The American Spectator

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Blame the Good Guys

1.26.05 @ 12:01AM

PILATE POLITICS
Re: George Neumayr's Abortion is Un-American:

Mr. Neumayr's case against abortion is eloquent and convincing... in a vacuum. To the pro- and anti-abortionist crowds in this country, this is a binary issue: off/on, good/bad, right/wrong, black/white. No gray area. Does anyone have any area of their lives that falls into those neat little categories?

It is time the anti-abortionists go beyond stale rhetoric and begin to show their seriousness with deeds and not words. Why not adopt all of the children in foster care so that there is room in the system for the 1.5 million additional children that will be born each year? Why not setup a system for caring for these unwanted and uncared-for children that will flood the U.S. each year? I am not pro- or anti-abortion, just sick of the rhetoric of both sides that continually fail to deal with the issue in any meaningful way.
-- Ben Berry
Washington, D.C.

This is a very fine article.

I do not understand why our conservative writers, journalists, and politicians continue to use the term "democracy" when our founding fathers greatly feared that term for our government and society. The United States was founded a Republic and as a Republic, a government ruled by law (not the will of man).

Further, the Bill of Rights was added to the U.S. Constitution to protect the individual states from federal interference in those areas of state's rights and was not ratified until they were added. Now most interpret the Bill of Rights are there to protect the individual from local and state government allowing the federal government to create all kinds of social, educational, and economic programs that run into billions of dollars.

I am a long time subscriber and really appreciate TAS.

Thank you for all the great work you do.
-- Bruce Frace
Lancaster, Pennsylvania

BLOATED BENEFICIARIES
Re: Gary Wolfram's Subsidized Stupidity:

With apologies to your profession, Professor Wolfram, I think we could easily do without 99% of you. And here's why:

Granted that the "college experience" -- at least as it is popularly perceived these days -- is a lot more than listening to lectures, taking notes, and then taking tests. Yet that is the essence of it, everything else being extraneous to it to a greater or lesser degree.

Given that, and given our society's breathtaking electronic communications capabilities, why shouldn't we get the best professors in each field and have their lectures piped-in to every classroom on every campus in the country? Why, aside from money, shouldn't students in college "y" benefit from the same high-level of instruction as students in college "x"? Technologically it would be as easy as pie (closed-circuit TV, videotape, whatever), and economically it would drastically reduce the cost of college because we'd be paying only a handful of the best people, instead of legions of mediocrities.

Oh, we could still keep some teachers on staff, but mostly to provide a personal presence -- to answer questions and grade papers. But the important work, the fundamental work of offering lectures would be done by those who are the acknowledged masters in their fields.

The model on which our higher education system is based is now -- what? -- at least two or three hundred years old, and so steeped in 'tradition' that, it seems to me, tradition is held to be a higher value than actual education. Meantime, every industry, every business, and every other profession in this society remakes itself on a regular basis in order to take advantage of new technologies, new thinking, and to stay competitive.

I say gut the whole system and rebuild it with an eye to taking advantage of all current capabilities for instruction in a modern world.

Letter to the Editor

topics:
Education, Television, Economics, Business, Religion, Abortion, Hollywood, Constitution, Law, Supreme Court, Founding Fathers, Military, Socialism, Oil