The American Spectator : Young and Impressionable

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Young and Impressionable

11.24.08 @ 6:01AM

College is the place to learn crazy ideas. Retro Obama. The Burmese model for Dems. Plus more.

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Few ships are U.S. flagged. Instead shipping countries flag their ships in Liberia, Greece, Saudi Arabia, and other countries with lax safety requirements and low taxes.

However, if a U.S. flagged ship is taken, the ransom should be paid, the ship and crew made safe. Then massive retaliation against the pirates home base should be used. Level the place. Within a month or two, all kinds of companies would want to have US flagged ships.

The British used to pay the Barbary Pirates to leave their ships alone. They loved seeing U.S. ships get taken. It improved British shipping’s bottom line. Let’s do the same now.
-- Bryan Dilts
Enola, Pennsylvania

HYPOCRITIC OATH
Re: Philip Klein's A Precarious Peace Offer:

The Palestinian Authority stating they want peace with Israel while they can’t control Hamas is similar to a doctor declaring a clean bill of health of a patient -- as long as the patient isn't concerned about the cancer.
-- Ira M. Kessel
Rochester, New York

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Letter to the Editor View all comments (5) | Leave a comment

Appleby| 11.24.08 @ 6:25AM

Robert Heinlein said once that stupidity carried its own punishment -- swift, certain, and with no appeal. I think some people are about to find that out. For example, where are all these university graduates going to exercise their new degrees in Gender Roles in Rock and Roll, or Museum Studies, or binge drinking and STD anxiety, now that Starbucks is closing so many branches?

John| 11.24.08 @ 1:40PM

You people are way off base. As a Libertarian-leaning, life-long Republican a la Ron Paul, the problem is not the ignorance of the people voting Democrat. The true problem is an ignorance within our party. Our reliance on the religious right needs to stop now. For the most part, the right is a dying breed (a major reason why we look like a dying party). The problem is not education of the youth, as a public school teacher I know this first hand. Many of our social studies teachers here (in a consistently blue county in Florida) are very conservative. No, the problem lies in the party's espousing of Social Liberalism. Hear me out, liberalism is defined as a desire to have more government intervention in one's life. Why then do we continue to push for more government control of matters which should be left private. Why should I care if two guys want to live together and be able to make medical choices for one another? Why should I care if a degenerate chooses to take drugs? How does that hurt me in any way? We are spending millions of dollars a year, and have created a huge government apparatus in order to fight a 30-plus years long war on drugs which has been a complete failure. That kind of spending and government growth should disgust the fiscal and political conservatives among us. But somehow, they don't. It is this inconsistancy in policy which has hurt the conservative cause. Not to mention the gross overspending by one G. W. Bush. For crying out loud, the man created a whole new cabinet level bureaucracy! Not conservative. We need to disavow ourselves from the religious right, and their socio-political liberalism, if we have any hope of survival.

Alan Brooks| 11.24.08 @ 1:55PM

the right isn't a dying breed, conservatives are always needed in a country with the morals of the Roman Empire.
As for economic conservatism, we hate the government so much we want it to give funds to granny & grampy who often don't even need the money at all??
Good thinking.

Alan Brooks| 11.24.08 @ 1:59PM

...but you are correct that economic rightists are a dying breed, social conservatism--religious or not-- is the default mode from now on.

Thomas| 11.24.08 @ 9:22PM

I'll say this again. The Republican Party will be extinct in eight years if they do not move right and quit ignoring their Conservative base. And that means the entire Conservative base. You can not separate "fiscal" conservatives from "social" conservatives because virtually all of the "social" conservatives are "fiscal" conservatives. Good luck, guys.