The American Spectator

Reader Mail

Our Missed Brookes

7.16.07 @ 12:01AM

KEEP HIS MEMORY ALIVE
Re: Shawn Macomber's The Man Who Saw Tomorrow:

I enjoyed your column on Warren Brookes -- well written and on target. Now, I would like to make a suggestion regarding the last few sentences in the column...

FTA: .".. One thing is certain, however: We are in desperate need of another indefatigable visionary like Warren Brookes today."

You have an excellent writing style, a strong vision, and (apparently) a well-established forum. Might I suggest .... you.
-- Jim Bass
Las Vegas, Nevada

Kudos to Mr. Macomber and all those who keep the inimitable Warren Brookes legacy alive. As a young economist on the Hill as well as in the guise of RNC's Director of Research, I was always enlightened by his writings, their incisive simplicity for stating the truth and debunking the Fabian-Socialist economic policies of the left. Those who fought for the Reagan revolution saw him as a visionary and giant in a world of intellectual pygmies. Thanks for keeping his memory alive in these muddled times.
-- Philip Kawior

There will always be those who will cry "the sky is falling." The greenies who attend events such as the Live Earth concerts are simply modern day hippies who run around telling everyone how to keep the sky from falling on their collective heads. They then go about their lives either justifying or blaming others for any of their own "Poor Earth " choices. Those may include traveling in private jets, living in huge homes, driving SUV's, etc. How about those who own Stock in "not so green" companies? I suppose they can tithe a portion of their profits to "The Cause" to justify supporting, say, Halliburton or similar companies.

I am not so cynical as to believe that we do not have an obligation to some measure of conservation. I am just sick and tired of the hypocrites driving around in an SUV, watching their big screen TV in a house most Americans can only dream about owning, all the while they make huge profits from their oil stocks which helps to pay their high utility bills and they reach their Green Gatherings by plane, train, or automobile. Has anyone run the numbers to see how much of the sky we could save if all those folks had stayed home and joined each other via Tele-Conference on the Internet?? I would guess not. They're too busy running numbers on the rest of us.

My Father told me many years ago that "figures don't lie but liars figure." This statement certainly fits the Green Movement of today.
-- unsigned

Excellent article, I am reminded of a book I read years ago. The author was Larry Niven as I recall and was titled Fallen Angels. It was about the environmentalists gaining control of the world's government and in their zeal to prevent global warming inadvertently created a new ice age with glaciers coming as far south as Chicago. The book was funny in many ways but was frighteningly prescient.
-- John Mussa

THE LEAVE ME ALONE COALITION
Re: Lawrence Henry's Talk Radio "Civility":

Mr. Henry has hit upon a gold mine. "How and why did you become a conservative?" is the type of question, when asked among friends at a local drinking hole, would make any tavern owner very happy. So here is my story: In 1975, I was a college student with an intense interest in politics. I was predictably liberal. Then one day I accidentally came across an issue of National Review in the local library. There was a section called "The Week." It was a compilation of small and humorous news items of interest to conservatives. But what struck me as odd was the humor. I had always pictured a conservative as devoid of a funny bone; a total bore. After the humor wore off, the logic of the argument never did. I took an economics course and my professor suggested that we read the Wall Street Journal. I never got past the editorial page which became the equivalent of my daily heroin fix. Then, hungry for more political humor, I discovered a rag published in Indiana called The Alternative. It was the intellectual equivalent of shooting spitballs behind the teacher's back in grade school. Every month Bob Tyrrell (or R. Emmett) would make me laugh by deflating some pompous ass (or supercilious popinjay as he would say). An interesting historical aside. In the late '70s, Animal House was a smashing success. I always compared conservatism, then in its nascent stage, to the ruffians of Delta House and liberalism, with all its phony moral posturing, to the school's administration. What made conservatism popular was its ability to blend humor and irreverence with serious scholarship. And having an adversary, the modern liberal intellectual establishment, that was and is so haughtily and arrogantly pompous, only made it that much easier. Limbaugh follows in this tradition and owes his success to his ability to tap into it. As Limbaugh once said, and which explains conservatism's popularity among the masses, liberalism is a war against the average guy who works all day and wants to come home and have a beer and a cigarette and be left alone.
-- Dennis Bedard

Tax dollars should not be going to NPR, they are not needed any longer. Free market works, if you have what someone wants to listen to your rating will go up, if not you will be off the air, Air America comes to mind.
-- Elaine Kyle

Michael Savage is confrontational. Maybe snarling. But not nasty. Savage is not for the faint of heart or those who wish to remain in denial. It sounds like you want someone to say, "That's a good boy" to you. No need to call him nasty.
-- Louise
Frederick, Maryland

MIXED METHODISTS
Re: Matt May's President Bush: Model Methodist:

My dear Swiss grandfather, who settled in Ohio in the 1800, was a model Methodist. My grandfather would never have let the Katrina victims float bloated in flood water while most civilized countries in the world offered to help with food, money, medicine, life saving equipment, boats, helicopters, water purification systems, tents, cots, blankets, and clothing. Grandfather would have said, "Venez. Bienvenue! Je vous remercier." Grandfather was a real Methodist, not a media/PR faux Methodist.
-- Gloria Picchetti
Chicago, Illinois

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