The American Spectator

Reader Mail

Mind Your Manners

10.31.07 @ 12:01AM

(Page 3 of 5)

One would have thought that atheists would have had more reason to be "pragmatic," since they have relatively little time to make a change. Instead, they have an almost millenarian confidence in the "progress" of American society from Christianity to Liberalism, and their commitment shows. This is why John Kerry could authentically proclaim in his 2004 concession speech: "America always moves forward" (i.e. towards what conservatives recognize as total moral and political corruption).

Liberalism wins because it has the patience and belief that it will do so. Ironically, the Godless appear to have more faith than the "faithful."
-- Kevin O'Neill
London, England

LOSING AT SEA
Re: Doug Bandow's Make Way for a Second UN:

Mr. Bandow presented a very clear analysis of LOST. Unfortunately, no matter how bad the treaty is for the U.S., the Senate will ratify it. Why? Because it is socialism at its finest and as they have proven in the past, our federal government in general, and the Senate in particular, loves socialism. That the senators are more akin to communists, being an oligarchy that staunchly supports special privileges for itself at the expense of the masses, than pure socialists is irrelevant. NAFTA, LOST, the push for a North American Union, it all adds up to the same thing: socialists are thriving in this country.
-- Michael Tobias
Ft. Lauderdale, Florida

Like the treaty that the article addresses, I am lost. I know that this will drive Michael Tomlinson completely round the bend, he of the Bush walks on water school of thought, but where does the Bush clan get its globalist, one world commitment? Is this something that is endemic with all that matriculate at Yale Univ., or is it a tenet of New England patricians, or what?

The number of policies and principles of Ronald Reagan that his ungrateful Vice President reversed or ignored is legion. What in the name of Heaven was so appealing to Bush 41 about this monstrosity of a treaty. Bush 41's resurrection of this makes no more sense to me than did his sponsorship of the grand new entitlement, the Americans With Disabilities Act, or his caving to the Congress and raising personal taxes after campaigning on a promise not to do so. I am sure that he is a nice man, but he is no conservative leader.

Then we have the current Bush. He is absolutely determined to throw open the doors of our country to the entire population of Mexico and give them American citizenship. He is determined to advance the grand union of America with Mexico and Canada in a big clone of the European Union. His administration tried to slip control of our ports to Dubai when we were not looking.

Unfortunately they got caught at it. He is pushing for this globalist, one world, socialist LOST monstrosity. If there is a proposal that gives away more of our sovereignty to an international globalist body, he is for it. George Soros hates Bush, but Bush is almost as big a globalist as Soros, just not as big a socialist, to the extent that the two can be separated.

I suppose that our only hope is that the citizenry will rise up and scare the pants off the Senators like we did with the immigration amnesty that Bush and the Dems wanted. The downside is that it is hard to get the American populace to participate in defeating what most will see as an arcane international treaty. The only hope, as I see it, is to convince the public that we are giving away our sovereignty AND that it will cost us all another big chunk of taxes, which it certainly will. You know dang well that good old Uncle Sam will be expected to meet the lion's share of the budget to run the international bureaucracy associated with this fiasco.

Well, I just hope for a miracle, and that somehow this very bad treaty somehow gets derailed on its way to passage.
-- Ken Shreve
An American citizen, NOT a world citizen

I HEART CORAZON
Re: Paul Nelson's (under "Here's Really Why") in Reader Mail's Dishwasher Gate:

Mr. Nelson, you started your letter by saying that you do not know of Bhutto, Walesa or Havel. Maybe you should add Corazon Aquino to your list. Here's really, really why:

Her maiden name is Corazon Cojuangco, not the "Cojanco" that you wrote. She's not of the "coconut Cojangos" -- the Cojuangcos made their money in sugarcane. Cory (her nickname) was indeed a housewife when she married Ninoy Aquino. Despite her inherited wealth, by all accounts, she was never a prominent figure in politics, business and not even in high society before and during her marriage. She literally wrote "housewife" to describe her profession when she filled in her candidacy form during the 1985 presidential elections.

As to her land reform program, I grant that it may be debatable whether it was indeed good for the country. It may likewise be debatable if large landowners did get a fair market price for their land or if Cory used her influence to shelter the Cojuangco estates from the program. But one thing should be unarguable: she had no need to buy the poor's vote -- as you claimed -- when the program was enacted into law in 1988. At that time, she was at the height of her popularity and the economy had just made a fantastic rebound from the depradations of Marcos. Local and congressional elections had already been held in the prior year -- her party won landslide victories all over the place -- and she had already declared that she wouldn't run in the next presidential elections scheduled for 1992. If there's anybody that Cory had to "buy", it would be power-hungry soldiers. But that's another story and land reform has never been high anyway in the Philippine military's wishlist.

But what really galls me in your letter is your sweeping declaration that Corazon Aquino "did essentially nothing when she achieved power." The country today remains in a chronic political mess but there's one thing that the Philippines hasn't done -- it has not reverted to the wanton, unchecked 20-year reign of greed and terror that was the Marcos dictatorship. This is due in no insignificant part to the legacy of Cory Aquino -- her leadership in a successful bloodless uprising against an entrenched dictator, her reestablishment of democratic rule of law, her principled resistance to then-powerful elements that think that what the country needs is benevolent authoritarianism and finally, the inspiration that she still evokes when she gracefully turned over power to a democratically-elected successor at the hour that her term expired. Many can say a lot of bad things about how well she had governed but not even her worst critic could say that she served herself before serving her people. And she did promise only one thing when she ran for president -- to end the Marcos dictatorship and return the country to democracy. That she did. And that's good enough for me.
-- Mike Gotera
A Proud Veteran of the 1986 Philippine People Power Revolution

Letter to the Editor

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