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6A Daily News – Tuesday, July 2, 2013 Opinion Rainbow babies DAILY NEWS RED BLUFF TEHAMA COUNTY T H E V O I C E O F T E H A M A C O U NTY S I N C E 1 8 8 5 Greg Stevens, Publisher gstevens@redbluffdailynews.com Chip Thompson, Editor editor@redbluffdailynews.com Editorial policy The Daily News opinion is expressed in the editorial. The opinions expressed in columns, letters and cartoons are those of the authors and artists. Letter policy The Daily News welcomes letters from its readers on timely topics of public interest. All letters must be signed and provide the writer's home street address and home phone number. Anonymous letters, open letters to others, pen names and petition-style letters will not be allowed. Letters should be typed and cannot exceed two double-spaced pages or 500 words. When several letters address the same issue, a cross section of those submitted will be considered for publication. Letters will be edited. Letters are published at the discretion of the editor. Mission Statement We believe that a strong community newspaper is essential to a strong community, creating citizens who are better informed and more involved. The Daily News will be the indispensible guide to life and living in Tehama County. We will be the premier provider of local news, information and advertising through our daily newspaper, online edition and other print and Internet vehicles. The Daily News will reflect and support the unique identities of Tehama County and its cities; record the history of its communities and their people and make a positive difference in the quality of life for the residents and businesses of Tehama County. How to reach us Main office: 527-2151 Classified: 527-2151 Circulation: 527-2151 News tips: 527-2153 Sports: 527-2153 Obituaries: 527-2151 Photo: 527-2153 On the Web www.redbluffdailynews.com Fax Newsroom: 527-9251 Classified: 527-5774 Retail Adv.: 527-5774 Legal Adv.: 527-5774 Business Office: 527-3719 Address 545 Diamond Ave. Red Bluff, CA 96080, or P.O. Box 220 Red Bluff, CA 96080 The U.S. Supreme Court must love the nightlife, because they just struck down the Defense of Marriage Act and invalidated California's Proposition 8, which set off parties in every major city in the America. They were dancing in the streets so long and hard it was raining men... and women. 10,000 kudos to all our friends in the LGBT community for finally upgrading out of societal steerage into economy. You have survived. Your hearts must be so over the rainbow, both the hearts and the rainbows are having babies right now. Cakes are being baked and balloons blown in your honor as we speak. You are one notarized slip of paper away from joining the heterosexual world in holy matrimony. Congratulations. You now have the legal right to be as miserable as the rest of us. So sorry you had to wait. The deal is, a lot of bitter old people had to die first. You know. Tinybrained folks that went to their last dance still believing professional wrestling is legitimate. So maybe this time, the answer to your question "do you really want to hurt me" will be a resoundingly choral "no." But that is nothing more than wet towels on the shower floor at the YMCA now, because you are within a hair's breadth of becoming intimate with the blessed institution of marriage. You are family -- almost. And many have shown interest in voluntary commitment to that institution. Good luck. But be careful what you wish for. Don't want to rain on your parade, but you've just entered the wild and wacky world of unintended consequences. A quick and dirty primer for the wedding deprived: #1. Bigamy is the crime of having one spouse too many. The same has often been said of monogamy. #2. When you see a married couple holding hands, chances are it's to keep from strangling each other. #3. In the beginning, marriage is a noun. Later on, it's a sen- danger of experiencing tence. direct contact with #4. After a few lawyers. The remakes of years, the only thing that 1934 Ginger Rogers most couples have in and Fred Astaire classic, common is they were "The Gay Divorcee" will married on the same be legion. But you will day. make even divorce look #5. Marriage may fabulous. be a blessed sacraSo, right now, relax. ment, but so are the Tell yourself, "I'm too last rites. sexy for any downer And don't forget, talk." Take a walk on the as beautiful and wild side because you're sacred as the start of a Will coming out to be Dancmarriage can be, that's ing Queens and Kings, how ugly and Just wake me up before grotesque the ending you go-go. Her name can get. The bad news was Lola. She was a is 50 percent of all showgirl. Sorry. Couldmarriages end in n't figure out how to slip divorce. The good that in. And what the news is the other 50 percent end in death. There's hell, join the Navy. truth in the old adage that the reaFive-time Emmy nominee Will son divorces are so expensive is Durst's new one-man show, because they're worth it. Alimony. Child support. In- "BoomerAging: From LSD to laws. Headaches. Jealousy, OMG," is presented every betrayal, money. Hair in the sink. Tuesday at The Marsh, San Puce cabinets. All that to look for- Francisco. Go to themarsh.org for ward to: plus you are in imminent more info. Durst Raging Moderate Your officials STATE ASSEMBLYMAN — Dan Logue, 1550 Humboldt Road, Ste. 4, Chico, CA 95928, 530-895-4217 STATE SENATOR — Jim Nielsen, 2635 Forest Ave., Ste. 110, Chico, CA 95928, (530) 879-7424, senator.nielsen@senate.ca.gov GOVERNOR — Jerry Brown, State Capitol Bldg., Sacramento, CA 95814; (916) 445-2841; Fax (916) 5583160; E-mail: governor@governor.ca.gov. U.S. REPRESENTATIVE — Doug LaMalfa 506 Cannon House Office Building, Washington, DC 20515, 202-2253076. U.S. SENATORS — Dianne Feinstein (D), One Post Street, Suite 2450, San Francisco, CA 94104; (415) 393-0707. Fax (415) 3930710. Barbara Boxer (D), 1700 Montgomery St., Suite 240, San Francisco, CA 94111; (510) 286-8537. Fax (202) 224-0454. Commentary That freedom shall not perish from this earth As Independence Day approaches, some revealing, profound concepts beg our attention; they're not wholly unrelated to the threat, the actuality, of oppression of the freedoms we hold dear, revealed in IRS and other scandals. Freedom and rights as spelled out in our Constitution were, at the time the Colonists began stirring for independence, an evolving rather than a static concept. Those early pioneers, settlers and eventual Founding Fathers did not just wake up one day and formulate the concept of "unalienable rights" endowed "by their Creator." They read, and intellectually embraced, the beliefs of English and French thinkers who opined on the laws of Nature and of Nature's God who bestowed upon individuals those rights. Those thinkers and writers on individual freedom and the best means of assuring freedom through governments established among men—were not starting in a vacuum. Yes, it's true that people had to live under tyrannical kings and royal lineages. However, I learned from a speaker at a Redding Tea Party Patriots meeting that, over the course of hundreds of years and four separate charters, including the Magna Carta, English kings made compromises to their absolute power over their kingdoms and subjects. Admittedly at the point of a sword held by lesser royalty and landholders, those concessions gave the British people governing bodies and limited rights. Yes, it's nearly ancient textbook history but it bears on reality for many of the subjects and lower levels of British life. The king ruled directly over lesser royalty, elsewhere through his/her representatives and tax collectors, while the lives of commoners and trades people, subject to royal whim, proceeded apace. What the colonists—primarily British, many having chosen indentured servitude to get to the New World—found themselves facing were less freedoms, rights and economic independence than they would have enjoyed as subjects in England. It became intolerable for many, but not all. Certain of the Acts, Laws and taxes were called "the Intolerable Acts," risible and offensive to the core of those colonists. Consider that, if memory serves, only around a third of the colonists were committed to waging war for independence. Another third were loyal subjects happily enduring the burdens inflicted by the British monarch, his governors, and the world's most powerful military. The last third could make their way with neither rebellion against, nor devotion to, the crown. Tyranny, indeed, but King George never set foot in the colonies and the oppression was not universally resented nor considered cause for bloodshed. Perhaps we can now put current political conflicts in perspective: A sizable plurality finds it quite intolerable that the federal government continues to spend trillions of dollars that this country doesn't have, borrowing from China or financially enslaving those not yet working or even born. All to sustain the financial and economic lifestyles of the poor, the working poor, the so-called disabled awarded their rights to our pockets by lawyers and judges, and seniors simply abiding by an unsustainable system whereby suit of happiness," rights that they consume 3 times the med- came from God, not governical care that they ever paid ment, produced limited government. That has been taxes for. the story of America, Either many milwhile the free market lions of our citizens has been the "engine must be weaned off of prosperity," allowtheir dependence upon ing many poor to end the fruits of someone's, up rich and many heck, everyone else's more to better themlabor; either the costly selves and their famiplague of thousands of lies. unnecessary rules and Obama's vision, regulations, together unsurprisingly, is with tens of millions of quite different: "He words in a bloated, contended that govobscure tax code, are Don ernment needs to be undone; either the federal branch will willPolson large and has done good things when it ingly shed powers not The way has been increased in based on the Constitusize … He often tion and restore to the I see it mixed individual sovereign states their achievement and govplace under that same ernmental achieveConstitution—or there will be a new American revolu- ment as though they were the tion. To be aware of the extent to same thing" with self-governwhich federal governmental ment being "the tool to do big apparatus is now using its pow- and important things together ers to harass, to demand satis- that we could not possibly do faction, to investigate and intim- alone", like railroads, electricity, idate into submission the other- a highway system and educawise law-abiding but determined tion. However, those four examopponents of that same govern- ples have for much of our histoment—that awareness places a ry flourished under private, state burden of choice. Whose side or local stewardship; less so under the federal government. are you on? Irreconcilable visions could In "Which Vision for America Will Our New College Grad- compete equally in the marketuates Embrace?" (search by place of ideas, except that title), Charles Kline of Hillsdale Obama's side has vast, powerful College reviewed two com- tools to use against conservative mencement addresses: by Sena- activists, whistleblowers and tor Ted Cruz and by President nosy reporters wishing to Obama. "Cruz began by noting expose public misdeeds to pubthat most people in history have lic scrutiny. Not good odds for had very little freedom because our side. they have lived under monarDon Polson has called Red chies." Winning independence from England and writing "a Bluff home since 1988. He can Constitution that enshrined the be reached by e-mail at right to life, liberty and the pur- donplsn@yahoo.com.