The following stupid comments continue to be repeated, often by people who should know better. Cliches are bad enough, worse when they’re wrong. Please start the new year by stopping use of the following because they only illustrate how shallow and ignorant you are.

Gas prices were rigged for the election

Based on supposed close connections between Bush and “Big Oil,” this is totally absurd when you note that Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez sits on three times the oil that Exxon-Mobil controls. To secretly manipulate oil markets would require his collusion. Either show evidence that Chavez and CITGO are really Bush puppets or shut up.

It’s for the children

Massive, rancid political pork and sleazy power grabs use this one which the recent Proposition 203 raising cigarette taxes for “early childhood development” exemplifies. Proponents announced they will now spend the next two years lining up jobs for themselves and their friends before a kiddy sees anything. “It’s for the children” usually means taking somebody else’s money and paying it to an adult.

If it would save but one life

A totally meaningless comparison to whatever “it” is. We could save thousands of lives annually by banning vehicular travel. We don’t and won’t. One good reason not to is the thousands of lives we’d lose through the inability to move stuff around, like food. This cliche ignores unintended consequences.

Better 100 guilty go free than one innocent be punished

All systems are imperfect. Allowing a hundred child molesters to walk to continue molesting is worse than locking up an innocent person. Again, ignores other consequences.

Tax the rich

We already do. The argument to increase the rate at which we do ignores that fact because it’s often based on the desire to punish people, not to fund government. The billions in fat bonuses recently paid on Wall Street caused a windfall profit for Federal, State and New York City governments who took about half of it in income taxes.

No form of amnesty is acceptable

There’s only one form of amnesty, a totally free ride. Like in “pardon” or “absolution” it’s unconditional. There is no such thing as “conditional amnesty.” Immigration hard-liners using this distort the language as bad as lefties do elsewhere.

Religion kills people

Except Militant Islam, mainstream religions have morphed over the last few centuries into the benign. Mass murders in the 20th Century were mainly committed by non-religious regimes like Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, Communist Cambodia and Red China. “Atheism kills people” is more accurate.

War is the health of the state

A favorite of those who think all wars are just devices to expand control by the state. Waging war is one of the few legitimate functions of government and while foreign threats are often invented, often they aren’t. This is also a great cop-out for pacifists and cowards. State power expansion benefits from other cover stories — “safety,” “the environment,” “education” and “health” itself.

The voluntary military only attracts the poor and minorities

Average enlistees have more education, higher income, and are more likely to be white. This is simply anti-military bigotry. It also ignores that societies produce a number of natural warriors that pacifists discourage at their peril - and ours. Those who beat their swords into plowshares often end up plowing for those who don’t.

Educational vouchers rip off public schools

A favorite charge of my liberal co-host Tom Danehy which ignores basic numbers. If vouchers are issued to parents for less than the cost per pupil of public education, then removing a child from public schools is a net gain for the system. They have less money but they also have less children to educate.

Finally, one that’s non-political:

Gourmet hot dogs

Or whatever oxymoron noun completes the description. If it comes in a can, a package wrapped in plastic, you have to reach into a freezer for it, or it requires the use of a microwave, it ain’t “Gourmet” anything.

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EMIL FRANZI

EMAIL FRANZI

BUT WATCH WHAT YOU SAY!

About Emil Franzi

Emil Franzi is the owner and host of "Inside Track" on KVOI - 690AM and KAPR - 930AM in Douglas. The program airs on Saturdays from 12 pm till 5 pm.

Franzi currently writes a weekly column for the EXPLORER (formerly the NORTHWEST EXPLORER). He filled the TUCSON WEEKLY with close to a million relevant words from 1993 to 2004 and was an OpEd regular with the Az Daily Star from 1994 to 1998. His writing has also appeared in PHOENIX Magazine, ARIZONA HIGHWAYS, and the late CITY MAGAZINE in Tucson.

But then, Franzi is an iconoclast.

This website is Franzi's baby, put together with work, faith, and a little help from his friends, like Tom Danehy, Joyce Downey and Mike Tully. The concept -- politics, books, humor, the Old West, movies, "Pet Talk" and letters -- is Emil's. This unique brew seems to work. This website averages more than a thousand "hits" a day and keeps growing.

You can read Emil Franzi's views on all things political and cultural, as well as opposing views, on our "Politics and More" page.