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

Whether Scooter Libby's sentence should have been commuted will forever be debated. However, if he had to serve time in prison, his cellmate should have been Joe Wilson, whose lies generated the Valerie Plame pseudo scandal.
-- Stan Welli
Aurora, Illinois

DEPRESSING REMINDERS
Re: R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr.'s A Taste of Britishness:

"A Taste of Britishness" by R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. is a timely editorial snapshot of what I believe to be some consequences from miserably weak leadership of the British Isles since the Iron Lady was deposed. Witness the cowards that removed her from office and the electorate that allowed it to happen (and I count myself in with that motley crew). Witness the last ten years of "New Labour," overall an embarrassment to the principles of democracy. When a country has more people voting for a contestant of dubious talent in a TV program than it has for electing a government, then we create, and our enemies relish, the seeds of decline. What say onlookers of a government that procrastinates over whether or not to give its voters the opportunity of determining its future bound either by an unelected corrupt, EU bureaucracy or something altogether better closer to home. Sadly, however, there presently is no viable opposition to the present Government so suffer the people of Britain. Mr. Tyrrell's snapshot is a depressing reminder of the state of Britain and no amount of flag waving should excuse the ills and incompetence that gestate and emanate from Westminster. I admit I don't have the solutions but I'm smart enough to discern amateurs when I see them.
-- G. Constable
Sydney, Australia

I read your article on Brown and Britishness. You talk about browns call to the British people to fly our flag so we can stop the mad Muslims from blowing us all up. This is the same man who has with his partner Blair done more damage to our country than Hitler could ever have done, he has turned our nation into a cesspool with unlimited immigration, most of these turn out to hate us, he appeases the Muslim religion while our own Christian beliefs are shoved aside, some schools don't even mention Christmas anymore incase it offends the mad mullahs, as for flying the flag my family have always flown our national flag the cross of St. George because we are English not British. By the way, Brown and Blair used to stand up in the House of Commons and blame all the world's ills on America. That was before they got into power, of course. They are a pair of closet communists and are detested by nearly all of our country apart from asylum ponces, Muslim terrorists, crooks and any other low life. They have sold us out to Europe. We do not want to be in Europe but Brown and his cronies have no love of our country and history. They are a bunch of cretins who I would like to send to Iraq without security and see how brave they are.
-- Mrs. C. Taylor
Romford, Essex
England

DEMOCRAT REEDUCATION
Re: Mark Tooley's Can a Methodist Be U.S. Surgeon General?:

The answer to Tooley's closing question is: Yes, Human Rights Campaign and other homosexual groups do have practical veto power over presidential nominees. Members of Congress browbeat Dr. James Holsinger into asserting that his past views on homosexuality were mistaken and no longer operative. It was even worse than JFK going too far by saying that his religion would have no effect on his civic decisions. Or Romney saying that Americans want their candidates to have beliefs, but they aren't really concerned about what those beliefs are. Holsinger even said he no longer thought what he thought or believed what he believed.

Imposed orthodoxy is also apparent in the excitement over the outgoing Surgeon General testifying that he and others in his office were forced to suppress science in their office. The really important case was not mentioned. SG Koop was told to prepare a report on the effects of abortion. He kept resisting, but finally took steps towards obeying. His deputy drafted a report that was founded primarily on testimony by pro-abortion groups; he wouldn't take testimony from pro-life groups, but only a few pro-life individuals. When Koop thought he had slow-walked the report to death, the deputy fraudulently issued the draft as if it were Koop's report. Koop then asked Congress for money to do comprehensive research for a real report. Congress refused. Congress knew that such a report could provide evidence for legal restrictions or bans on abortion. Congress kept the scientific truth from coming out, as did Koop's deputy in his own way. Fears that such a report might undermine abortion in some way received support when Congress found that there was not medical grounds for late-term abortions in most cases, and the Supreme Court used that finding to uphold the ban on late-term abortions. It is probable that the current Congress would have suppressed such a finding or refused to consider it. So the charge of suppression of scientific and medical fact is often a matter of whose ox is being gored, or whose Gore is being axed.
-- Richard L.A. Schaefer
Dubuque, Iowa

GOVERNMENT WORK (SIC)
Re: Jeffrey Lord's Lizard Listing and Doug Bandow's Free At Last:

I am going to add my two cents (actually one cent after taxes) to these two well-written articles. They are intimately linked. If you talk about taxes you have to talk about public bureaucracies.

"Government effectively consumes 52.6 percent of national income," and I'm sure Doug Bandow includes taxes for the city, state, county, bureaucracies, and for government schools, and government universities; there are also government fees, fines and surcharges in this hydra-headed, insatiable money devouring monster called "the public sector of the economy."

"When a Liberal Secular Progressive wins the presidency and appoints thousands of SP's to run the government, the career SP's are thrilled." I'm sure Jeffrey Lord includes city, state, county officials, public school boards, and public university presidents and their SP bureaucracies in this mess.

How did we get here?

Imagine a soft-headed, good hearted, well meaning do-gooder student in college who is indoctrinated into a smattering of socialist-Marxist, feminist ideology. He or she avoids the hard sciences and majors in one of the soft sciences (psychology, anthropology, sociology etc.) With this untested socialist ideology working in this student's idealistic mind, the concept of dirtying his hands in the competitive-capitalist market place will not fly. What can you do to earn a living? Answer: Go into journalism, hire into a leftist foundation, work for the unions, become a teacher or school administrator, or find employment in a public bureaucracy...any semi-socialist means of employment will work. You will now become an embedded Secular-liberal-Democrat/Progressive in the scheme of things. It's a wonderful world, Government workers are rarely fired, they have medical insurance, accumulated sick leave, personal leave, vacations, hefty pensions and very little if any accountability. For example, Richard Clarke, Terror Czar, said his mea culpas to the world, and disappeared with his 30 year government pension (probably 70% of his base wage) and he was probably compensated for accumulated sick leave and no penalty was paid for his failures..

Bureaucrats are paid with tax money, and everyone knows that tax money is not real money. If government were a business, they'd be out of business.

"The problem is largely one of spending," Mr. Bandow writes.

However, these socialist SP's are consumers. They devour the goods that capitalism makes (unless they are driving a USSR made car). They add velocity to the circulation of money (your tax money), but the irony of this is that 52.6 % of their income has become tax money also. The proverbial dog chasing its tale. Keynes was right, the bigger government spending becomes, the more it generates a constant supply of fuel for the marketplace (money).

However, Government is the worst, most non-productive provider of goods and services there is. It's a jobs program, pure and simple. The public employee unions (AFSCME is the worst), use politics as their means of SP survival, and guaranteeing job security.

I know I am preaching to the choir. Public bureaucracies are self-perpetuating, self-serving, self-indulging entities. Spending increases because no one has the guts to weed the garden. Oh well.
-- Fred Edwards

I greatly admired and enjoyed your article on Lizard Lists It is so true.

My family and I live and work in Bulgaria and I'm a volunteer for our Embassy as a warden. It is my job to call U.S. citizens and let them know if there is any disaster that involves U.S. citizens.

One day, about a year ago, I left the Consulate in Sofia and was walking down the street. By chance, I ended walking behind a State Dept. employee, who did not know me. He was talking in English to a Bulgarian staffer of the Consulate.

Thinking he was safe talking English with her, he went on ranting and raving about how "stupid, ignorant and incompetent" Bush appointees were in the State Dept.

He was discussing specific names, which I will not list here.

However, it embarrassed me to see his blatant disloyalty to our President. Could you see a Reagan appointee blasting a Clinton era appointee? He or she would be fired immediately.

Frankly, I was so disgusted, that I nearly let him know who I was and was going to explain to him how upset I was about what he was saying.

But I kept my mouth shut in order to hear more.

The other problem with this State Dept. wonk's diatribe is the influence on a Bulgarian employee at our Consulate. Just what do you think her impression of President Bush is now? Terrible in a word.

Finally, if this kind of thing goes on in public with the SP State people, can you just imagine what happens behind closed doors?

Scary thought!

I'm all for the T warriors to defeat the SP people. But I doubt that it will ever happen. It certainly is a battle we are not winning now.
-- Keith W. Brown

THE SCOUTMASTER
Re: Hal G.P. Colebatch's The Pope and the Boy Scouts:

I was very happy to read where the Pope spoke in support of the Boy Scouts. What a wise and great thing to do.

I can attest to the value of Scouting. One of the finest men I have ever met was my Scoutmaster. I say that in light of the fact that I have served as a soldier for over thirty years -- and I have met many outstanding men of character and courage in the ranks of the U.S. Army. Our Scoutmaster was all that a man should be for young men: He was an example of patience and understanding and dedication and service to others. He understood the problems of his boys (like me) and personally helped them to become good men. To top it all off, he was a Scoutmaster of a troop of pretty financially poor kids. He was barely above poverty himself, and had eight children of his own. From him we learned that money had absolutely nothing to do with what kind of person one becomes. We leaned that good men always take the harder right rather than the easier wrong. We learned to take our Scout oath seriously. Many of us went on to earn the Scouts' Catholic award, the Ad Atari Dei.

I could go on and on for the great things this man did as a Scout leader. He is dead now. And when I learned of his death through the newspaper, I felt an overwhelming sense of loss and the realization that the world had seen the passing of a man whom God had blessed. I am pleased the Pope knows that the Scouts still possess such leaders.
-- Paul Melody
Gainesville, Virginia

RAG TIME
Re: TC's letter (under "Calling Ron Paul") in Reader Mail's Democrat Scalpels:

Many of us envy you for having time not only to read the "rags" you don't like but to find time to respond to them. If I had that kind of time, I would still not read rags like the New York Times or Washington Post that ignore the truth if it does not fit their agendas.

Contrary to your conspiracy theory beliefs, the Federal Reserve System does not print money. That would be the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, a division within the Treasury department. The Fed manages the money supply by managing the level of reserves in the banking system. And, incidentally, the Fed has a Board of Governors that operate independently of the Executive and the Legislative branches of government. The Treasury is responsible for funding the growth of government through taxing and borrowing, not printing currency.

The Conservative movement is many things but it can't be both Fascist and Marxist. The former is totalitarian or ruling class while the latter is collectivist or working class. The ideals of Conservatism must certainly include the power and worth of the Individual. This ideal stands in stark contrast to both Fascism and Marxism.

If you are so concerned about the impending "economic hell," hold your nose and vote for Conservatives. In reality, the Liberals are surely the ones who favor more spending and more taxes and certainly more "tax slavery."
-- Bob Staggs
Goshen, Kentucky
P.S. In the future, summon the fortitude to tell readers who you are and where you live. By the way, define for us Neanderthals the "co-intel neutralization mechanism/project."

TC surely had one thing right, there is very little in TAS about Ron Paul, and very little anywhere else I might add. But wow, TC should get a life, chill or take a pill, that was some rant, made me wonder if the T in TC stood for "Tinfoil hat." TAS pushing a fascist agenda, oh baby.
-- RR in TW

DIM BULBS
Re: Peter Hannaford's Ms. Henny Penny in Concert:

Those light bulbs which are s'posed to be good for the environment -- we heard they have mercury in them. Do regular light bulbs have mercury in them -- you know the ones that you "can" read by.

By the way -- all those lush and lovely forests give off carbon dioxide just like humans do -- at night. I guess a little fact never proved to be inconvenient to a little whopper.
-- Paula Carmen

RACISM'S NUMBER
Re: Michael Fumento's Does Racism Cause Breast Cancer:

Now that Teletia Taylor has established her bona fides as a number smith, maybe Al Gore can put her to work establishing that racism causes global warming.
-- Mark Fallert
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Letter to the Editor

topics:
Taxes, Education, Economics, Business, Religion, Abortion, Environment, Global Warming, Law, Supreme Court, Iraq, Fascism, Conservatism, Immigration, Oil, Unions