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Subject: Comment on Show¹

I wanted to comment on the show you had with Matt Welch talking about the Arizona shootings.

I think you need to go further back in history than 2004 or 2001. I think you need to review the French revolution and also World War I and II.

According to historian Stephen Ambrose, World War I was an uprising of the lower classes and that embitterment carried over into World War II. The same for the French Revolution where the lower classes rose up and overthrew the ruling dynasty.

We have (if you just listen to the other videos on reason.tv) the government in bed with large corporations and the rich (the ruling dynasty) getting more power and the underclass getting weaker. Eventually things are going to explode. The rhetoric is simply echoing the truth. You can't blame the rhetoric (which you didn't) but I disagree that the guy was "crazy". There is no sign from anywhere, especially from Obama, that things are going to change. There is more evidence that the new batch of tea party members are going to fold than there is evidence that they are going to stand.

I do think it was clearly going to happen. We saw the same sort of rage in Austin with the guy crashing his plane into the IRS building. And I would be surprised if it did not continue to happen. But its not because of the rhetoric. Its because of the government. They continue to remove rights. They continue to hype fear and terrorism. They continue to take from the poor. They continue to give to the rich. They continue to disobey the laws they were sworn to uphold.

When is the last time you saw a powerful person actually go to jail and do hard time? That, to me, is one of the things that the O. J. Simpson trail proved. Rich and powerful people do not go to jail. The country has become "color-blind" as far as black and white but not green. It was only after Simpson had all his money stripped from him from civil law suites that he finally went to jail. The people from Enron should be in jail. The people from AIG, Countrywide Mortgage, Goldman Sachs should be, at least, prosecuted. These people are not even being prosecuted. Do you believe that the general public isn't howling about that? The media and its rhetoric isn't creating the heat. It is just reporting it (although in a very shameful way).

Perry Smith

1: MATT WELCH DISCUSSES THE ARIZONA SHOOTING ON RED EYE