A PRESIDENTIAL MUST-READ
Re: Geoffrey Norman’s Ninety-Two Years and Counting:

Outstanding article! You transposed into a few meaningful paragraphs what I have been trying to say for months. Bravo!
— Dean P. Doucette
Hickory, North Carolina

Thank you, Mr. Norman!

Some weeks ago, I suggested that two prerequisites for being President of the U.S. were to have read the Constitution all the way through at least once, and to have read some history.

I’d feel something running down my leg like Chris Matthews did if President Obama would read JUST THIS ONE ARTICLE!

How do we get it to him?

How do we get him to read it?
— A. C. Santore

PROGRESS TOWARD WHAT?
Re: George Neumayr’s Obama’s Unholy War Against Christianity, Not Islam:

I think Mr. Neumayr makes an extremely salient point. Liberals, who are post-modern, “progressive,” seem to attack Christianity for the very reason that it has not only accommodated Reason, but provides a foundation for Reason. Christianity posits humans as off-spring of Deity, thus imbued with some characteristics of Deity, including the capacity for Reason, and the potential to grow in the direction of Deity, in wisdom, in knowledge, in goodness, in freedom. The current Pope has repeatedly extolled the value of Reason, grounded in Faith. The capacity for Reason separates humans from the rest of the animal kingdom. The position of mankind in the cosmos is of import in Christianity, indeed, the “reason” for the existence of the Cosmos — there is purpose to human life. In Islam, mankind is reduced to the status of “slaves to Allah,” completely subject to the entirely incomprehensible Will of Allah. There is no purpose but to please Allah. Above all, Liberals appear to be vehemently opposed to Reason. It grants humankind too great a status in the Cosmos. The Islamic Deity, whose status as the overseers of mankind Liberals seek to supplant, is not to be questioned, is not to be understood, but only to be obeyed, on pain of damnation. Reason has no part in this. This is the conjunction of Islam and post-modern Liberalism. Man is to be seen as an irrational beast, of no greater standing than other primates or other forms of life on the planet, except that the human animal is far more dangerous to the planet, capable of destroying it, and hence must be curtailed, suppressed, enslaved by government, made to drive the right kind of vehicles, to pay enough for fuel, to abandon fossil fuels, literally to be returned to a “state of nature” equated more or less with the Pleistocene, when, supposedly, small bands of humans hunted and gathered and posed no threat whatsoever to the planet.

Abortion on demand advances this goal of restricting the human species, this irrational but potent animal, and preventing the destruction of the planet. Liberals are hostile to humanity, misanthropic to the extreme. Hence, the absolute approach to abortion noted elsewhere.

A rational animal is of consequence. An irrational beast is not. A rational animal desires freedom, concocts concepts like “Natural Rights” and demands limits on government power in order to preserve individual liberty. A rational animal is a threat to unfettered government power, to totalitarianism. This is unacceptable to Liberals.

From Darwin to Freud to Nietzsche, mankind has been shown, in the “scientific” perspective, to be an irrational beast, unfortunately endowed with slightly too many destructive capabilities, to be trusted with the planet. There is no moral imperative. There is no good nor evil. There is only Power, and those who wield it should be unfettered in their attempts to control, suppress, and govern the human animal, for the good of that animal and the planet.

The goal of the Liberal is the subjugation of the human race to the will of its keeper, the governing elite. The goal of the Jihadist is the subjugation of the human race to the Will of Allah, as defined by them. The goal is the same. The freedom which the Christian God provides, His Truth that makes mankind free, is the ultimate threat to the Liberal or the Jihadist. God help us if they prevail.
— Kent Lyon
College Station, Texas

SAFETY’S SAKE
Re: Jeff Fulcher’s Flight Risk:

It has begun.

Was this on the audio tape? “Ve haf vays of dealing viz peeeple like you. Ve know vere your family are living.”
— A. C. Santore

I’ve been fortunate in my air travel but I’ve also made a conscious decision to do the least amount of it as possible due to the harassment. I made this decision before 9/11 so this latest TSA illusion is even more worthless. Eventually someone is going to walk into a crowded airport waiting line like the one where they herd you all together to check your baggy full of 3 oz liquids and explode something larger than 3 oz and kill hundreds just to make this point. 

Those in the know, that have served this country know what I’m talking about. All the public security measures we see are a function of politics to some degree or the other. Steve Bierfeldt was caught up in a political crime of sorts. He was guilty until proven innocent. He fit a profile that the TSA thinks it can deal with. Being on the record for liberty is a worthy security risk at the TSA these days. There must be a long list of failed Libertarian attempts at blowing up airlines on some government data base somewhere. As long as we expect and demand others to protect us, it will get worse.

Steve Bierfeldt got pulled because of what he thinks, not because he was a “flight” risk. The chances it was a random event are pretty remote in the age of electronic IDs and security databases. Like Joe the Plumber’s experience, even an amateur state government employee can run the numbers on you with just your “name.”   Organizations like the TSA, state and local Law enforcement can’t really handle the true-believer kind of foreign terrorists operating here. Law enforcement is taught to hesitate due to the delicacies of an urban environment full of civilians. Recent shootings of officers are a testament to this fact. They violated rule number three also, “Don’t take a handgun to a rifle fight.” The ease of how someone can enter a place and shoot it up these days without getting a single shot in return is amazing to me on the face of it. With hundreds of millions of guns and billions of rounds of ammo in this country no one ever shoots back it seems. Why is that? The obvious answer is the correct one. The sheeple are going to have to make a choice someday about who is ultimately responsible for their security. The sheep dogs will never be enough nor competent enough to deal with all this without turning what’s left of the Constitution into toilet paper and the wolves win every time we hesitate to take them out. 

The TSA is the post office of Law Enforcement with one exception. The Post Office doesn’t make you take off your shoes, belts, check your ID/ticket five times standing in the same line, or ask stupid questions to get your mail. Last time I looked into the stats, the Post Office is one of the most dangerous gun free zones next to government schools. Surely TSA methods are needed in these government controlled zones too?
— Thom Bateman
Newport News, Virginia

SCAPEGOAT
Re: Jeffrey Lord’s  Biden Blamed Bush, Gingrich for Virginia Tech Shootings:

I’m inclined to think that, with every “it’s all Bush’s fault” comment from any of these people, that Bush is being measured for his Leon Trotsky suit so he can be the eternal enemy of the Obama revolution.
— Robert Nowall
Cape Coral, Florida

OINK?
Re: Sen. Jim DeMint’s Political Greed:

$1.8 million to study pig pong? No wonder Congress stinks!
— Gretchen L. Chellson
Alexandria, Virginia

BALLIN’ ENTREPRENEURS
Re: Andrew Cline’s The NCAA’s Slaves:

I tried to watch the NCAA tournament this year, but failed. During Monday night’s championship, as in other games of this tournament, I turned off the tube with more than 6 minutes left in the first half. Why? The last straw was what seemed like a 5 minute commercial break during a timeout. I know it brings in billions for the NCAA, and it allows for a free broadcast, but I can’t take it anymore. And it got me to thinking about big money and the amateur student-athletes that never get to touch it.

LeBron James has followed an interesting career path that is open to very few. I’m not talking about going from high school to the NBA. As a youngster James, and his AAU club teammates, enrolled at St. Vincent-St. Mary High School, en masse. More recently, James fired his professional agent, and hired childhood friends, people that he trusts, to assist in the management of his career and business ventures. CBS’ 60 Minutes reports that they are doing good work.

So how about this business idea for LeBron James — encourage all of the seniors in the top basketball programs to drop out of school, en masse, when the buzzer sounds on their final regular season game. Have them stay together as teams for a nationally televised tournament promoted by a LeBron James for-profit organization. Round up some sponsors and pay the players generously from the proceeds. For most of them, it will be their only professional experience.

Any players who chose to stay in school could represent their institution in the NCAA tournament.
— Dan Martin
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

CAPITALIST PIGS
Re: Lawrence A. Hunter’s Switching to the Tune of the Times:

Mr. Hunter’s article is another call to the American people to wake up and stop Prince Obama and his followers, but it is also a reminder that some of the greatest enemies of capitalism are capitalists themselves. 

Frank Keating pursued his perceived rational self-interest both as a private citizen and as governor; that the two pursuits are diametrically opposed does not mean that Keating could not find profit from championing one position then its mirror image. In fact, that is exactly what he did. The same can be said for Chip Kahn. Both men did so to pursue monetary gain above all else. In a purely capitalistic system, this is the most rational pursuit of all. (The Ferengi would love these guys!) But even the Father of Capitalism himself, Adam Smith, would clearly find fault with the jujitsu on policy that these men performed. He would not fault them on a purely economic grounds. No, he would fault their actions on moral grounds. (Please see Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiment for his call for a strong stance on moral action.)

The fault of these men, and others like them, is not the pursuit of one’s interests, but their lack of vision. Aristotle found virtue in pursuing self-interests, as did Ayn Rand, but Rand was limited in her scope of what is in one’s self-interest. She would not have found moral fault with Keating and Kahn; Rand’s philosophy was an amoral, and from that perspective, the damage that was done to others would not be her primary concern. But to act logically is act for the one’s long term interests. To see the long term, one must have vision. People who have no moral bearing, who lack the sight to see their actions are like ripples on a pond often do themselves a great disservice: they do not pursue self-interest rationally; in fact, they act counter to those interests: they poison the well for themselves and those who come after.

Giving ammunition to your enemies is not rational; you have given the enemy tools to destroy what you value. People like Maddoff, Kahn and Keating are capitalists to their core. Yet their actions become the very chimera that socialist use to wrap their attacks on capitalism so that the populace will accept the overreaching of the government. Time after time, the Left has launched attacks based on “greedy capitalist” actions. Only when capitalists denounce the folly of short term gain at the expense of the innocent do we defang socialists. This is exactly what Mr. Hunter’s article does. 

Mr. Hunter precisely diagnosis the problem. With pinpoint accuracy, he points out that capitalism must attach itself to a moral system. The general readership of The American Spectator, and the majority of Americans, balance their pursuit of life, liberty and happiness with the Judeo/Christian ethos. This balance has made America a light unto the world. This balance gives us the moral authority to lead by example. 

Capitalism is not a system of morality; it is an economic systems. A moral system is needed to be grafted to it. Or as it was said by a better man than I, “Man cannot live by bread alone.”
— Ira M. Kessel
Rochester, New York

VICTIM OF THE LAW
Re: Hans von Spakovsky’s The Tragedy of Supremely Bad Law:

I have been injured by the drug being used IV also. It burned the deep veins in my right arm and I cannot return to work as a surgical technologist, which I did for 25 years. I am not on Social Security, but have applied and now wish to file a lawsuit for the loss I have suffered. My injury involved veins, which is just as devastating, as I cannot do many things I used to do. Not to mention the depression over the loss of my job. Will there be a class action against the company…as I know one lady whose arms and legs were involved, along with a big hole in her upper arm from the drug eating through the vein. Any information you have or might wish to share would be of great value, in order to move forward with my complaint.
— Pamela Erlandson
Houston, Texas

TAKE ME DOWN TO DEAR OLD CUBA

Take me down to dear old Cuba
Where plantations of coffee and sugar thrive.
Where slavery’s alive and well
And health care has gone to hell
And each day’s plan du jour is to survive.

Let me shake hands with the Castro brothers.
And praise their stewardship of their island home.
Their people long to be
In the land just across the sea
But from their communist paradise they cannot not roam.

On second thought, I’ll stay in the good old USA
And breathe the air of liberty the free American way.
— Mimi Evans Winship