Letters to the Editor
William Timberman
Published Letters: 3298 Editor's Choice: 7
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One Example of Many
[Read the article: Foreign influences on our elections -- then and now]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I find the Greenwald Hypocrisy Index useful in a number of ways. For those of us looking for a way to rebut the decades of vilification and lies directed at Democrats and liberals, Glenn's documentation of right-wing Republican hypocrisy is invaluable.
This evidence has been available before -- the size of the Reagan deficit measured against the tax-and-spend epithet, for example, or the occasional fundamentalist demagogue caught coming out of a cheap motel with his pants down -- but no one up to now has provided so much specific ammunition on such a wide range of public issues. Bloviators beware, henceforth you'll have to answer a few questions of your own.
Glenn's work is also a welcome morale booster. The vague sense of being lied about and put upon unfairly, the bewilderment that comes of being systematically targeted by such scumbags as Rove, Bennett and Dobson and their propaganda factories, and the unfocused anger which results from being unable to prevent the drift of political argument inexorably to the right can now be replaced by a focused counterattack. Prove that your adversaries are habitual liars, and you can gain room to make arguments for more responsible alternatives to their disastrous policies.
Yeoman work, Glenn -- the kind of research many of us don't have the time or skill to manage on our own -- but we do know how to put it to use, and we will.
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On Arizona's Conservatism
[Read the article: Extremist Bush supporter calls for murder of scientists]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Desert Son:
I'm not a native Arizonan, having retired here three years ago after spending most of my adult life in Southern California. My take on the conservative culture here is therefore not an expert's, but for what it's worth, I find the state's conservatives very different in temperament from those of the deep south where I grew up.
In my experience there are relatively few social conservatives of the southern fundamentalist variety, although the megachurches have made inroads, and the Mormons who settled the state years ago still have a strong influence.
What I find most common is the western variety of conservatism, which, in the Barry Goldwater mode, tends to be libertarian; they like waving the flag, wearing their guns, smoking wherever they feel like, doing what they want on public lands, and riding motorcycles without helmets. They don't like government -- any government -- telling them want to do, and they absolutely hate taxes. They also despise unions, Mexicans, and immigrants in general, although they're in favor of an increase in the minimum wage if Mexicans don't get any.
This is an overview, not a detailed assessment, and as I say, it isn't based on a lifetime's experience. I'm sure someone who was born here can flesh it out, and correct it where necessary.
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Tit for Tat?
[Read the article: Extremist Bush supporter calls for murder of scientists]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Well, Mike, if you'd include the entire staff of the the Los Alamos National Laboratory, the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, the Sandia Corporation, not to mention Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, James C. Dobson and perhaps yourself on this hit list of yours, you might actually have a point....
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Well Said, domini
[Read the article: Extremist Bush supporter calls for murder of scientists]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Academic freedom isn't the free speech guaranteed by the Constitution, but it's essential to a free society nevertheless. Glenn Reynolds should remain absolutely secure in his academic position regardless of what political opinions he professes. Period.
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Dear God, What Were You Thinking?
[Read the article: Camille's back!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Self-referential to a fault, and wrong about very nearly everything, including her own perspicacity. The ultimate drag queen, half George Will, half Maureen Dowd. No doubt some will find her entertaining, sour notes and all, but I really, really wish you hadn't. Really....
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Jesus, Mary, and Joseph
[Read the article: Camille's back!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]So, yehudi, you're happy with her lack of false modesty, are you? But how are you feeling about her lack of real modesty? That's the question needs answering, is it not?
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An Often Overlooked Aspect of War-loving
[Read the article: Neoconservatives hate liberty as much as they love war]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]War is the epitome of bad sex, or more properly, of a failed sexual imagination -- the return of the repressed come back to us in its most savage guise.
Say what you will, this is why the triumphalism of a Limbaugh or Gaffney always has that slightly fetid smell about it, the smell of a desperate onanism. What is a war-lover, after all -- particularly one who doesn't go to war -- but an embalmed teenager whose isolation has led to a frenzy of denial and domination?
It's a uniquely male hysteria, I would say, although women -- Ann Coulter, for example -- sometimes share it. This is what happens when you deny Aphrodite; you get not Ares, or Athena, but Hades. Our right-wing bloviators are in fact murderous adolescents, who, when their way to adulthood is interrupted, have always been the real threat to a harmonious civilization.
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The DTs
[Read the article: Neoconservatives hate liberty as much as they love war]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Apparently there is some confusion. Apparently. I doubt, DT, that in your innocence you ever heard of Islam or the Constitution before last Thursday, yet now you profess to be an expert.
You do realize, I hope, that among the people who read Unclaimed Territory, are a number who actually know things, and are therefore unlikely to be impressed by your bloody-minded schoolboy approach to history, or to comparative religion.
Peace be with you, DT, even if it isn't in you.
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A Meditation
[Read the article: Camille's back!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]1) Read all the letters.
2) Click on Only Editors' Choices.
3) Ponder....
4) Try to resist the obvious conclusion, i.e., that when defending its own, Salon is only slightly more Fair and Balanced than Fox News.