Letters to the Editor
DCLaw1
Published Letters: 808 Editor's Choice: 2
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RealName
[Read the article: The NYT's growing pro-war fan club]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]So your basic complaint is that the Op-Ed bleeds into the rest of the paper. Golly Gee I hope it doesn't turn into a blog.
I see that you can type. But in all seriousness, can you read?
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Mona
[Read the article: Yesterday's ruling on NSA warrantless eavesdropping]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Against all better judgement, I'm going to wade tangentially into this latest installment of Libertarian Wars and ask an honest, non-combative question of Mona here.
You mention wanting to preserve rights to private property and individual choice, and I agree that these are laudable goals at least in the abstract.
May I ask, what do you think of the Supreme Court's ending of the Lochner era of strict economic liberty - that is, the end of the Court's recognition of an inviolate freedom to contract for employment, thereby allowing the government to impose safety, health, and other labor standards on employers? In other words, do you think government (state or federal) should have the ability to tell an employer that they must have certain safety standards in place, must pay a certain minimum wage, or must not require their employees to work beyond a certain amount of hours per week?
I'm not trying to bait you into a trap, I'm just earnestly curious.
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Mona 2
[Read the article: Yesterday's ruling on NSA warrantless eavesdropping]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I take your comments to mean that you agree that government should not be able to impose such restrictions on employers and businesses (constitutionally or otherwise).
Your thoughts on Lochner were more intellectually honest than I'm used to hearing from libertarians. Which leads me to ask, if you agree that there is no real constitutional basis for absolute economic liberty, upon what do you base a political (as you call it) claim for one's right to such freedoms? Natural rights? Economic theory?
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Thanks, Mona
[Read the article: Yesterday's ruling on NSA warrantless eavesdropping]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]for your straightforward answers. I have some self-described libertarian friends, and I always enjoy picking their brains, because it leads to interesting debates and discussions over the Constitution and the nature of liberty in our country. Our conversations are almost always more constructive than those I have with "movement conservatives" or partisan Republicans.
Perhaps I haven't read enough of the Libertarian Wars here to know, but I fail understand why these debates have become so vituperative. As far as I can tell, Mona, even if you say or believe things I disagree with, you seem thoughtful and intelligent and in the end that's what garners my respect.
That's just my opinion though, and I'm no expert of this long-running intellectual feud of sorts.
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RealName vs. The Major
[Read the article: The NYT's growing pro-war fan club]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]You DO know your idol defended Matthew Hale, yes? I mean as long as you're talking out of your ass about free speech and other such shit you know zero about...
You should be concerned, RealName, The Major's mounting much more intelligent "arguments" than you.
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sad
[Read the article: The NYT's growing pro-war fan club]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Unlike you I neither pour over every post here looking for affirmation nor do I particularly care about 1 line pithy allusions like yours. But good try, I give it a B-. More to the point, if you don't like free speech then take it up with the powers that be here.
What happens to a person to reduce them to this? I actually pity this "RealName" fellow. What does it say about someone's life when they spend inordinate amounts of time just writing angry and empty comments on blogs they disagree with?
No, I'm afraid I have no interest in limiting the speech of this character - he's just too irrelevant and pathetic for me to care that much.
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Your update
[Read the article: Our broken political discourse]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The behavior you refer to in your update is precisely what the kewl kidz do: sit in the back of the class making fun of everyone, especially those who indicate in any way that they give a damn. Then, needless to say, these kidz have absolutely no clue by the end of the semester.
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Tucker
[Read the article: Tucker Carlson, stalwart defender of sexual privacy]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I can't bear to watch that whiny little spaz.
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Glenn:
[Read the article: Still more White House secrecy -- this time in the Tillman investigation]
[Read more letters about this article: Here](haven't read the comments, so sorry if someone already asked)
Did you catch Bill Moyers' Journal last night? They had Bruce Fein and a gentleman from The Nation to talk about the impeachment option. It was a very lively discussion.
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spoke too soon
[Read the article: Still more White House secrecy -- this time in the Tillman investigation]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]right there on page one of the comments people are talking about last night's Journal.
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peer review
[Read the article: Fred Hiatt defends the administration's mild, restrained secrecy]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Chesney's forthcoming article being published in a law review, it is essentially bloody chum begging for a feeding frenzy of solidly argued counter-articles from the legal community.
In fact, I'm glad he's published this article within the legal community - no better a battleground for it to be thoroughly discredited by the landslide of academic and factual rejoinders that inevitably will follow. Not only that, but he has opened the door for otherwise restrained voices in the legal profession to unleash their thoughts and expound more completely on the dangerousness of this new era of knee-jerk government secrecy.
I can think of several professors that will likely take up this challenge with great aplomb.
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Glenn
[Read the article: How much credence should Gen. Petraeus' reports be given?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]You have a (regrettably uncommon) talent for stating the hidden obvious in crystal-clear, unassailable terms.
With simple access to media databases and public reports, you laid out in unmistakable detail the definitive refutation of the wholly consumed conventional "wisdom" that Petraeus is nothing less than a muddy-boots-apolitical-shewt-ferm-the-hip arbiter of military truth. It positively shocks the conscience how the media cannot be bothered to expend the slightest effort to look at their own past reporting and see that they are - yet again - trafficking in nothing more than unmitigated government propaganda when they lionize this general.
As some have said: "Charlie Brown, meet football."
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on the other topic of executive privilege
[Read the article: How much credence should Gen. Petraeus' reports be given?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/19/AR2007071902625.html?referrer=email&referrer=email
Broader Privilege Claimed In Firings
White House Says Hill Can't Pursue Contempt Cases
By Dan Eggen and Amy Goldstein
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, July 20, 2007; Page A01
Bush administration officials unveiled a bold new assertion of executive authority yesterday in the dispute over the firing of nine U.S. attorneys, saying that the Justice Department will never be allowed to pursue contempt charges initiated by Congress against White House officials once the president has invoked executive privilege.
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Anyone surprised?