The American Spectator

Reader Mail

Ford-ing the Gap

6.15.09 @ 6:01AM

(Page 2 of 3)

CAN'T ASSUME RATIONALITY
Re: R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr.'s Israeli Settlements:

You and I might assess Israel's predicament rationally, but it would be irrational of us to expect Obama or his supporters to do likewise. The primary reason his speeches are so persuasive is that he knows how to say what people want to hear. His glib assurances are virtually all style with little rational content. They are dangerous because they appeal to many voters who tend to believe only what they want to believe.

This all supports my contention that bad policy is based on emotion and good policy on reason. That argument is repeated throughout my book "Reason, Emotion, and Human Error." It is in your queue, but my intention is not to pester you to deviate from your natural reading order. This will all come together in its own time.
-- William Best
New Whiteland, Indiana

MODERATELY WEAK
Re: Angelo Codevilla's Pro-Mexico (from the June issue) and Jonathan Aitken's Rowan Williams Rebounds:

What the hell? After reading the articles by Codevilla and Aitken in my last issue of TAS, that is my immediate reaction. I found Codevilla's article about embracing Mexican illegals less than thoughtful, as Regnery suggested in his introduction to the issue. I find it difficult to feel guilty about resenting the many depredations caused by the mass of illegals trespassing on the border ranch lands and overburdening our health care system, our social welfare system and our laws. There was no mention of the high percentage of illegals in our prisons, the Mexican gangs and their violence, the costs placed on our hospitals and local governments that far outweigh anything the illegals contribute with their cheap labor. I have to take the statistics put out by studies done by Heritage, et al., over the earnest supplications of Mr. Codevilla. He also neglected any mention of the sorry and enraging spectacle of the demonstrations by illegals demanding their rights while waving the Mexican flag. But not to worry! Pres. Obama is well on his way to solving the problem of illegals trampling our southwest deserts to come and work. He brilliantly has figured out that by destroying our economy and subsequently the job market, the Mexicans will have a much better chance of finding employment in their own hopelessly corrupt and violent homeland. They might as well not bother wearing out their hauraches coming here.

I had simmered down a little after reading Codevilla until I moved on to Aitken. I generally enjoy his "High Spirits" articles but I didn't buy his assertions about what a great and brilliant guy, Archbiship Rowan is. He said he was misquoted in his endorsement of some aspects of sharia law but then negelected to clarify on how this was so. Then he went on to say that he has done a great service by turning the church's concerns from such introverted things as homosexual clergy to the great religious problem and global concerns of environmentalism.  Just at a point when more and more people are waking up from being asleep at the wheel and realizing that the environmentalists are a bunch of lying, hysterical leftist extremists, Aitkin thinks the church should follow these Luddites into the abyss of economic destruction and possibly world starvation if they get their way in destroying the agricultural industry. 

If TAS is going to insert anymore of this "moderate" drivel in what usually is a refuge of brilliance and humor for this conservative/libertarian, please put some kind of warning under the subject line or at the bottom of the first page.
-- Jill Hiller
Valparaiso, Indiana

BAD COMPANY
Re: Quin Hillyer's Lib Leadership and Double Standards:

Expecting Democrats to have moral or intellectual integrity is like asking Barack Hussein Obama to produce his long form birth certificate to prove beyond a doubt he is a native born American -- it just won't happen. One could even compare asking Democrats to have moral and intellectual integrity to asking Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin (proto-Obamas) to stop practicing genocide -- it isn't going to happen. The Democratic Party is a morally and intellectually bankrupt group of self-serving egotists bent on milking the system for all they can get out of it, and the country and its hard working people be damned.
-- Michael Tomlinson
Jacksonville, North Carolina

TJ PREDICTED IT
Re: Jonathan Witt's The Mr. Potato Head Constitution:

An excellent article by Dr. Witt. I seem to recall a Mr. Thomas Jefferson opining the following regarding the effects of the Judiciary on the Constitution as something like this:

"The Constitution, on this hypothesis, is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary, which they may twist, and shape into any form they please."

I suppose we should be surprised and thankful at the two centuries of relative restraint, all things considered. There does seem to be an alarming rate of wax deformation in the last sixty years, however, consistent with this trenchant analysis by the estimable Dr. Witt.
-- Thomas Herring III
Mission Viejo, California

A HILL TO DIE ON

From time immemorial, with full knowledge that defeat was the only foreseeable outcome, people have made pledges and taken stances for what they believe is right. In the military these stands are often called "suicide missions." Sometimes miracles happen and a righteous victory is granted. But even in defeat, honor is persevered.

Letter to the Editor