Letter to Wired Magazine Editor

Recent letter to Wired Magazine editor:

As a new Wired subscriber, my first introduction to the magazine left me shocked and offended. Honestly, Wired's January 2009 article "Science We Can Believe In" by David Goldston read more like an editorial from a communist Chinese or Russian newspaper, than something I was expecting from a forward thinking technology magazine in the United States of America. Goldston makes the base assumption that U.S. government policies that force it's citizens to pay for other people's causes such as science and research funding, is widely desirable. While I might agree with many of the causes, we live in a constitutional republic with basic rights for which presidents and politicians swear to uphold. Forcing its citizens to pay for other people's causes and special interests is not an assumed role of government with which I or many Americans feel comfortable, let alone feel is constitutionally acceptable. The second base assumption by Goldston is that presidents and politicians somehow know how to better finance and manage (via policy) technology companies than the inventors, investors, innovators, employees, and managers of those companies. As an inventor, investor, and technologist, I find this implication offensive. When the topic of politics and technology comes up, I'd like to see much more information on how technology can free itself from government controls and financing, and relegate the radical beliefs expressed by the likes of Goldston to the 1% occasional rant. Granted, I'm a new reader. I'm just hoping I didn't pick up a subscription to a tech magazine sympathetic to socialist and communistic diatribes.

B.O.'s Hypocrisy and Rabid Socialism

B.O. recently was quoted w.r.t. business executives: “There will be time for them to make profits, and there will be time for them to get bonuses. Now’s not that time. And that’s a message that I intend to send directly to them, I expect Secretary Geithner to send to them.”

Biden said that he, like the president, was outraged by reports of large bonuses going to Wall Street executives. “I’d like to throw these guys in the brig,” he said. “They’re thinking the same old thing that got us here, greed. They’re thinking, ‘Take care of me.’ ”

This was stated just a few short weeks after a $170,000,000 inauguration and a few short days after pushing for $900,000,000,000 in increased government expenditures. $3,000,000,000 of which is targeted for the state of Virginia. Virginia's guv just spent $500,000 to pay for bus rides for people to/from the inauguration.

So in the midst of an economic crisis, $500K bus rides for an event is not accountable, turning us into a socialist nation impacting civil freedom is not accountable, spending a trillion of someone else's money is not accountable, spending $170M on a party is not accountable....but B.O. and Biden are outraged by executives being paid money by the companies and shareholders who decide to pay them that money.

I was wondering if B.O. would have Clinton-esque restraint and moderation, but his introductory actions and words reveal exactly what I feared: a rabid and radical socialist.