FRIENDS FOR LIFE
Re: R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr.’s Peace
Had Its Chance:
Emmett Tyrrell hits it. I am British. I would love to live in
America. I do not qualify for admission. For conservatives like me
stuck in socialist wastelands, America still symbolizes all that
can be good about government, even if from time to time you
unwittingly elect hardened snakes and liars like the 42nd
President, and incompetents like the 39th. America still possesses
the fabulous, mythical qualities of “a land of opportunity,”
somewhere better, somewhere where a citizen can be a citizen and
not a subject, where one can get by on one’s own merits and not be
handicapped by birth, education or class and where the dignity and
worth of labor is still recognized. I hate to see American citizens
playing at peace activism, showing disdain for the system that
actively nurtures and protects their ability to act like misguided
holy fools. If they think the government they live under is unjust
and unfair, they should try living in Europe. The lack of humility
shown by peace activists is staggering. There is one war on which,
of course, they’re all very keen — when it’s Palestinians waging
war on Israelis.
It sounds cheesy coming from a Scot, but God Bless America. Some
Europeans still understand.
— Martin Kelly
Glasgow, Scotland
The article by R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. mentions that the peaceniks
carried signs saying “Hands Off Iraq.” Isn’t this a rip-off of Lee
Harvey Oswald’s “Hands Off Cuba” fliers? I believe it is. These
guys are REALLY living in the (early) 60’s.
—- Paul Higdon
FJORD EVERY STREAM
Re: Enemy Central’s Weasel
Worlds:
I’m off for a 7-day cruise aboard SS Norway to the
Virgin Islands, certain that I’m leaving our country in good hands
especially after reading Enemy Central. Should you dispose of Sod
Him Insane this week, how about a new project like: “United
Nations delenda est”! Warm regards (pun intended).
—Dick Lambert
Eagle Rock, VA
Regarding Friday’s “Enemy Central,” did Hillary Clinton actually
say, “If we don’t take race as part of our character, then we are
kidding ourselves”? If so, where? [Right here. —
Ed.] I would like to gaze upon the source with my own
eyes. It is appallingly clear that the paradigm of decades past has
shifted, and “progressives” like Mrs. Clinton are on the
reactionary defensive, defending a race-based status-quo against
true progress.
Also, I am intrigued by this “Axis of Weasels” concept. The only
question is — who else? Everyone knows that any axis must have
three member countries. The French, the Germans, and who? The
Chinese and Russians, despite their opposition to war in Iraq,
don’t quite fit. Might I suggest the Swedish? They were the ones
who gave the Nobel Prize to Carter …
— John Wilson
Hebron, CT
In the Second paragraph of “Weasel Worlds,” you use the word
“accentiture.” This word is not in the Merriam-Webster Collegiate
Dictionary (Tenth Edition) and the closest I could find in
Larousse’s French-English Dictionary is the verb “accentuer.”
Please advise.
— Dennis J. Flanagan
Levittown, PA
UNBORKING THACKER
Re: George Neumayr’s Thacker
Wacked:
I appreciated reading Mr. Neumayr’s article. As it happens,
Jerry Thacker is a friend and colleague of mine. I believe that the
gay “thought police” have “borked” Jerry most unfairly. It’s ironic
that those folks don’t like someone like Jerry who has AIDS and is
also opposed to the lifestyle which produces that terrible and
deadly disease. So there it is. Abstinence will never be acceptable
to those who insist on sacrificing their own health for the sake of
their own selfish political agenda. Only in America do we have such
contradictions.
— David McGuire
Owatonna, MN
George Neumayr’s commentary about Jerry Thacker and his shortlived
appointment to the HIV and AIDS panel was a welcome antidote to the
politically correct reporting on the matter. The San Francisco
Chronicle reprinted (with added comments) the Washington
Post story on Jerry Thacker and refused to report even one
pro-Thacker person. Within that article each solicited quote was
negative to anything but the gay agenda. One of the comments
claimed abstinence only was a failed practice. Another said that
reparative therapy doesn’t work and that the psychiatric community
was of one mind. Since reporting these days is so difficult what
with the Internet and all, I feel called to instruct reporters to
enter Google and type in
Dr. Robert Spitzer. That should put to rest any notion that
reparative therapy has no supporters among prominent psychiatrists.
Wonder what psychiatrists have to say about news organizations that
resist knowledge?
— Robert Holmgren
Menlo Park, CA
George Neumayr’s defiance of the p.c. gods is admirable, but it’s a
shame that he (or his editor) felt obliged to bow to those gods
with the wording of this sentence: “When someone is hurtling toward
hell in this life and the next, don’t stop the person. Cheer them
on. Call the person’s vice virtue and you will win praise for
having a big heart.” Surely the standard English version of that
mush would be: “When someone is hurtling toward hell in this life
and the next, don’t stop him. Cheer him on. Call his vice virtue
and you will win praise for having a big heart.”
The refusal to let masculine pronouns stand for people of either
sex is surely an idea whose time has gone. And it’s especially
pointless in the context in which Neumayr was writing, and the
perspective from which he was writing.
The Scriptures’ original Hebrew and Greek writers applied
masculine pronouns to people in general from beginning to end. If
you’re going to invoke God’s word on an issue, why disdain the
usage embraced by His writers? And if the topic is homosexuals and
AIDS, you might as well use masculine pronouns even under feminist
usage. For the “gay plague,” which depends on sexual promiscuity
for its transmission, went through the male homosexual community
like a hot knife through butter, while leaving the relatively
monogamous lesbian community largely untouched.
— Karl Spence
San Antonio, TX
Had Mr. Jerry Thacker called AIDS a heterosexual plague, he would
have stated the truth, since the majority of new cases not only
around the world, but also in the United States consist of
heterosexuals. This can be easily confirmed by consulting Centers
for Disease Control and World Health Organization websites. But
then your contributor Mr. Neumayr (not to mention Mr. Thacker)
would have had to forego taking a swat at gays.
Plainly this was too much to expect since he also takes the
opportunity to pass along the canard published in Rolling
Stone that twenty-five percent of new HIV infections are
occurring in gay men who deliberately infect themselves. Articles
in today’s edition of Salon.com, andrewsullivan.com and even that
gay publication, The Washington Times, all explode this
delusion. To quote Andrew Sullivan from his website: “The only
basis for that bizarre and inflammatory statistic was one doctor,
with no evidence. And now he denies ever having made the comment.”
Not that I expect you will publish a retraction.
Now that you are done drooling over this malevolent fantasy, we
can expect it to lodge in a host of websites. You know the type:
they feature poisonous rants about the “Zionist Occupied
Government”, vile racial slurs, obsessive gay-baiting and the like.
It is nice to see your website join such distinguished company.
— Thomas Tunney
A long-ago American Spectator subscriber (who quit when it
became like reading American Opinion)
