The American Spectator

Reader Mail

The Coast Is Clear

12.7.04 @ 12:01AM

BETTER THAN COFFEE
Re: Ben Stein's We Shall Overcome:

Ben Stein's recent essay about Malibu and Hollywood could also describe the ultra left-wing culture of Sonoma County north of San Francisco. When the Republican volunteers came to our street last summer they had only two stops to make -- and they travel in pairs. Yard signs for Bush would have been unthinkable. Anyway, great essay!
-- Don Dakan
Santa Rosa, California

I live in Pacific Palisades, nestled in between the liberal bastions of Santa Monica, Malibu, Brentwood and a little further down Sunset Blvd. Beverly Hills.

I boldly have displayed two Bush/Cheney bumper stickers on my Escalade along with an NRA sticker. I'm not taking them off.

I have recently been accepted into the FBI's Citizens Academy and passed the course three months ago winning the shooting competition.

I admit I find it exciting to be so counter culture in "West LA."

Mr. Stein, be on the lookout for me, if I'm not driving the Escalade I'm driving the older style "S" class, it has that oval W 04 sticker on it. Come and say hi.

If anyone is upset with us I say "Bring it on!"
-- Richard Fields

Massachusetts in 2000 was very similar. Two-thousand four was totally different. Bush/Cheney lawn signs, people (without checking around) looked you in the eyes and said OUT LOUD, I am voting for Bush. Every Bush lawn sign I saw, I whooped. Although there is very little hope this state will ever go Republican (even East Coast Republican) it was a great election year.
-- Judith L. Miley

Like Ben Stein, I am a red voter in a blue neighborhood. Many of my friends and my top client -- upon whom I am financially dependent -- are blue, too. But what keeps my mouth shut is not fear, but resignation. The blue people do not know how to listen. While perceiving themselves as brilliant, they are no different than members of the Red Guard, shaking their little Mao books in the air. I keep my mouth shut, because earning their antipathy for no gain accomplishes nothing.
-- Steve Crews
Chicago, Illinois

I am a conservative gay. You can fully appreciate the reactions I get from other gays when I express opinions from the "other side." Liberal prejudices and bigotry (and hence, hypocrisy) is evidenced everyday. Believe me, coming out of the closet as a gay man was a lot easier than coming out as a gay conservative. I refuse to hide in ANY closet. To my enlightened (???) liberal friends, I say: We're here, we're conservative and queer, get used to it!
-- Randy Culbreth
Atlanta, Georgia

Thanks Ben. Thanks for standing up to the oh so nice liberals. Why, they wouldn't hurt a fly, would they.
-- Chris Renegar

I am a subscriber to American Spectator, and I love Ben Stein. I wish one of your writers would fill in a thought I've had for some time now, regarding libs who want to be called "progressives." They are NOT progressive -- they are REgressive. . . back to the Middle Ages. The Regressives treat Big Government like the King, with their activist judges playing the "Lords" and the rest of us, millionaires, corporations, middle-class, etc., as the serfs who do the labor, produce the goods, and then end up giving most of the fruits of our production to the "King." They are aided and abetted by activist judges ("Lords") who have systematically dismantled (or tried to) the Constitution and replaced it with the unelected, whose opinions "must" be "right" so that the Regressives can prosper. There's a column or something in there, somewhere, I believe. Thank God for your magazine, the bloggers, Rush and his colleagues on talk radio (except for that idiot Air America or whatever Al Frankenstein calls his hysterical rants), and the good ol' folks who make this country work. I loved this latest column from Ben Stein, and I say, "Give 'em hell, Ben! And God bless!"
-- Marilyn Leiker
DeWitt, New York

Please pass along my sincere appreciation to Ben Stein for comparing Bush supporters to the WW2 French Maquis. Only he would know that the word for bush in French is maquis!!!
-- Unsigned

I just read Ben Stein's article about being a Republican in Malibu. I really do understand him because believe it or not this has happen in the belly button of the very states that elected Bush (which was most on them). We had to keep our mouths shut about our political leanings or run the threat of tires been deflated, keyed cars, on and on. It is still going on.

Letter to the Editor

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