The American Spectator

WHAT do YOU do NOW?
— David Govett
Davis, California

HIT’EM WHILE THEY’RE DOWN
Re: Paul Chesser’s All Seriousness Aside:

The current panic in global warming camps has far more to do with loss of income than in loss of credibility. Knowing that without the constant barrage of dire warnings in the MSM, the carbon offset sellers, the green technology messiahs, etc. cannot find funding for their continued parasitic existence. Only through government funding for their efforts are they able to continue. No self-respecting venture capital firm would touch the flim-flam artists selling such crap.

Like President Bush’s refusal to federally fund stem cell research, venture capitalists also took a pass on the technology as far too cash intensive with little hope of positive results or timely return. Washington DC would be well advised to retain a VC firm or two to help them understand exactly what should be, and more importantly should not be, worthy of consideration for funding. These are the people who fully understand and can analyze risk and reward.

When the tax-paying minority finally (if ever) realizes what their stolen incomes are being used for perhaps then we will exercise our constitutionally guaranteed rights to replace our current government with one that actually represents us.

Al Gore, please go home to your gigantic mansion and shut up.
— Greg Mercurio
Vacaville, California

CLINT EASTWOOD, SELL-OUT
Re: James Bowman’s Gran Torino:

Watching Clint Eastwood buying into the pabulum of the Left’s morality is disheartening. Mr. Eastwood was once a man of admirable moral quality and his movies reflected a strong sense of right and wrong. Sadly, he has somehow morphed from the righteous (and dangerous) “Dirty” Harry Callahan into one of the many namby pamby police lieutenants/bureaucrats he once bemoaned. Eastwood has lost sight that while both the arsonist and the fire fighter may both found at a church burning, they are not morally equivalent.

Mr. Eastwood is correct in asserting that a society is well served when it questions the need, motivation and costs of violence. As a veteran of a foreign war, I fully understand that violence can cause psychological damage (and the lack of treatment for our returning troops is shameful), but war is sometimes the only moral choice. Eastwood explores these costs in his movie, Flags of Our Fathers, but he never addresses the issue of the worthiness of the sacrifices that were made. If Japan and Germany were left to their own designs, the world would be less free and many more lives would have been snuffed out. If predatory nations are forcefully dealt with early, and that may include pre-emptive violence, the cost of human life will surely be much less than if they were allowed to continue with their malfeasance. Positing hypotheticals, such as what if Chamberlain had stood up to Hitler prior to the invasion of Poland how many lives would have been spared, is a popular task among historians and philosophers. Posing hypotheticals does not seem to interest Mr. Eastwood. He is certain that all violence is wrong.

Moral equivocation ends with a null set of answers. Take two students. One is a bully and the other stands up to him. What is learned from this violence? The one who stands up to the bully demonstrates courage (though he may end up in an ass whooping). He is willing to stand up for his rights and the rights of others; he has used violence as a means to create peace. He has used violence morally. Further, he is likely to grow into a man of moral convictions. If the bully goes unopposed, he has learned violence is a useful means to serve unjust ends. He may well learn to become a street thug, a predator in his community. If opposed, he learns that a moral (and possibly physical) cost is to be incurred. Both boys have used the same means, violence, but arrive at very different ends.

Violence, like any other tool, is a moral neutral until it is used. The intent and the use of the tool produces an outcome that can be judged as moral, amoral or immoral. Violence may be the last answer, but sometimes it is the only just answer.
— Ira M. Kessel
Rochester, New York

Gran Torino was ignored by the simpering, Hollywood nabobs and critics because it shows guns and violence being used for the benefit and safety of people in their neighborhoods.  I am certain Sean Penn, Leonardo diCaprio, etc., really had their panties in a wad when they saw this very good movie and had to move hard and fast to be certain it was ignored by the Oscar nominators.

As the critics love to say…”it was a gritty drama.” That it was — and a helluva good story, too. The theater was packed the afternoon we went to see it…so obviously I am not the only moviegoer in flyover country who liked it.
— Judy Beumler
Phoenix, Arizona

FAMILY MATTERS
Re: Eric Peters’s Green with Madness: