The American Spectator

Reader Mail

In a Bad Place

10.7.08 @ 12:01AM

(Page 4 of 4)

The last time that I checked, at least here in Missouri, aldermen are elected by its citizens as representatives. Then those aldermen in public meetings enact speed limits in an attempt to make drivers refrain from driving too fast. Some drivers do not think they have to follow these rules, and the result is often a municipal citation for a code violation.

As a conservative I would think that this is not some kind of strange concept. That rules would be passed by representatives about how we are to act while using a machine that can put others very lives at risk. I do not think that Edmund Burke would have a problem with this idea. There are rules, and if you break those rules, some punishment often will be the result. Maybe I am missing something here.

Mr. Peters's tone and language I also find troubling. The idea behind this language, that "[y]our insurance company is all about maximizing the revenue stream -- just like the cop who gave you the ticket -- and even though your piddling 66 mph in a 55 zone "speeding" ticket doesn't in any fair-minded way mean you're an unsafe driver, the insurance company will use it as a pretext for claiming that you are -- and will jack your rates up accordingly" is wrongheaded. The idea that uniformed officers, the same people who willingly place their lives at everyday in order to protect the domestic tranquility are simply committed to "maximizing the traffic stream," is really, I think, disrespectful to the law enforcement community, something that conservatives are supposed to be about. I have always been of the opinion that the "screw the pigs" mentality was a product of the left.

Moreover, the gaming-the-system mentality that Mr. Peters seems to espouse is the same type of thumbing one's nose at the rules that is the cause of much of the problems we face in this country today.

Finally, this email is written in my private capacity as a reader, and not as a public official. The views represented are purely my own. Again, thanks for your site.
-- William Thomas "Dub" Duston

A LITTLE LEARNIN'
Re: David Smith's letter (under "Media and Hockey Mom Square Off") in Reader Mail's Picking Up the Pieces:

I would like to ask Mr. Smith just exactly what debate he was watching. As I listened to Joe "Gasbag" Biden repeatedly speak with forked tongue, I was amazed at the equanimity with which Mrs. Palin answered some of the most asinine questions that I have heard in a long time. As for the "memorized talking points," most objective observers would consider these to be what we in education call "preparation." I guess that Mr. Biden's lame dishonesties did not have to be memorized; probably because they were so false.

I also enjoyed Mr. Smith's "I and I alone know who won the debate. Anyone who has an opinion different from mine is wrong. Only I can evaluate answers, and I base most of my evaluation on important things such as the dropping of the 'g' at the end of participles and gerunds."

Please Mr. Smith, the next time you decide to parse a debate, try listening (or should I say listenin') to the content. It will do wonders for your analysis.
-- Joseph Baum
Garrettsville, Ohio

ONLY JUST BEGUN
Re: John Berlau's Doing Something?:

So the same government that thought the way to manage the financial system was to lend squillions to poor people who had no hope of ever paying it back is now spending $700 billion fixing the same problem it helped create in the first place? I don't care what Henry Paulson and his Wall Street mates say, I think this thing hasn't hit rock bottom yet, it isn't even close.
-- Christopher Holland
Canberra, Australia

Letter to the Editor

topics:
Taxes, Education, Trade, John McCain, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Sarah Palin, Bill Clinton, Business, Hollywood, Constitution, Law, Supreme Court, Energy, Oil