Letters to the Editor
Xanthro
Published Letters: 522 Editor's Choice: 47
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DZ Don't be blinded by your hate of Israel
[Read the article: Negotiating the peace]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"2) Your analogy about the mugger and your wallet is BS. It is not Israel's wallet. The entire world, including the United States, recognizes the Shebaa Farms area as Syrian territory. Israel has no right to be there at all whether or not it is Lebanese territory."
It's still not a Lebanese wallet. Say what you want about the legality of keeping the Golan Heights from Syria when Syria attacks you, but it is in no way Lebanese territory.
"3) When every Israeli soldier who participated in the shelling of Quatan or enabled the massacres at Sabra and Chatilla is jailed for mass murder, then I will agree with you regarding not releasing ALL Lebanese prisoners. Israelis have deliberately murdered at least as many Lebanese that have ever harmed an Israeli."
How exactly are civilians killed in war the equal to capturing a 4 year old girl then bashing her head in with a rifle butt?
Really, if Israel were demanding the release of someone who did the same, I'd oppose that as well.
There is a fundamental difference between capturing and executing a civilian and killing civilians in line of fire. In fact, capturing and killing soldiers violates everything decent.
"You either want a real peace or you don't. You don't - you have made that clear in many posts on this conflict. All I see is shilling for Israeli ethnic cleansing, torture and other atrocities. I detest your views - you might be quite nice personally - but I detest your views."
You've never seen me defend Israeli ethnic cleansing or torture, it simply has never happened. There are plenty of Israeli policies I find abhorrent, as there are with every nation. As for other atrocities, that's a matter of definition. I'm sure you likely regard civilian deaths as an atrocity, while I take into account the context of that death.
Sabra and Chatilla, atrocities because it should have been prevented.
Accidental civilians deaths, not an atrocity.
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nerdnam you have a strange idea of Liberal
[Read the article: Why is Bill Clinton in Connecticut?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]And despite trying to couch it in as attractive terms as possible, it seems a scary definition.
"The liberal idea is that we have a right to organize our own lives through our own government."
That's just another name for tyranny. You have no right to organize my life, nor any other life. You may live your life as you chose, but you do not posses any legitmate power over the lives of others.
"We can choose to have a highway program, to save Europe, to put people on the moon, to have medical care for everyone, to tax the rich, to tax ourselves, or to take measures to prevent global warming."
You have a right to tax the rich? How about a right to tax blacks, does that exist as well?
The problem with those who call themselves Liberal in today's age is that they recognize no limits to government.
Governments can do things that are illegitimate. Jim Crow laws were illegitimate. Nobody had a right to organize their lives so that blacks had to sit on the back of the bus or drink from different fountains.
Can we tax ourselves and build roads and help other nations? Of course we can, those are neither liberal nor conservative.
Now for medical care, can we chose to tell doctor's how much they can make? Not legitimately, because slavery is wrong. Taking people's labor is wrong. It's immoral, and that's where today's liberal loses, because s/he fails to recognize this.
I'll grant you points for trying to define today's liberal, most can't even acheive this.
"We believe that WE are in control of our own destiny and that we can and should control our own destiny through our own responsible self government. And why Democrats are supposed to be embarrassed for believing that, I have no goddamn idea. Maybe you can tell me."
I'll tell you, because as you define it, Nazism and the Genocide of Jews is permissible under your definition of Liberalism. There are no limits as to government power, and you rely on some self responsible government to magically chose what is and what is not right. That doesn't happen.
Government is neither good nor evil, it consists of people and can do good or evil. Proper Government recognizes this and has limits as to Governmental powers.
Government in and of itself is not a solution to problems, it is part of a solution to certain problems.
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Publius
[Read the article: Negotiating the peace]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Exactly when did I say that some Arabs were not moved out of Israel?
What you and others don't do is put this in perspective that literally millions and millions of people were forcibly moved at the end of WWII.
How many ethnic Germans are left in the Sudetenland?
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9070151
The problem is when different people claim the same land, the losing side ends up getting kicked out. It may not be fair, but it is how life works.
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Poor logic
[Read the article: "The Odyssey": The original chick lit?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Many writers want a new idea or slant because it gets better press, and scholarship is severly hurt by this. You have people claiming that Oxford wrote the works of Shakespeare, then silly claims that a women wrote the works of Homer, backed by logic such as this"might have realized that a new potential audience undreamed of by male singers -- an audience of women -- existed and could be reached with the help of writing." Because women of the time and place had so much money and time to spend on literature.
Really, it's just a sad commentary on what can get published these days.
Obviously, no one person wrote all of Homer's work, it passed through oral tradition for hundreds of years, each teller adding his and possibly her own flourish to each telling. Even our extant written copies do not match each other.
Sadly, Daby's book would get none real press without his childish claim that will show a women wrote it. It's the National Enquirer of scholarship.