The News Guy will be spending almost all next week in Montpelier, where the Legislature is scheduled to be ending its 2009 session.

The goal of the coverage from there is depth, not breadth. No use duplicating the big stories that other reporters are (quite ably, for the most part) covering. So there might not be a post every day next week. On the other hand, there is the possibility of a heretofore unprecedented Saturday post.

Don’t let the suspense haunt your entire week.

By and large the policy of this site is NOT to debate comments, even the most critical. Au contraire, criticism of the News Guy is welcome. Indeed, he is the only one who may be attacked personally in the comments. Personal attacks on other commenters will not be accepted as comment.

But there was one aspect of this week’s comments which call for explanation, though not for refutation. These were some (not all) of those who objected to parts of Hard Ball on Tuesday and  Vermont is Homeless yesterday.

Tuesday’s post warned against “ignoring the burden placed on middle-income taxpayers who might not have very much more money than the folks getting helped “(meaning beneficiaries of state social programs.).

Both in comments sent to the site and in a few private e-mail messages, several readers took the News Guy to task for, as one put it, “assuming the only revenue option is to raise taxes on middle-income folks.” This commenter and others pointed out that if Vermont had a more progressive tax system, any extra cost for social programs would be borne largely by taxpayers who have a great deal more money than the folks getting helped.

True enough. But there is some confusion here between the advocate’s role and the reporter’s. The reporter has to deal with the world as it is, not as some people (sometimes maybe even the reporter) would prefer it to be. The unspoken clause before the journalist’s analysis of the impact of this or that policy is, “under the circumstances now prevailing.” If you don’t like those circumstances, by all means do your best to change them.

But don’t expect a reporter to help you do it. You want to make the world a better place. A reporter does not. He or she just wants to understand and explain it. That the prevailing foolishness in today’s world comes from the right side of the political spectrum should not delude anyone into thinking that a reporter who exposes that foolishness is any less pleased to point out inconsistencies and exaggerations from the other side of the spectrum.

Similarly, to the commenter who asked, “what’s your solution,” the answer is, “not my job. You do solutions. I do critiques.”

No doubt this is annoying to policy makers and advocates. They arduously work out policies only to have some wise-guy journalist point out the possible pitfalls, inconsistencies, unintended consequences and other flaws. No wonder the advocates now and then come back with, “well, what would you do about it, wise guy?”

Sorry. That’s your responsibility. In a sense, journalism is constantly challenging the policy-proposers of the world: “Come up with a plan in which we can’t find a flaw.”

Not a bad system, when you think about it. Not a fair system, one might argue. The office-holders and advocates have to do all this hard work. The reporter/columnist merely casts his/her gimlet eyes on it and gleefully (and let’s acknowledge a certain amount of glee here) tear it to pieces.

Nobody promised you a rose garden.

A post script to an earlier discussion (Sweet Taxes, April 21) of whether governments ought to tax sodas and other unhealthy foods. The voters seem to think that it should if the revenue is used for health care. A new poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation and NPR showed that, nationally, 61 percent of the people approve such taxation.

Finally (and gimlet eyes sharply agleam) let’s take note of the Vermont flapette this week that provided another illustration (not that one is required) of the human, American, and (perhaps particularly) Vermont inclination to get upset over nothing at all.

Or several nothings at all, the first one here being H.176, a bill that would transform the application for a drivers license, learners permit, or non-driving state identification card into a de facto registration for the draft for men between the ages of 18 and 26.

Why bother? Because Vermont seems to be the state in which proportionally fewer such men are registering as required since President Jimmy Carter arguably over-reacted to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1980. This apparently annoyed Fairfield Democrat Richard Howrigan, the bill’s main sponsor, and the legislation in turn has inspired scores of letters to the editor, anguished commentaries on the Internet, an a segment on Vermont Public Radio’s Vermont Edition program earlier this week.

And why is this a collection of nothings? Because the bill is not going to become law. But more importantly because the draft registration requirement is meaningless. There is no military draft. There will be no military draft. Let’s repeat that. THERE WILL BE NO MILITARY DRAFT. Reviving the draft is as politically feasible as re-instituting slavery or bringing back prohibition. Its chances are non-existent. It has almost no support.

Mind you, this is not to say that there should not be any military draft. It is quite likely, for instance, that had there been a draft, the United States would not have invaded Iraq in 2003. By something close to common consent, that would have been a preferable outcome.

But that’s theory. Draftless, the United States has an extraordinarily capable and adequately large Army, and one which can be adequately expanded without resorting to conscription. It would not be adequately large only if an adequately large country – Russia, say, or China, or maybe Brazil – were actually to attack the U.S.

This will not happen. And if it did, then of course there would be minimal opposition to a draft, even if enough young people did not enlist voluntarily. But all that is not even theory. It’s fantasy.

There are many things in this world to worry about. Getting drafted is not one of them. All of you who were worried about that, do something more productive. Like maybe, have a cocktail.

Oh, what a good idea! See you Monday.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 1st, 2009 at 12:15 am and is filed under Blog Info, The News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.