WHAT MORE TO SAY?
Re: R. Emmett Tyrrell,
Jr.’s
Wall Street Imbecility:
For once I have nothing of substance to add.
— David Bonn
Interesting piece.
However, can you really call these Wall Streeters imbeciles? They
raped the world for exorbitant fees while they could, and then
left the taxpayers holding the bag. That’s why they donated to
Obama, not because they believed his ideas on the economy. He
offers them a guaranteed short term payoff, as long as they don’t
get too upset with all the labeling.
As economists like to say, people respond to incentives. I
believe you make a classic mistake: you assume the goals of the
Wall Streeters — and the big governmenters — are the same as
yours, a prosperous nation. The Wall Streeters are looking
after their own wallets and the politicians seek power; judging
by what is happening now, it’s hard to say either is incorrect in
their beliefs. I just wonder how they sleep at night. However,
since most everyone is taught these days that there is no right
and wrong, they’re probably sleeping like babies in their giant
mansions.
— George Pazin
INTERNECINE THRUST
Re: Doug Bandow’s Completely
Useless:
Re: “Completely Useless,” we shouldn’t over-estimate the
authority with which three retired Royal Army generals speak for
the Ministry of Defence or Whitehall. That
statement was more of an internecine thrust at the Royal Navy
from three major institiutional foes of the RN and its
predominant role as the British nation’s nuclear
deterrent.
It’s as though the late General Curtis LeMay (architect of
our nation’s air victory in the Pacific in World War II and of
the old Strategic Air Command), Gen. William Westmoreland and
Gen. John Singlaub were to issue a joint communiqué declaring
that the US Navy’s submarine nuclear deterrent was “completely
useless” — their intent to build up their old branches’
influence and funding at the USN’s expense would be obvious and
would be regarded accordingly.
The British understand battles between branches of their
defense establishment, as some of the letters following
publication of the British generals and elsewhere in the Internet
indicate.
— Vance P. Frickey
HOW INCONSIDERATE
Re: Jay D. Homnick’s Right
Man for the Job:
How dare Israel want to survive! The chutzpah!
Doesn’t Israel realize resistance would blemish Obama’s
presidency?
— David Govett
Davis, California
The only times the United States had strong, principled
leadership when Clinton was president was when Benjamin Netanyahu
and Pope John Paul II arrived for visits.
Also, when was that Conservative Chronicle article by Ralph
de Toledano written? I’d like to take a look
at it.
— Michael Skaggs
Murray, Kentucky
KEEP IT CIVIL
Re: Matthew Kenefick’s Shades
of Gray:
I found Mr. Kenefick’s review of Mr. Crocker’s Politically
Incorrect Guide to the Civil War to be quite valuable: now I
don’t have to read the book, and I certainly won’t buy it. I have
read books like it before.
Mr. Crocker’s is just another extended whine by one who wishes
the losing side had won: Lincoln was a Big-Government Maniac, the
War was a Northern Aggression against the poor ole South, the war
wasn’t fought over slavery, yada, yada yada. What is new in Mr.
Crocker’s version is his claim that the Catholic Church supported
the South because the Church’s natural law principles justify a
regime which denied to millions the most basic natural law of
all; viz., that every man has an unalienable right to freedom.
A couple of years ago you ran another essay by Mr. Crocker
extolling the manly virtues of the Southern leaders (especially
Saint Robert E. Lee). Therein Mr. Crocker advocated a
national holiday celebrating the birthdays of Lee and Jackson.
Sure, Mr. Crocker. Right after we have a holiday celebrating the
birthdays of Alger Hiss and the Rosenbergs.
— James F. Csank
Seven Hills, Ohio
SARCASM UNDETECTED
Re: Dan Martin’s satire (under “Satire…This Is Satire”) in
Reader Mail’s Car
Pools:
Regarding Dan Martin’s demand that we should never refer to
a child in utero as a “child” but a “fetus” is ignorant to
the max. He acknowledges that once out of the womb, the
child is in the image and likeness of God. Does he not know that
it takes almost nine months for a child to develop? He must
believe that a child in utero the day before delivery is
somehow less human than on the day of delivery. What hogwash. At
conception, a child has its own distinct DNA. As God tells us, He
knows us before we are ever in our mothers’ wombs. And
Dan, I believe fetus means “young one.”
— David Tomaselli
The Margaret Sanger Dan Martin relates is a sanitized version of
Margaret Sanger. Like most progressives of her time, Sanger was a
champion of eugenics. To say that she advocated contraception and
abortion out of the goodness of her heart for the unfortunate
women trapped in tragedies of life misunderstands history.
Sanger frankly advocated “more children from the fit, less from
the unfit…that is the chief aim of birth control.” To put a not
too fine point on it, she added that society should focus its
attention toward “creat[ing] a race of thoroughbreds.” While
today these words carry the stench of Nazism, during her time
eugenics was regarded as a forward-looking, “progressive”
concept. The cleansing of the “human stock” was thought as
something any rational and fair-minded individual would be in
favor of. (Indeed, today, you can easily find mild versions of
eugenics bouncing around among family, friends, and strangers.)
However benign one tries to view eugenics, we cannot help but
recognize the evil it spawns. In spite of whatever good
intentions one may assign to it, eugenics is a malevolent drive.
But leave that all aside, no society; no government should have
that much power. No entity should ever have the mandate to
attempt to mold the future shape of humanity. Yet it was the very
progressives such as Margaret Sanger who believed that in the
right hands (i.e. theirs), government can and should be used to
fashion more rational arrangements in human associations.
— Mike Dooley
P.S. Mr. Martin: Whatever motives one might suppose for it,
abortion remains a profound evil. Plus, to say: “But sometimes
there is contraceptive failure, which leads to products of
conception, which is also known as a fetus, but which should
never be referred to as a child” is just plain tedious.
JUDDGMENT DAY
With Judd Gregg resigning from his Commerce position before it
started a rumor has been initiated that his resignation was a
result of pressure from Obama. Since this Republican has paid all
his taxes, he cannot in good conscience be said to “belong”
in an Obama administration!
— Al
Lemon Grove, California
WHERE IN THE WORLD IS HILLARY?
What has become of Ms. Hillary?
Have the mighty fallen so low?
Where is that voice heard round the world?
Is it now just a mere echo?
For so many years we listened
To a woman we thought of as shrill,
But the silence is becoming eerie.
We’re not even hearing from Bill.
At the forefront one day, full of strength and power,
But in an instant diminished like a twilight hour.
For years I couldn’t wait to dismiss her,
But believe it or not, I think I miss her!
— Mimi Evans Winship
