Conservatives in Orange County should be proud

As a proud, lifelong conservative Republican and native Orange

Countian, I took more than my usual amount of umbrage with the

“weekly whinings” of the Pilot’s ultra liberal columnist Joe Bell.

I arrived in Placentia in 1942, 17 years prior to Bell’s arrival

in 1959. My conservative Republican parents arrived in 1932 when they

purchased an Orange Grove in the beautiful little town of Placentia,

which was the culmination of a lifelong dream for them. And until Joe

Bell moved here from the Midwest to enlighten us, we didn’t know we

were all “nut cases” back then.

I would suggest that before the “learned professor” from UC Irvine

(home of the fighting Anteaters) goes much further to disparage the

efforts of Rep. James Utt to repeal the income tax back in the 1950s,

he might want to check out a history book or two at the Anteater

library. If he does, I am sure he will be astonished to find that

Americans have had a disdain for the taking of a man’s income that

goes clear back as far as the founding of this nation. That’s why I

say the founding fathers of this republic wrote it in the

Constitution that the government could not tax a man’s income at the

Constitutional Convention clear back in 1789.

The people that were involved in the writing of this Constitution

(and the provisions that prohibited a personal income tax) had names,

some of which might even be familiar to Joe Bell; names like

Jefferson, Madison, Adams, Hancock, Hamilton and Washington. I guess,

if we are to believe Bell, all these guys were “nut cases,” too. If

so, I proudly plead guilty to being a certified, conservative Orange

County Republican “nut case” -- just like the founding fathers.

It wasn’t until the first certified liberal president of the 20th

century took office in 1914 that President Wilson helped finagle a

phony constitutional amendment to allow the government to tax a man’s

income. Wilson, like any good liberal Democrat today, said that the

tax would “never be more than 1% on the top 1% of the income earners”

in the country. Of course, once they got the “camel’s nose under the

tent,” that was all she wrote. Sound familiar? Now, if you don’t

knuckle-under and let the government confiscate half your income, you

go to prison: just what the founding fathers were trying to preclude.

The founding fathers must be turning over in their graves. In the

meantime, I have a suggestion for Bell: Why don’t you give up your

column until you have time to read a little history. I know what. You

could go back to your alma mater at UCI and lead the “burgeoning

peace movement” that is now allegedly occurring there, according to

your “giddy” report recently. That way, we would be spared your

weekly liberal whinings, and you could do something you hopefully

know something about.

As for me, I am quite proud of the way we “conservative Republican

Orange Countians are perceived” (from outside this county). We are

the last bastion of Republican conservatism (and common sense) within

a state that has gone around the proverbial liberal bend. Look at the

mess the Democratic legislature and Democratic governor have made of

this once prosperous state. At the rate they’re going, there won’t be

a company left doing business in the state by the next gubernatorial

election; and that’ll suit the Joe Bells of the state just fine, I’m

sure.

TOM WILLIAMS

Newport Beach