The American Spectator

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MADD as Hell

8.8.07 @ 12:01AM

HOMAGE TO ORWELL
Re: Hal G.P. Colebatch's Orwell's Bad Republicans:

I found Hal's essay very compelling. It brought me back to my early years during the Reagan presidency when I gave up on my liberalism and membership in the Democratic Party and began on my road to becoming a Republican. Reading The Gulag Archipelago and Orwell's Homage to Catalonia inspired in me a life-long hatred and dread of Communism.

Contrary to what Hal wrote, Orwell's experience fighting for the POUM was the catalyst in his turning his back on communism. Nowhere in his text did I find anything other than disillusionment in finding that the Republican cause had been sold out. He started out with the usual good intentions of a lefty youth and became a man. The Orwell we know from 1984 and Animal Farm could not have become what he became without the Spanish Civil War. Yes, he joined the POUM all starry-eyed, but he ended up an enemy of communism. Please correct me if my memory is has forgotten details, but I believe Hal owes an apology to George.
-- Doug Barth

Hal Colebatch's comments on George Orwell are a sideshow to his overall excellent and informative review. But in a curious coincidence, that particular sideshow was not only of special interest to me, having read Homage to Catalonia, and The Road to Wigan Pier, and the better-known Orwell works, but apparently also to Mr. Colebatch.

Where I differ from Mr. Colebatch is when he writes, "I did not realize the full moral dimension of how wrong Orwell, Hemingway and the rest were." Perhaps I have flunked reading comprehension, but my overall sense of Homage to Catalonia was that it was a first person absolute unequivocal confession of how wrong Orwell concluded he was, not so much about the Republican cause, but about the specific Republican incarnation, which of course was the mass murdering Stalinist creature of the Kremlin. I also sensed that Orwell's later cooperation with British authorities in the matter of naming leftist security risks, for which Orwell was later demonized in the dominant media, had its incarnation in Orwell's Spanish Civil War experience.

In any case, The Last Crusade: Spain 1936, sounds like a good read and I thank Mr. Colebatch for the review.
-- Frank Natoli
Newton, New Jersey

NEOPROHIBITIONISTS
Re: Eric Peters's Alcohol Nanny Breathalizers:

Eric Peters is right. The drunk-driving problem will not be solved by casting such a wide net. However, there are steps beyond suspending drivers licenses of offenders that states could take but won't: (1) Jail time for everyone convicted of drunk driving, moderate perhaps for a first offense but escalating for repeat offenses (2) Suspend the offender's right to purchase a vehicle (3) Suspend the offender's right to license a vehicle (4) Deny insurance to repeat offenders. (5) Classify automobiles as dangerous weapons for sentencing purposes in vehicular manslaughter and homicide citations.

Tough and perhaps risky steps but more sobering than merely suspending drivers licenses.
-- Rose Storey
Portland, Oregon

Prohibition is what the MADD is after. Drop by drop, our right to enjoy a legal commodity is being controlled by zealots who care not of the Constitution. As it is, one better not get a DUI; the penalties can exceed those of a felon. Regardless how this gadget works, if it detects alcohol and refuses the engine starting, I can see a myriad of problems even for those who have not drank a drop. Look at how many products containing alcohol: perfume, deodorant, mouthwash, inhalers, petrol products, etc.

When an emergency arises and driving is a matter of life or death and the vehicle is uesless, when this tech-no gizmo screws up, who's going to get sued? Will those who have lost someone form their own lobbying group to outlaw inhuman technology? Not the MADD hatters, they only have one thing on their mind.
-- R. Ready

MADD has become a group of neo-prohibitionists. Far shrewder than the prohibitionists 100 years ago, they are working in increments to demonize anyone who imbibes, whether or not they intend to drive.

MADD achieved their goal years ago and now they are an organization in search of funding streams and only by manufacturing issues, can they raise additional money.

Just recently, they rebuked AMTRAK for giving drink vouchers to train passengers (click here).

I refuse to give any money to any charitable organization that associates itself with the neo-prohibitionists at MADD and I encourage others to withhold their contributions as well.
-- Brian Schafer
Arlington, Virginia

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