The American Spectator

Reader Mail

The Leave Us Alone Condition

9.27.07 @ 12:01AM

(Page 4 of 4)

SOUTHERN REMAINS
Re: Larry Thornberry's Southern Fried Fred:

I thoroughly enjoyed Larry Thornberry's essay on Florida. I was born and raised in Tampa. Growing up there in the '70s and '80s, most of my cultural experiences were as un-Southern as they could be. We always had to drive north if we wanted to see the South.

As Larry noted, however, there is still some South left in Florida. For the past nine years I've lived in Taylor County, on the "nature coast," where the waitresses still call you "honey" and serve grits. Until recently, we even had some truly conservative Democrats in these parts (most have now switched parties). But this pocket of Florida Southernness is shrinking. As more and more people come to our state from south of the border and north of the Mason-Dixon line, many Floridians are leaving the metro areas and migrating to the wooded lands of north Florida in search of a more peaceful life. I wonder how much longer they'll be able to find it.
-- Jeff Himmel
Perry, Florida

MURTHA THE MARINE
Re: Jeffrey Lord's Newt, Columbia, and the Idea of Dissent:

Mr. Lord hits it straight...the illiberal American left is just as despotic as any tyrant in history.

Regarding Jack Murtha:

Back when I went through ten weeks of OCS, we Candidates were often referred to as "s--t maggots," among other things, by officers and non-coms alike.

The old opportunist and grubber Jack Murtha ought to write of book entitled S--t Maggot: How I went from Marine recruit, to Drill Instructor, to Lieutenant Colonel, to Member of Congress, and back to EX-Marine s--t maggot in one lifetime.

Semper Fi! Mr. Lord.
-- Carl Gordon Pyper, USMC 1969-72
Monett, Missouri

ATTENTION GRABBER
Re: Michael Roush's letter (under "Dissentary at Columbia") in Reader Mail's Carbon Disposal

Again comes the strange idea (letter from Mike Roush) that the two shining examples of 20th Century totalitarianism (Stalin and Hitler) are opposites on a Left/Right continuum. Please, that is one of the saddest examples of the failure of American civics education. Those totalitarian thugs are both at the far end of a continuum alright, the same end (Let's call it the "left"). The right side is home to the purveyors of individual liberty; let's use James Madison as our poster child. The founders of our Revolution had no relation to Marx's evil spawn.
-- Craig A. Zimmerman
Nairobi, Kenya

Ah, Mr. Roush. You are a fine testament to the government-sponsored gift that just keeps on giving, public education.
-- Mike Showalter
Austin, Texas

Letter to the Editor

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