Letters to the Editor
Published Letters: 288 Editor's Choice: 20
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This Is a Can of Worms. Can't Anyone See It?
[Read the article: Spanking mad]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]First, my vote. I am against making spanking illegal. I am a pediatrician and I know I am supposed to say otherwise, but the bottom line is that as a child I was also spanked, and it produced no lasting harm to me. Spanking is not good. But when I look around me, I see kids whose primary problem is not that they are spanked, but that they are not disciplined enough. There is no way anyone will convince me that there are more children hurt by spanking than children hurt by poor discipline.
It is myopic to think that a parent cannot spank a child and still love them very much and otherwise be an excellent caregiver. I don't spank my children as a matter of personal preference, but I can tell you one thing: If I did, I would still love them more than you do, and certainly a heck of a lot more than the state government does.
There are millions of parents in America who spank. Are we going to arrest them all? Throw another million people in our overcrowded jails, and toss millions of kids into foster care? Now there's a great idea.
Even if we just give spanking parents a slap on the wrist (now there's an ironic turn of phrase), they still end up with a police record. Children are dependent on their parent's income. A parent who gets arrested for spanking now has an arrest record. That could result in job losses, lower credit ratings, legal bills, all kinds of problems in a home. Another great idea: Let's saddle troubled households with even more trouble.
I fear that an anti-spanking law would, as laws often are, be disproportionately enforced on the poor and weak. Somehow I see more black mothers being hauled out of Walmart for publically spanking their children than white women shopping at Neiman-Marcus.
And consider my personal situation. I am a blond-haired, green-eyed white male. My wife is a dark haired, dark-skinned Indian. This created an interesting blend: My youngest child has light skin, brown eyes, and red hair.
I can image a situation where my wife might discipline my son in public. Because she does not look like my son's mother, a suspicious onlooker might just use the opportunity of a perceived spanking to call the police, thinking my wife is a nanny or that she had abducted my son. If spanking is illegal, a simple tap on the behind in public could be an excuse for a prejudiced and "concerned" individual to get my wife arrested and my son taken away from us.
This frightens me. The more leverage the law has over a family, the more abuses there will be. Yes, some parents abuse their children, and there should be laws against that. But who is going to tell me that no public official, or racist neighbor, ever abused a law to punish a minority?
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Ho Hum.
[Read the article: Bush's Iran madness]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I know I shouldn't be dismissive. There is, after all, a war going on.
But the truth is, Bush does not have, will not have, and never has had a plan for the Middle East. He has nothing. To me, the observation that his policy is failing is completely self-evident. The only thing that could surprise me now is if anything Bush has done at all ends in anything other than disaster.
Remember when, after 9/11, GW told the American people to "go shopping" in response to the terrorist attacks? What he meant was, go about your normal life and stimulate the economy by spending, but it was, nonetheless, a stupid and empty statement. A statement by an administration that is morally and intellectually bankrupt.
I am no more surprised that the Bush policy is making things worse in the Middle East than I was surprised when someone reported that Barry Bonds does steriods. Really? He's incompetent? Who'd have thunk it?
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A Blueprint for Party Suicide, Once Again
[Read the article: What Hillary won't say about Iraq]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]What I found most sickening about Republicans in recent years has been their relentless pandering to be seen as the most conservative. Most recent Republican presidential primaries, as well as many state contests, have centered on sorry contests to prove who is toughest against crime, against drugs, against terrorism, etc., ad nauseum.
The last thing the Democrats need is a contest to see who was most against the war. Democrats have done themselves in over and over on the toughness issue over the years, starting with Vietnam and through the Cold War and now into the Terrorism age.
For God's sake, give it a rest. Ms. Clinton opposes the war. The endless penchant for hair splitting is a blueprint for defeat. Why, just last week, I had to endure a Salon article that said that Barack Obama isn't black! So, our antiwar candidates aren't really anti-war, and our black candidates aren't really black.
You know what comes next. We have to argue that Nancy Pelosi isn't really a woman.
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Treason vs. Rebellion
[Read the article: Neoconservatives hate liberty as much as they love war]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]What is the difference between treason and revolution? Treason is an act against the government of one person. Revolution is when a large number of people act against the government.
If conservatives think it is amusing to threaten liberal dissidents with death, they have better understand that if liberals feel threatened they will fight back -- possibly with guns. This is how civil wars are born. One group physically threatens another. The oppressed group, fearing persecution, takes up arms. If you threaten enough people with hanging they will as a class join together and fight back.
How can an intelligent adult think he can try to intimidate a Senator with the threat of hanging and not risk violent response? Violence begets violence.