Letters to the Editor
Reilly
Published Letters: 178
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@Two letters: Pretty Lady and Sandy Yago
[Read the article: Is Briana Waters a terrorist?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Beautifully said Pretty Lady:
Can you not see that a person may take action upon the dictates of conscience, and that conscience may not always dovetail with the law, and that fact is one of the most unique and precious virtues of humanity? Without conscience we would all be mindless automatons.
And from the automaton point of view we have Sandy Yago:
An activist is a person who wants to change something very specific in MY world whether I want it or not. That alone makes activists sort of unlikeable people, in whom arrogance and selfishness is combined with a single issue zealotry.
I am not against opening eyes, but eye-openers (iconoclasts, rebels, etc) want to change something in my world while persuading me to join in and want the change together with them.
Actually an activist wants to change something in "the" world although I'm pleased that you highlighted for us your egocentic view by capitalizing "my" while in the following sentence excoriating the activists for their "arrogance and selfishness".
That's as telling as your equating "thousands of years of selective breeding and hybridization" with genetic engineering done in the lab while condeming the activists "ignorance".
By the way, when has an activist asked you to "join in and want the change together with them"?
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@ stackey-dackey: but it seems to me that the two woman who made a deal were probably equal to Waters in culpability
[Read the article: Is Briana Waters a terrorist?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Let's clarify something: the two woman were plea bargaining - they pled guilty. Waters pled not guilty. We have an admission of guilt from the two informants as to their culpability and we also have the fact according to Ms. Tullis that "the government's case against Waters rested heavily on the testimony of two informants". They implicated Waters for a reduced sentence, one of them only after four or five interviews in which she hadn't.
That doesn't mean absolutely that Waters wasn't involved but you get it backwards when you say they "were probably equal to Waters in culpability". She may, in fact, have been unjustly accused.
But you're right to bring up the efficacy of the "roll over" method. The idea has been corrupted and rather than being utilized, especially in drug cases, to move up the food chain to nab "kingpins" it has become a way for people caught red-handed to reduce their sentences simply by implicating someone else which, besides easing their burden, also ensures more convictions for prosecutors.
Here's what Ofra Bikel producer of "Snitch" said in an interview:
What disturbed you the most about these laws?
A lot of things disturbed me. Starting with the fact that the only way to escape a huge sentence is to rat on someone, and ending with the fact that you don't have to have any drugs in evidence in order to be convicted on federal drug charges. Informants' testimony is enough. You can get 30 to life in prison because some people said they used to deal drugs with you, nothing more. This was very hard for me to accept. It made me think of all the things that we hated so much in the Soviet system: family members informing on family members, a friend rats on a friend. Now we are encouraged to do it, and we are doing it. We are quickly becoming a society of informants, and this can't be good for us.
You can check it out here:http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/snitch/
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I love the self-delusional brothers-in-arms phrases these guys throw around
[Read the article: Fred Kagan on Monday: "The civil war in Iraq is over"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I can see them in 20 years sitting around on over-sized wing-back leather chairs, sipping single malt and saying things like, "Those were the days, eh old chap, when we looked the beast in the eye and refused to back down."
And of course they're Lombardis because they're not simply war cheerleaders, they're war coaches. They're an integral part of the tough slog, the fighting ahead. It's time that people realized the difference between a war cheerleader and a war coach. These guys have the Lombardi perseverance. They're unflinching, they're rocks, they're indefatigable sources of strength who inspire others to give 110% and perhaps even win one for the gipper!
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@Jkalos Yeah: I would like to get that guy Kagan up one morning and take him up on a ten mile run. Just before breakfast.
[Read the article: Fred Kagan on Monday: "The civil war in Iraq is over"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Not me. If that's the best he can do when he knows he's going to be photographed, just imagine how he looks first thing in the morning.
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@ jprfrog
[Read the article: Fred Kagan on Monday: "The civil war in Iraq is over"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Nicely done.
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This darkly ludicrous Mukasey article isn't worth noting because it's unusual.
[Read the article: The Associated Press fails to reveal Mukasey's favorite color]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Well except maybe this part:
He calls his staff his saving grace, comparing himself to a bodysurfer diving into a mosh. ''I'm in that position every day,'' he said. ''They catch me and they get me, I feel, to a good place.''
That Mukasey's something. Although he kept his head down and worked hard he was never so removed from the cutting edge of ritual concert behavior two generations his junior that he couldn't riff some appropriate analogy. I'm gonna start eating hella Ring Dings! And parasail to my next rave!
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There's no "e" at the end of AG
[Read the article: The Associated Press fails to reveal Mukasey's favorite color]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]He calls his staff his saving grace.
"It's like you're at Burning Man and you've got a head full and everything goes from all Dada and cool to like straight up anarchy right when you're peaking and you harsh out bad but your bro's are there and they like walk you out into the desert until you chill and they get you back to, you know, a good place."