The American Spectator

Reader Mail

Beyond Good

4.23.08 @ 12:01AM

HISS MAJESTY
Re: Jeffrey Lord's The Alger Hiss Democrats:

Lord's Hiss essay is beyond good. Chambers' Witness ought to be required reading for a seat in Congress. Lord's analysis of Bush is right on. But what makes all of this deeply unsettling is the fact that so few understand the nature of this threat to our freedom and security.
-- Jim Chandler

People like Alger Hiss, John Francois Kerry, Barack Obama, and Bill Maher, elitists all, unquestionably. People of their ilk feel free to bash the very people that provide them the comforts and security they know and take for granted. Chambers was correct in his description of common folks as people who grew up on the wrong side of the tracks, but the resentment goes deeper still. The elitists resent that the common folks are the ones who mined and smelt the ore, then built and laid the tracks as well. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel opined that if he had to choose between being a slave or a master, he'd prefer to be a slave because the slave remained in touch with what is real; the slave was the one who produced something. The slave was essential while the master was superfluous.

We, the common men and women, do not ask the elite for thanks. We do our work and draw our pay; that is enough. The elitists once had gratitude for what we do; it is expressed in their writings and philosophies, but gratitude leads to a feeling that a debt is owed, and this sense of indebtedness transmutes good will into resentment: since the elite are neither able nor willing to repay what was freely given, they grow resentful of presence. The common man is not the cause of their resentment; no, it is the elites' own twisted sense of conscience. Our very living reminds them of all they believe they owe us. Our working reminds them of all they are not.

The saddest truth about elitists is they have their beliefs backwards. Yes, meritocracy can lead to some people being held more valuable than others, but that value system, unlike the elitist's caste system, is based on God given talents, not the luck of the draw of being born (or Kerry's case, marrying into wealth -- twice!). All men are created equal but some strive to be even more than that.
-- Ira M. Kessel
Rochester, New York

Bill Maher is not an intellectual. He's a failed actor and comedian whose most noteworthy achievement prior to re-inventing himself as a social gadfly and talk-show host was a starring role in "Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death" (1989). Safely ensconced on HBO, Maher utters his idiotic pronouncements completely free of the dreaded Nielsen ratings that would surely consign him to oblivion on network TV.

In the future, please don't insult the memory of real traitors like Alger Hiss by comparing them to Bill Maher. Hiss was the genuine article, a true dyed-in-the-wool, Harvard-educated elitist snob who sold out his country to Communists in Moscow. By comparison, Bill Maher is merely a pretender, an intellectual lightweight with a big mouth and an undeservedly large ego. In short, Bill Maher is a moron.
-- Gavin Valle
Peapack, New Jersey

What I find most curious about Obama's supporters, liberals, and their media sycophants these days is their utter indignation when examining the results or critiques of liberal policies. Like American Idol contestants, Obama and his supporters want on the "fast track" to that alleged easy utopian-life. They want to be instantly vetted, rather than filling out applications, polishing the resume, and otherwise going down similar roads that all others must tread to gain experience, develop a method of survival, and earn their keep.

Since these Idol elitists think that; "we are what we have been waiting for." All those elitist Idol-Americans demand that we; read the liner notes, look at the pretty posed pictures, and view the edited video footage but GOD FORBID; don't listen to the music on that record.
-- Aaron Jones
Detroit, Michigan

In thinking about the "elite" discussed by Jeffrey Lord, I am speculating as to the future cabinet appointments by the President B. Hussein Obama:

1) Secretary of State -- Reverend Jackson
2) Secretary of Education -- Reverend Wright
3) Secretary of the Treasury -- Reverend Sharpton
4) Secretary of Defense -- Reverend Farrakhan
5) Director of CIA -- William Ayers
6) Director of FBI -- Bernadine Dohrn
7) Vice-President in executive charge of globaloney warming -- Al Gore

8) .... sorry, I'm out of breath -- you can continue if you feel like it. One can think of Pelosi as our UN Ambassador, Harry Reid as Energy Czar, Biden as Attorney General, another ACLU General Counsel (or two) for the Supreme Court, and let us not forget Carter, Reverend Lee, Rangel, and who would be ideal to be in charge of resolving the Middle East crises by negotiating honestly with bin Laden, Ahmadinejad, Kim Jong Il, Hamas, Hezbollah... now I really have to stop before I get a heart attack.
-- Marc Jeric
Las Vegas, Nevada

For all the verbosity and pseudo-intellectualism, Jeffrey Lord's article can be summarized in a syllogism:

1. Senator Obama said some folks in the mid-West are bitter and cling to their guns and religion as a consequence. Ergo, Senator Obama is an elitist. (If you doubt this, remember he graduated from Harvard Law School).

2. Communists of the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s were elitist.

Letter to the Editor

topics:
Education, Trade, Barack Obama, Harry Reid, Religion, Environment, Global Warming, Constitution, Law, Supreme Court, Military, Iraq, Russia, NATO, Africa, Energy, Oil