Letters to the Editor
Buffalonian
Published Letters: 371 Editor's Choice: 74
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Rampages Stopped
[Read the article: Compassionate conservatism]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]For those of you who think "when shooting rampages do occur, the shooter is almost never taken down by a conceal-licensed civilian" you may not remember another shooting in Virginia in January 2002 when a student began a rampage at the Appalachan School of Law in Grundy.
He was stopped mid-rampage (albeit after killing three people: a dean, a professor and a student, and wounding three others) by two students with guns. Those students were former law enforcement agents who, when the shooting began, ran to their cars, got their guns, confronted the killer and had him surrender.
So while this is just one example, so was yesterday's horrible shooting. Not to argue counterfactually, but it is probably safe to say that if those armed students hadn't confronted the killer, more deaths would have occurred. Before the armed students stopped him, an unarmed student who was also a former police officer tried to stop him and was struck in the head.
See NYT Jan 17, 2002
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Robert Lewis: Of course Bush IS a fucking yokel and a freaking idiot...
[Read the article: Compassionate conservatism]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]... but that is not the point. The point is that intelligent people should be able to make that argument based on facts, not by mocking his accent. There are plenty of people on the other side who drop just as many g's who are given the courtesy of proper reporting. It is journalism 101.
Practically speaking, if Democrats want to take back the White House, they might try not insulting half the population of the country and playing into the hands of the anti-elitist crowd by nitpicking. It is counter-productive. In this case, he wasn't even being grammatically incorrect (which I believe is fair game).
It's the Rush Limbaighs of the world who need to resort to this sort of stereotyping and hypocrisy because they're morally and intellectually bankrupt. Intelligent people should be able to rise above this and it is journalistically suspect to write one person's spoken English in dialect and standardize other people's.
I mean, Grieve does purport to be a journalist, right? Then, shouldn't the rules of journalism apply? Or do we sink to the level of the obsfucators?
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Yes. It is editing.
[Read the article: Compassionate conservatism]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]But it is also editing when it is done for Bill Clinto and Al Sharpton and Strom Thormond and Rudy Giuliani. It is also standard operating proceedure. We ignore inconsistencies in pronunciation, especially those due to regional accents, because that is standard practice. to try to write every spoken word as it is actually spoken is both very difficult for most writers and impossible to do fairly. So normal journalists don't try to do it. Just snarky ones trying to be superior.
If this editing is so wrong, may I ask if you have written to the AP and every other major news source to condemn them for it. They don't report it as "prayin'" and neither should salon. It simply provides ammunition for those who want to say the left and the right are playing the same game, when I think that in general the right is playing a completely different game. Let's not sink to their level is all I am sayin'.
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Slippery Slopes: Abortion and Guns
[Read the article: Repeal the Second Amendment]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Gun control advocates claim that they don't want to take away all the guns, just a few that look like this or hold that many bullets in a magazine. They mock 2nd amendment types who suggest that almost any kind of gun control is simply the thin edge of the wedge and that the eventual result will be the total banning of guns.
Similarly, pro-choice advocates claim that it's absolutely essential that there be no rollback whatsoever off any abortion rights, even late term abortion which everyone acknlowedges is a fairly uncommon proceedure. So why fight to keep it if it is not very common and it's clearly disturbing to so many fellow citizens? Because they argue it's simply the thin edge of the wedge and the eventual result will be the total banning of abortions.
Both of these trains of thought are logical if they were held (or opposed) by the same people. However, except for the libertarians, they usually aren't. So, in the name of consistency, I would like to say that it is equally unacceptable to limit a woman's right to choose as it is to take away her gun.
Who's with me?
(chirp, chirp, uneasy silence....)
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Incorporation & the 14th amendment (Due Process and Equal protection clauses)
[Read the article: Repeal the Second Amendment]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The amendment guarantees the right to bear arms under military command and discipline, as several Supreme Court rulings have stated
Please educate us and cite those cases.
It would seem if that was the case, then thye matter would be settled. But it is not the case because the Supreme Court hasn't and won't take a 2A case.
To quote wikipedia because that is easily at hand: "All supreme court jurisprudence on the 2nd amendment predates Due Process incorporation doctrine except US v Miller 307 U.S. 174 (US 1939), which was a challenge to a federal law. Incorporation of 2nd amendment was rejected in Presser v. Illinois, 116 U.S. 252 (1886) and United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542 (1875)"
In other words, the Supreme Court has expressly refused to rule on the right one way or the other, thereby leaving it to the states. Hence, NY and VT have different gun laws. (Or more accurately, NY has state gun laws, VT has none except for federal ones.)
In US v Miller, (again quoting wikipedia) "After reciting the original provisions of the Constitution dealing with the militia, the Supreme Court observed that "[w]ith obvious purpose to assure the continuation and render possible the effectiveness of such forces the declaration and guarantee of the Second Amendment were made. It must be interpreted with that end in view." The significance of the militia, the Court continued, was that it consisted of "civilians primarily, soldiers on occasion." It was upon this force that the States could rely for defense and securing of the laws, on a force that "comprised all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense", who, "when called for service . . . were expected to appear bearing arms supplied by themselves and of the kind in common use at the time." "