Letters to the Editor
Published Letters: 1824
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@ shooter242
[Read the article: Various items]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]There is a fellow named Evan Sayet that has a theory about the root motivation of the left. It's something along the line of.... if all persons refrain from being judgemental about other persons, we will have peace. I don't know if that is true basis of the left or not, but it explains quite a bit of what we on the right, consider irrational behavior.
Why, when you're right, you're right, Shooter. That does indeed illuminate one form of "irrational" behaviour, to wit, that you are of the curious misimpression that this is what constitutes "leftist" behaviour.
I, for one, am perfectly comfortable in being judgemental about you. I think you're a dishonest, mean, and vicious piece of excrement that the world wouldn't miss for a millisecond, and I mean that in a friendly and collegial way.
As for the explanation of your irrational behaviour, that's between you, your psychiatrist, and likely your mother.
But we don't need an explanation, Shooter, all we need is the appropriate response. While there's those that consider a stern cuffing around the ear (with perhaps a 2X4) to be the most reasonable course of action should we encounter you in person, on these threads, derision and ridicule will have to do.
Cheers,
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Re "shooter242"
[Read the article: Various items]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I can't remember where I heard it, but someone said that manners are the way one person shows respect for another.
Shooter thinks that a simulacrum of 'civility' shows "respect". He's wrong on so many levels, it's pathetic. But furthermore, he puts in the implicit assumption that "respect" is the sine qua non for productive interpersonal relations. Sad to say, but certain people aren't deserving of respect regardless of how polite they are, and politeness towards them is not just misguided but unwarranted.
Just to demonstrate "shooter242"'s perverse idea of "manners" and "respect" (not to mention his monumental hypocrisy), just Google for "Cleland" and "shooter242"....
Cheers,
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The objectives of the war....
[Read the article: Iraq: American public opinion vs. a "small but powerful group"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]L.W.M. said:
There is just one minor disagreement I have. These are dual objectives. Military dominance globally and political dominance locally. It's never been an "either, or" propostion. Neutralization and elimination of the Democratic party (and the Nixonian wing of the Republican party) as a political force has always been their first objective going back to Goldwater's defeat in 1964 and the foundation of "movement conservatism" of the the early 1970s before Iraq was even on the radar. Whatever happens, regardless of causation and responsibility, they will politicize it and use it to beat down and weaken their political opponents at home.
T'is true, t'is true. While the maladministration/PNAC cabal may have had some grand "objectives" (be it oil, hegemony, military bases, shoring up a Likudnik Israel in its hard line, etc.), I don't think a minute was lost to the political implications as well. I remember the 2002 political year very well, and the RW was trying to club the Democrats any way they could with the "Terra-ism" cudgel and the scaremongering on Iraq. It worked too; the Democrats (for the most part) followed meekly in signing on to the Iraq resolution, but still got burned for being "followers" and not "Deciderators" (hopefully to their ever-lasting shame and chagrin).
There's no need to attribute just one bad motive to the Republican tactics when so many will do. They thought it was "win-win" all the way round for them.
We need to lay bare the whole panoply of bad decisions and specious (if not outright illegal) policy, and the motivations behind them. Inter the Republican party and pi$$ on its grave.
Cheers,
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@ L.W.M.
[Read the article: Iraq: American public opinion vs. a "small but powerful group"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]You know I love that kind of talk, but if this whole mess has taught us anything, it's that regime change is not to be undertaken likely. Suppose the Constitution Party (Peroutka, who thinks that the constitution is just an addendum to the Bible) takes their place.
I don't care. The Republican party is not worth resuscitation. It is rotten to the core. It needs to go the way the Nazi party went.
You may worry that something will spring up to the right of it, but I don't think so. Once upun a time, the Republicans had enough decency and honesty to recognise that there are more than one views on issues, and there's more to politics than raw power and plunder of everything in sight (including the inheritance of our children's children). They've pertty much all gone off the cliff and are psychotic.
If there's a party that will rise to supplant the hijacked and failed Republicans, it would have to be one more moderate. Perhaps some flavour of libertarianism. One that can distance itself from the excesses of today's Republicans, and trly chart a new course with a clean slate and become a formidable opposition party.
I think we narrowly averted a disaster: Today's Republicans are in soooooo many ways like the fledgling Nazi party (and I don't say that lightly). It took a real beating for the Nazis to be brought down, once they had consolidated power. Today's Republicans tried (and are still trying), but their missteps came long before a brutal '41 winter had cast the die after a lot of suffering worldwide had already been set in motion. They've screwed up too early and lost their chance (but it was touch-and-go for a while).
Cheers,
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@ Diana Powe
[Read the article: Iraq: American public opinion vs. a "small but powerful group"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]There is substantial evidence that this is explicitly what his supporters wish to institutionalize. A fundamental premise for their movement is that the world contains "threats" that the American public will not or cannot understand and that a powerful President must therefore be free to to address those threats unchecked by anything other than the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution.
I was thinking more in terms of the 25th Amendment.
Cheers,
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@ William Timberman
[Read the article: Profiles in Journalism]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]We absolutely must get some of our fine young Regency graduates on the Pulitzer Committee immediately. You know who to call, right?
Right, Karl?
... and on the Boston Globe editorial staff too. Or we just get one of our "sugar daddies" to buy 'em. Or shut 'em down.
Cheers,