The American Spectator

Reader Mail

At Seventeen

5.17.04 @ 12:01AM

POST-PUNKS AND BUSH
Re: Shawn Macomber's Pretend Grown-Up Music:

I recently read your article on the "Rock Against Bush Tour," entitled "Pretend Grown-Up Music." As a 17-year-old, pierced, ex-fan of NOFX, let me say THANK YOU for writing this article. I first heard about the tour shortly after George W. Bush had been elected. All of my friends were head over heals to go -- not so much because of the political agenda, but because it was so unique to round up that many of our favorite bands on a tour. I was the only person I know to turn down the offer.

My friends thought I was out of my mind, as I was one of the first kids they knew to step into the "punk phase." I had been the one who had first turned them on to bands like NOFX, Greenday, and RX Bandits, and here I was turning down an opportunity to see those bands and more, at what was supposed to be one of the greatest punk tours in modern punk history.

You see, I've always been in denial about the political stupidity of some of my favorite bands, because I didn't want to find it hard to enjoy their music. That all changed with the Rock Against Bush Tour. Since, I've written several articles and letters to members of almost every one of the bands on the tour, but either received no response or was told to "get lost." Because in addition to their misinformation, their political agenda alone makes NO sense. While the punk/anarchy movement was fanatical and unrealistic, it focused on one main idea -- lack of government control. And yet somewhere along the lines of modernity, so-called "punk bands" like NOFX have made a complete 180 in their unwarranted hatred for the Republican Party -- a party that believes that the federal government is not perfect, and thus should be less involved. They insist that they have a hatred for all politicians, but I don't remember any "Rock Against Clinton" tours.

To make a long story short, I wanted to convey to you that not all "punks" follow their favorite bands' political ideology. Although, sadly, many do. Over the past couple of years I have grown up and grown out of most of my punk phase. But even when I was the most "hardcore chick" in the moshpit, I was telling the bands I loved (as Laura Ingraham would say) to "shut up and sing."
-- Brittany Craigo

I have been watching the news on this CD. I also know they have a tour coming up with all of the Rock Against Bush Bands. To be honest, I am a bit afraid of this album and tour. I am a youth pastor. Teens and college students are driven by emotion and not logic. This is why they listen to their liberal school teachers and follow them. It appeals to what feels good and not what makes sense. Given the majority of buyers of this album will be youth and college, I am afraid of kids of voting age voting out of emotion and not logic. I think this album will have some (not a major) effect. The libs at MTV are going for this age bracket with their Choose (Kerry) or Lose campaign. I guess the funny thing of the album is the fact it is punkers. I love punk rock, and I know that punk was founded as an anti-authority music. They wrote the lyrics "God Save The Queen." The irony of this? New punkers are condemning an authority figure why condoning another -- Kerry. It is amazing to see how the left is after our kids. If they can corrupt them, we have a dim future.
-- Dan Alban

Up until a few years ago, the VH-1 rock-music TV channel aired a series called "Behind the Music," which chronicled the lives of rock bands. I occasionally watched it out of curiosity, as an observer trying to better evaluate the current state of our culture.

Despite these bands' commercial successes, virtually every episode was a litany of alcoholism, drug abuse, suicide, philistinism, depression, torment, conflict, death, and, towering above all, unadulterated self-hatred.

By dint of the fact that these people despise President Bush, it is the best advertisement we have for re-electing him.
-- Steve Nikitas
Pittsfield, Massachusetts

MARRY ME
Re: W. James Antle III's Wedding Bell Blunders:

Regarding Mr. Antle's comment about "concerns that same-sex marriage in Massachusetts will lead to the redefinition of matrimony nationwide," I submit two illustrations -- one obvious and one not so obvious.

First, motivated by avoiding or reducing the cost of health care, two same-sex, but not homosexual, roommates could marry to allow the roommate without health insurance to obtain coverage through the other's employer health-care plan. This may depend on whether the judicial decree or ultimate legislature's law requires the same-sex couples to be gay (which would create a whole other set of issues as I know of no requirement that a man and woman prove their heterosexuality to obtain a marriage license).

Second, a single person could marry himself or herself to obtain the benefit of "Married filing joint return" status on his or her IRS Return, providing lower tax rates. This is called a fiction, but use of fiction is not uncommon in law; for example, married couples (i.e., husband and wife married couples) may file joint returns where the IRC treats them as one person. OK, single-person marriage is a stretch. But if the definition of marriage, the legal union of a man and woman as husband and wife, allows for "same-sex" marriage, why wouldn't it provide for "single-person" marriage?
-- Ted Lang
Plymouth, Michigan

UP FOR GHRAIBS
Re: P. David Hornik's Abu Ghraib and the Useful Idiots:

P. David Hornik's article caused two disparate facts to fuse in my head.

Letter to the Editor

topics:
Islam, Law, Military, Iraq, Iran, Oil