The American Spectator

DEAN’S LIST PROWLERS
Re: The Washington Prowler’s Patches Kennedy and Gonzales Goes Missing:

The Prowler is the best political gossip sheet out there. You know, I worked on Howard Dean’s campaign in Vermont, and I was responsible for reading everything. I read The Note, Hotline, Earlybird, all that.

But yours was best. By a mile.

It still is.

Unfortunately, the rest of the magazine is rarely as good.
— JF

If conservatives are surprised that the new A.G. did nothing to help the starving Mrs. Schiavo they have not done their homework.

Why would a long time member of La Raza score high on any conservative litmus test? Hmmm. Why does the president call patriots defending the Arizona border, vigilantes? Hmmm.

Well, duh, it because neither guy is conservative. Follow the money and look at the actions and you won’t be surprised, ever.
— Mark Medvetz
Henniker, New Hampshire

FAITH OF OUR FATHERS
Re: George Neumayr’s Lying Jesuits and Journalists:

Robert Drinan — what an embarrassment to the once (long ago and far away) bravest of the brave Jesuits. Sts. Campion, Ignatius and Francis Xavier must be shaking their heads over this guy. A real priest would be celebrating the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass on Easter Sunday, not spewing Pro-death poison on TV. And by the way, Bob, whatever happened to “Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam”? You would do well to live by those words. Thanks for not referring to Drinan as “Father.”

As usual, Mr. Neumayr, you are the best.
— Murph

I find myself going through the same process almost every time I read an article by George Neumayr. I agree with nearly every point made, and then he hits me over the head with a whopper towards the end. This time it was “Euthanasia has never been about ending the burdens of the ill but about ending the burdens of the living who don’t want to care for the ill.” I will assume that Mr. Neumayr has never had to deal with a tragedy in his family, where a terminally ill family member just wants to end the pain of the last few days or weeks of their life. The Schiavo case may well be about the husband wanting to release himself from the burden that his wife has become, in his view, but Mr. Neumayr would have us believe that euthanasia in general is always an option forwarded by the family of one who is ill, as opposed to the ill person himself. This is just plain wrong. I can respect the view that euthanasia is wrong, but I do not respect misrepresentations about the dynamics of the family struggle that can ensue when a member becomes terminally ill and no longer wants to live.
— Nathaniel Pippins
Sacramento, California

Liberals, being the advanced and enlightened creatures they know they are, have lurched directly into a solution for the social security problem. Using “quality of life” as the criteria for who lives or dies, we can enter a brave new world of starvation and euphoria for the aged masses. How long before we get to the stage in our civilization where a 25 year old asks the question, “Why should I support you just because you have been successfully sucking air for the last 75 years? What quality of life is that and why am I forced to pay for it?” It may not be as crass as that. As we all know the enlightened ones use nuance in order to get their point across. I’m sure the word triage will be used. Or maybe it will be called “pruning our garden.” If the liberals had their way they would reduce Western civilization to the perfect example of the collective — the ant farm. No unnecessary lives there.
— Ron Pettengill
London, United Kingdom

I believe the progression goes something like this: You have the right to die, followed by the duty to die, which gives rise to the right to kill those who refuse to exercise their right to die or who refuse to fulfill their duty to die. I have wondered since the Berrigan brothers why the media always goes to the radical chic “priests” for ex-cathedra opinions. Are there no bishops, no traditional Catholic priests, no lay parishioners who are familiar with Catholic dogma and Church law? I certainly do not consider myself an authority on matters of faith and morals, but as a veteran of 16 plus years of Catholic education, and a lifetime of parish membership, I cannot find any legitimacy in the expressed opinions of “Father” Drinan. Furthermore, common sense should allow people, even people like “Father” Drinan to differentiate between someone on artificial life support machinery such as an iron lung, and someone who is being fed with a feeding tube. One does not need 16 plus years of Catholic education, or any other kind to understand that depriving someone of food and water is not “allowing her to die,” but rather it is committing murder. The situation can be parsed any way that the leftists choose to parse it, it is still murder pure and simple.
— Joseph Baum
Newton Falls, Ohio

This Easter is a shocking moment for those who believe in hope and redemption, as Terri Schindler is slowly and horribly murdered in “private.” And the killing is happening with the full compliance of alleged “doctors” spitting on their Hippocratic Oath to “first, do no harm.”

All the while, innocent children bringing our gravely abused sister Terri life-giving water are handcuffed and arrested by the very state representatives who should be protecting her.

To the everlasting degradation of the kangaroo courts involved, this is what happens to someone who left no official instructions, and is being put to death on hearsay evidence.

Naturally, there is now a clamor for “living wills.” But does anyone seriously think they will be protected by stating unequivocally the wish to be fed by feeding tube and kept alive come what may?

Coming soon to a courthouse near you: a living will is contested by relatives who don’t share the patient’s will to live. A judge is petitioned to set aside an individual’s notarized wishes, based on what “society” deems to be a person who deserves to be kept alive.

Anyone who doesn’t realize this is next is the one in a Persistent Vegetative State — unlike Terri Schiavo.
— David Smith
London, United Kingdom

FREETHINKING SEX
Re: Shawn Fleek’s letter (under “Just Like a NOW Woman”) in Reader Mail’s No Men Need Apply and Andrew Cline’s Not Their Kind of Woman:

Shawn, did you not read what you wrote? I refer to the following: “2) Perhaps the organizations in question realize the illegitimacy of the media bombardment surrounding this single case, and instead wish to focus their attention on issues relevant on a much larger scale than a single human life.”

Do you realize what you just said about your beloved feminist brethren and the reason for their chosen organizations existence? You are proof positive of what is wrong with organizations that can get their membership to dismiss “a single human life.” A single human life is where the definition of humanity has to start for all of us. Who we are and how we live starts with how we feel about the sanctity of a single human life, every single human life.

If that is how you measure the goodness of any organization, feminist or not, then you are broken and the organization to which you pledge your allegiance to is broken. If this dismissiveness spreads then we as humans become elitist and uncaring and the end result can easily be government-sanctioned euthanasia (actually genocide). The thought you present is the very seed for which the justification for removing care to the elderly, the sick, and the infirm can spread. Is this what these organizations and you are about?

Thanks for uncovering the underbelly of liberalism — it’s rotten to the very core. Shawn, I pity you and feel very sorry for you. You missed the whole lesson, didn’t you?
— Mike Smith
Melbourne, Florida

In reference to Shawn Fleek’s letter about Andrew Cline’s article, Ms. Fleek (Mr.?) says the following about Andrew McCarthy, “You have no place, as a man, helping women’s organizations develop a platform. You just can’t possibly understand..” In other words, gender differences affect the way in which we perceive and understand things. Isn’t that what Larry Summers surmised?
— James Wester
Ashburn, Virginia

With a mind as open as yours, how do you keep the flies out? We men understand you very well. All too well. You feminists tout your feminist principles when it is convenient for you, but when they start to cross the left-wing line, you ladies start back-pedaling or, as in the case of Ms. Schiavo or Bill Clinton’s sexual predations, you remain silent.

Forward into the past, dear.
— Paul Austin
Tempe, Arizona

Finally! I checked out NOW’s website soon after Terri Schiavo’s feeding tube was removed to see what if anything was being said by all the women’s groups (sounds of silence).

I was shocked (but I shouldn’t be). Not one mention, nothing, only complaints about President Bush and other left-wing blather.

The only women’s website with any discussion was the conservative Independent Women’s Forum. But then again THEY are INDEPENDENT Women, who think for themselves and discuss issues intelligently.

Thank you for bringing attention to these aging hippies with nothing better to do than whine and complain about President Bush and Republicans, and dare I say it — the RELIGIOUS RIGHT taking away their RIGHTS. What about Terri’s right to live? Oh, I forgot, she’s not worthy of their time.
— Eileen Jarrett

Two letter-writers are in shock that a man would presume to comment on what should be important to women’s organizations. Both are puzzled at his even trying. When I was promoted to a postal service manager six months after I was hired (with 15 years of managerial experience in my background), a letter carrier told me I did not have the right to question his work performance since I only carried mail for a short time. My reply, which serves the current situation as well, was that I didn’t have to be a cow to know when milk is sour.
— Marcus Bressler
Tequesta, Florida

TREAT YOUR CHILDREN
Re: Jay D. Homnick’s Blue Genius:

I would like to respectfully disagree with the idea that all gifted and intelligent boys and girls must be kept with their age-mates.

I am a member of Mensa and showed exceptional abilities from childhood, but I was deliberately kept with my age-mates because my mother desperately hoped I would be popular and get married (the only two goals for girls in the 1950s), and my teachers assured me that ambition in a girl was fatal to both these goals and would not hear of a girl who didn’t embrace them. Instead of being successful, popular and beautiful, I was relentlessly bullied by the girls in my class for being “different,” was probably the least popular girl in my age group, and graduated with mediocre grades because the teachers would not believe I had done the work without help. It took me many years of higher education and the invention of the Internet to find a peer group with whom I could be comfortable, and Women’s Liberation to finally free me from the aura of disappointment surrounding a bright girl in the trap of unvalued intelligence.

I don’t think the answer is to assume that all children ought to be treated as if they are exactly alike (and forced to behave as if they are, even if they are not). I do think the answer is to know your own child and help him or (especially) her to follow an individual dream whether it is your dream as a parent or not.
— Kate Shaw
Toronto, Ontario

Jay D. Homnick replies:
It sounds like your difficulties stemmed from the lack of appreciation for women’s intellectual advancement in the 1950s. Today that no longer applies. As I indicated, my two daughters (now age 23 and 20) were each valedictorians, and the younger did it twice: once in elementary school and once in high school. Had they graduated at fourteen like me with 80 averages, they would have had neither peer socialization nor intellectual satisfaction. And even Brandenn, who was brilliant enough to do it with high grades, finally found himself living in a world all his own.

NOT OURS TO TAKE
Re: Ben Stein’s American Death Sentence:

Keep hammering away!! You aren’t alone!!
— Greg Richards

Thank you, Ben Stein. Thank you for reminding us that God’s most precious gift is life. Thank you, especially, for reminding us how poll-driven we’ve become. We have gone from the common sense argument that the majority should rule but respect the rights of the minority to a simple formula: 51% rules and 49% is illegitimate.

May God have mercy on those who have sold their souls to the culture of death.
— Matthew Heise

Ben is again my hero. He has nearly articulated the very core of the Schiavo case, namely that our tyrannical judiciary, which is imperious, haughty, and murderous, has sentenced to death an innocent person. But he did not go far enough: Terri Schiavo is a huge inconvenience to polite society. That is why she is barbarically murdered by the thugs and their minions.

I cannot read the news because it pierces my soul with extreme pain to witness this vile act dressed up in the white linen of legality.

I thank God that there is a righteous God of the Old Testament who rains down terrible destruction on the wicked.
— Tony Bonn

Thank you for your article concerning Terri Schiavo and the others also. Allow me to take your terminology, “Family Feud Justice,” another step back to another age: In Rome, early A.D. somewhere: Thumbs down, Coliseum Justice.

Can we call this full circle?

Thanks again for speaking out.
— Sam

Ben Stein’s comments are “dead on” concerning the Schiavo case. If we had a soul, a great portion has been rendered incapacitated. This is to our great detriment.
— Roger Peele

I have watched the unfolding of the murder of Terri Schiavo with horror, as have many others. I have a brother much like Terri, who is severely handicapped, and is cared for by my elderly parents and my brother-in-law. He is totally bedridden. My folks, who do not believe in government help of any kind, as Texas ranchers of four generations, will not even have my brother declared disabled by the Social Security Administration. My father says, the government did not have David Lee, and he is not their responsibility. So, my parents have worked hard and developed a trust fund for my brother and he pays huge taxes, just like all of us. He will be fifty years old this year.

I worked hard to earn a degree in Special Education. I have worked with many severely handicapped individuals like Terri. So it is with horror I hear repeatedly words like “quality of life,” and how painless starving to death is. The Liberals even try to tell us that it is euphoric.

We are a military family. Our son and daughter-in-law both serve as officers in the Air Force. My husband retired from the Army and desires to return to the military to fight this war on terror, for it is far from over. I told them all last week, “The war on terror is over. We lost the war. We murder those inconvenient to us right here at home.” And even our most powerful President, who is able to pardon prisoners, is unable to save an innocent. Yes, we lost and the culture of liberal judges won.
— Beverly Gunn
East Texas

I don’t want to sound hysterical because we are not there…yet. But keep in mind that the courts in Germany were perfectly happy to go along with National Socialism — a point that was captured in Judgment at Nuremberg.

The courts have no real claim to being bastions of human rights. Lincoln was beside himself after the Dred Scott decision and devoted a significant portion of his First Inaugural stating that as president he would not regard himself bound by the Court’s philosophizing (as distinct from its specific decision in that specific case).

Press on!!
— Greg Richards

LYRICAL CONFUSION
Re: Greg Barnard’s letter (under “Demerits”) in Reader Mail’s No Men Need Apply:

Dylan’s idea that with his “Rolling Stone” song and other songs he was just trying to make a buck reminds me of the truth stated by a poetry critic: Robert Frost could claim that his poem is just about a fork in the road (even though I don’t think he actually believed that), but once a poem is available to others, it no longer belongs only to him as to its meaning.
— R.L.A. Schaefer
Dubuque, Iowa