An Open Letter to America

Are you happy now? Is this really the government you wanted? Where Congress demonizes private citizens to the point where they fear for their lives and safety? Where, after deliberately inserting language into the stimulus bill that allowed these bonuses to be paid, they then turn around and threaten to specifically target these people with a confiscatory 90% tax if they don’t give the money back – even though they were contractually entitled to it? Is this the government you wanted?

And don’t tell me that the bonuses weren’t deserved, because you don’t know that. You don’t know who got bonuses, you don’t know what they had to do to qualify for them, and you don’t know how much worse things at AIG might have been without these particular individuals. You simply assumed that because AIG lost a lot of money and got a government bailout, and because Congress and the media sensationalized the situation, and because we’re talking about large sums of money, these people didn’t deserve to have their employment contracts honored – even though the total amount we’re talking about is less than one-tenth of one percent of the bailout money AIG received – so you grabbed your pitchfork and torch and joined the mob. Shame on you.

There is no slope slipperier than the one you set foot upon when the government starts deciding what people in the private sector “should” be paid. To paraphrase the Reverend Martin Niemoller:

First they came for the Wall Street CEOs, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Wall Street CEO.
Then they came for the bonus recipients, and I did not speak out, because I was not a bonus recipient.
Then they came for big business executives with private jets, and I did not speak out, because I didn’t have a private jet.
Then they came for the “rich” people who made more than $250,000 per year, and I did not speak out, because I wasn’t “rich.”
Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak out for me.