Letters to the Editor
The Professor
Published Letters: 421 Editor's Choice: 26
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Tolerance with judgement?
[Read the article: Larry Craig's bathroom behavior and the right wing -- then and now]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I've already posted elsewhere that Craig deserves all the shame and pain he gets for this - judging him not for the behavior in the bathroom, but the lies and hypocrisy. The bathroom toe-tapping is a sad affair, not uncommon when someone lives a life of self-deceit and self-loathing. In an ideal world he wouldn’t resign because of it, but he would come out, apologize for having lived a lie, and dedicate himself to righting his past wrongs. And then lose the ‘08 election to a democrat.
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Go easy.
[Read the article: Craig: The press made me plead guilty]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The left should go a bit easy on Craig to try to avoid forcing him to resign. Let him stay on and lose the '08 election. There's nothing gained by hounding him out of office now.
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No more 'how were we to know'
[Read the article: The president's escalating war rhetoric on Iran]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]One tactic I would really love to cut off at the root, one that so many have used regarding their early support for the Iraq war, is the claim, "how could I have known it would turn out so badly? We ALL thought they had WMD," etc. To avoid them doing the same thing about Iran, we need to write our reps and prez candidates of choice to teach them:
--War with Iran would be a disaster, economically, politically, morally.
--Iran is doing more now to help Iraq than we are (and Iraqis recognize this).
--Iran and Al Qaeda (and the Taliban) are arch-enemies (maybe you haven't heard, but there are these different kinds of Muslims called 'sunnis' and 'shia').
Later, if they try to pull out the 'how were we to know' excuse, we can tell them, because everybody else knew, and everybody told you so.
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@MH
[Read the article: Forcing Larry Craig's resignation while embracing David Vitter]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Be a little judicious with the 'Old T = GOP' (as the Old T is essentially Judaism). Ditto with "Homosexuality is one of the greatest taboos in the Bible." My limited browsing shows only a line or two about 'men laying with men' in a really big book written in small type. Far, far more is written about the evils of adultery and divorce (also, nary a word about abortion). Ignoring adultery/divorce in favor of homosexuality/abortion doesn't seem to be a preference for Old T vs. New T., but simply hypocrisy and political expediency.
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Yes.
[Read the article: Craig to cop: "I'm a respectable person"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I, for one, am going to stop reading these articles about Craig. Soon. Just one more, maybe. Or two.
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"traditional marriage" has a slippery definition
[Read the article: McCain's selective defense of "traditional marriage"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]In the bible, there are many examples of 'marriages' we wouldn't accept today (women as male property, polygamy). Mark 10:11 is just one of many, many references to the greatest 'threat' to marriage: adultery/divorce. To those who say that 'traditional marriage' isn't what is in the bible, but what courts say, then why the outrage when courts say marriage should be open to gay couples? To those who say traditional marriage should be what a community believes, why the outrage when a city/state votes for gay marriage? To those who say it is what history has passed down to us, why is there no outrage when people marry of different races, or when women divorce men? I mean, historically, in a traditional marriage, women were the property of men (sometimes many women), to be beaten into submission. We are not the puppets of history, or the courts, or a book. We, a free people, decide what we consider just and beneficial to society. That is our core tradition. Couples who love each other and want to create a loving family should be allowed to marry.
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@WT and others
[Read the article: McCain's selective defense of "traditional marriage"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"Some men can afford a string of wives, ex-wives, mistresses and the like, and therefore see no harm in indulging themselves. "
It's becoming clearer to me that what is being promoted by McCain et al as 'traditional' is simply Patriarchy, literally the rule of fathers (sexually active, productive, heterosexual males). In an ideal Patriarchy, men compete to have the most sexual partners, and the most offspring. It has been argued, I believe, that the new testament condemnation of adultery/divorce is an implicit critique of Patriarchy (adultery/divorce typically hurt women more than men). I don't know if it's hypocrisy if your core belief is in Patriarchy rather than Christianity. When the two are in conflict, the weaker belief loses out.
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Thanks Garry Ownen
[Read the article: This weekend on Salon]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Good critique of the "I hate Broads(heet)" dude. He and a couple other regulars who reply to any article touching on Israel or Islam would seem to be classic masochists, repeatedly engaging in activities that cause them pain (reading stuff they know they will hate), but unlike more healthy masochists they demand that Salon stop making them hurt themselves.
I still like the anonymous option. The Craig story is an example of the kind of news item that some might want to post anonymously about in order to share personal information they wouldn't want linked to their regular avatar. An alternative would be to allow users to select temporary alternate usernames for such purposes, so within a given discussion people could keep track of the various anonymii.
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Cut Sowell some slack
[Read the article: Thomas Sowell offers superb Exhibit of the Right-wing Mind]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I mean, it's pretty hard to package an ideology of hate, greed, and authoritarianism in a way that seems morally defensible and consistent.
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It's hard....
[Read the article: National Review's new tough guy, Mark Hemingway]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]to come up with a title that doesn't sink to the same level of screwed-up gender politics that are being critiqued. For example, "Little things come in small packages" (or the many many variations that have been proposed) basically says, "these guys say they have big dicks, but aren't they silly because their dicks are really small!" Is that really the only way to go? Can't you just say that when neanderthals strutt their manliness they are idiots because it's idiotic to strutt one's manliness, not because they aren't really manly? Can't it be about the stupidity rather than the hypocrisy?
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Sattar needs a thought bubble
[Read the article: Bush's new friends: The Sunnis]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]saying, "I am so screwed righ now."
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How come...
[Read the article: John McCain's "realistic" benchmarks]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]no one is allowed to say 'the surge isn't working' before Petraeus' report comes out, but anyone can say 'the surge IS working,' based on diddly-squat?