

Payne so frequently does (as is his right to do) – was a risky

proposition.

Such disregard for factual information

and the excessive hyperbole employed by Mr. Payne in his

commentaries does not, in my view, well serve the advocates of

“smaller” and more efficient government, which most Americans

would, I’m convinced, readily endorse.

Tony Smith

Troy