Letters to the Editor
AnnieW
Published Letters: 1211 Editor's Choice: 31
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@ Iokannan in the Well
[Read the article: The Ron Paul phenomenon]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Is he necessarily any worse than the rest on the GOP side? That's a matter of individual opinion.
Is he someone we want in the White House? That's up to the American voters to decide.
At least he's generating discussion here if nothing else.
No, while Paul is not perfect by any means, he could be worse, he could be Guiliani, the hero of 9/11, mainly I guess, because he was physically there.
What's scary to me is Paul's viewpoints frighten me alot less then any of the mainstream, top tier Republicans bragging that they want to go into Iran, torture is good, debt is good, etc.
They're all fairly anti-abortion, including Guiliani who said he'd appoint the proper kind of strict constructionist judges that the religious folks want. They all will. If ANY Republican appointed judge replaces the older liberal Supreme Court judges, kiss Roe goodbye. Paul is mainstream Repub in this way.
With regards to white supremists, of course they support him, and not because of their racist views. White Supremist's tend to be very distrustful of the government, tend to hate authority and jealously guard their right to bear arms. None of these views are inherently bad, though their reasons and justifications for these views are skewed and paranoid, to say the least. Paul (male, white and NOT Mormon, Catholic or Jewish) is the least threatening on all these other fronts so they see him as their guy.
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A few thoughts
[Read the article: Ron Paul's Internet cha-ching ]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]While I completely respect Paul for being a self made man, anyone that thinks they could pay to go through medical school today by doing menial side jobs is insane. BTW, what schools did he attend? Were they all private or were some state (government subsidized) colleges? Once he was successful $$$, it's a hell of alot easier for his kids to not need government assistance to go to school. Warren Buffett is not a libertarian and yet his kids did not need government assistance either.
Another thing, regarding engineers (and programmers, similar personalities) and their viewpoints. I'm an engineer and things have been pretty damn good for the last 18 years. Before that was a lull that was very humbling. Many of the people in the workforce today (similar to the financial industry) have never experienced a serious downturn that discounts their competence and just plain doesn't need them. I ended up waiting tables on the side to make ends meet, the thought of that to many today is mind boggling. One of my firms in the 90's paid a nuclear engineer (Master's degree) $8 an hour ot draft for us, he felt lucky to get a job in the engineering field. He has a successful business of his own today.
On a side note, I know a few anarchists (kind of cracks me up, I guess some of my hobbies introduce me to a wide field) and their views do not seem that different from the hard core libertarians I know, the exception being that anarchists hate corporations, libertarians don't see them as bad.
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Thank you
[Read the article: What teen girls are made of]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]All of those stories caught me up, too.
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@Thaeus, political effects
[Read the article: The politics of home price depreciation]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Until recently, many people felt wealthy and that everything was going great under Bush with less taxes, etc., not because their jobs were great but because their house value kept going up, up, up.
They kept spending their new found "wealth" and that helped the local economies. Many looked around and felt that Bush's policies were the reason their little economies were booming, not that people were using their homes as ATM's.
Now that this is coming to an end, and many homeowners realize that not only are they not wealther than they were 6 years ago, they are deeply in debt. This is already effecting some local economies.
As for people that made some money selling their homes a few years ago, most I know promptly "reinvested" that money in a bigger, more expensive home, or a smaller, more expensive condo in a more desireable location.
The Repub's have been running on the fact that the tax cuts made everything better and made everybody more wealthy, many will see that's not quite true.
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DiFi
[Read the article: Dianne Feinstein -- Bush's key ally in the Senate -- to support telecom amnesty]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Why is this woman popular with her constituents? Does no one pay any attention?
Most of the most egregious things that DiFi has done have been since the 2006 election. In 2006 had DiFI run on the fact that she was going to be more aligned with the neoconservatives she would have lost, she ran as a reliable (and powerful) Dem. It was easy to excuse things before 2006 because the Dem's didn't have control of the Senate.
Now that she's not running for office again, she's completely safe and can do what is best for herself and her family.
Most of the things she is doing would only come to light in a strong primary, because even people that watch the news regularly do NOT know much about telecomm immunity, let alone Southwick's nomination.
She has done a great job at cultivating her image as a smart, classy, sensible, old fashioned Democrat. Hence, the serious journalists and editorialists all treat her that way.