The American Spectator

Reader Mail

Shoring Up

9.12.05 @ 12:01AM

(Page 7 of 7)

1. As a long-ago subscriber to Sports Illustrated, I recall reading the letter or two that would invariably appear shortly subsequent to the legendary annual swimsuit issue (and presumably still does) offering that the published responses to the much vaunted issue were of considerably greater interest to the writer than the subject matter itself. TAS's "Reader Mail" section these days evokes for me the exact same sentiment.

2. TAS is to be congratulated for the First Amendment faithfulness and classical liberality that it is exhibiting in spades in publishing seemingly all of the responses of its readership. That said, it is arguable that a little bit of separating of wheat from chaff might be in order, which could be realized via a new editorial policy of publishing only those contributions which include full names and hometowns.

3. The seething apoplexy that has been piqued by George Neumayr and by the other TAS contributors who have unapologetically drawn the incontrovertible conclusion, based upon observable, verifiable facts, that local leadership and systemic ineptitude, on-the-ground moral bankruptcy, and a turbo-charged entitlement mentality, all contributed materially to the misery and loss of life in New Orleans, is every bit as stupefying as the widespread acts of depravity that were perpetrated upon the city at its most vulnerable point. It is now clear that not only is there no honor among thieves (and thugs,) but also neither is there any intellectual honesty among liberals.

4. Speaking of intellectual dishonesty, how 'bout those readers who took offense at Jay Homnick's criticism of the president? Is their suggestion that he and his administration could not and should not have been measurably better, earlier informed, and quicker to react?! The Bush-o-philes out there would be well advised to realize that "W" is not infallible. (If he was, after all, then he would have known that there were no WMDs in Iraq when he insisted that there were, and American troops wouldn't today be taking bullets and shrapnel in the cause of that nation-building that he repeatedly promised in 2000 America would not engage in under his leadership.)

5. Apparently the liberals' rage over those painful observations that were initially put forth by TAS about New Orleans blinded them early on, thereby sparing them the further anguish of reading Reid Collins's Ou Sont Les Chevaliers? for I saw no response to this worthy piece, histrionic or otherwise. Its central point is that the predominance of one of the welfare state's original and more prominent features, the broken family (admittedly now a quaint term by today's parlance, partly courtesy of that critical mass of middle class whites who decided that single parenthood is fine and dandy after all), undoubtedly and considerably worsened a bad situation for thousands of Katrina's victims. It's hard to imagine that a lot more victims would not themselves have been better situated, and would not have had better situated relatives and others to turn to, if there were but a lot more traditional families in place of those many, many actual "families" which are an amalgamation of cohabitants, absent parents, step-parents and half-siblings. While love might make a nouveau family, it sure as hell doesn't itself make for nearly the same degree of networked solidarity and economic empowerment that traditional families do. The vexation of it all is that, now that we're well beyond the first generation of this brokenness, there is a legitimate question of the practical culpability of the members of these modern, loosely constructed social units, which, after all, merely model what those who have formed them were born into and raised within themselves, all enabled by tax dollars; but the ferocious winds and rising water of Lake Ponchetrain proved to be quite indifferent to the matter of blame. Will society's leaders, black and white, political and religious, remain so as well?
-- Francis M. Hannon, Jr.
Melrose, Massachusetts

Letter to the Editor

topics:
Education, Hillary Clinton, Mainstream Media, Television, Business, Federal Budget, Sports, Abortion, Global Warming, Constitution, Iraq, NATO, Energy