Letters to the Editor
dendrio
Published Letters: 200 Editor's Choice: 27
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Authoritarian Personalities - Authoritarian Politics
[Read the article: Sloppy on spying?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I remember listening to Limbaugh & co. in the 90's going after the Clinton administration for being crypto-totalitarians. I'd sit in my backyard with a BB gun, shooting up my old G.I. Joe's (I was 15), and he'd go on hour after hour, day after day about how the Republican Congress was the only bulwark against the insidious, irreligious, criminal, Communist agenda of the Clinton White House - citing Ruby Ridge, Waco, and the administration's crackdown on militias as example of this agenda. (Remember G. Gordon Liddy calling ATF "jack-booted thugs" and then giving a caller the advice to shoot government agents in the head because they where bullet-proof vests?)(Which doesn't seem like such bad advice anymore...)
One decade later we have an administration that declares unlimited power to do whatever it pleases in the name of national security (which, apparently, does not include securing our liberties); an administration that suggests it will use the 1917 Espionage Act to prosecute journalists who merely receive classified information (even though the Congress in 1917 explicitly rejected an amendment to the law that targeted journalists); an administration that claims magical, infinite war powers even though there is no declared war; an administration that holds that American citizens can be held in prison, forever, without charge, in secret undisclosed locations if they are deemed "enemy combatants"; an administration that uses the tax codes to crack down on "liberal" churches, leaving conservative churches free to electioneer; an administration whose (figure)head claims (and apparently believes) that he was chosen by Jesus-God-Yahweh on High to be POTUS; an administration that openly attacks the press, critics, and the voters themselves of being traitors, terrorists, fascists; an administration that authorized and encouraged torture, and when caught, redefined the word "torture" to exclude their preferred forms of torture; an administration that rules through fear (isn't that terrorism?), whether its frightening the American people into blind obedience, making thinly veiled threats to other branches of government, or retaliating against individual critics by threatening loss of livelihood and/or liberty; an administration that criticizes voters for "purging" Joe Lieberman, but has systematically purged Pentagon and State Department of all internal critics, including well-intentioned Republicans wanting to protect the administration from itself; an administration that engineers foreign policy to profit private companies in which they have vested financial interests; an administration that praises democracy just so-long as the people in those democracies make the "right" (far-Right) choice ... shit - I could go on, and I know I'm leaving something out.
The point is this: What the Republicans criticized so vociferously (and ridiculously) during the Clinton years was really a projection of their own darkest impulses and desires, which they are on the verge of realizing.
Every Liberal in America should exercise his Second Amendment rights. That amendment wasn't written for hunters and sportsmen, but for future revolutionaries. Of course, if everyone Liberal in America bought a (now legal) assault rifle and side-arm, we'd probably see the GOP get behind tough gun control measures.
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Writing History
[Read the article: "Work" or "workspace," W says no either way]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I was going to write, "It amazes me that nobody has spoken out against the White House's obvious re-writing of press conference transcripts," because of the Orwellian overtones (remember, WInston Smith's job was to re-write/excise past news stories so that history would be in-line with the Party's current positions) ... but it doesn't amaze me. We - not just the press - but We, the People of the Demoralized States of America, just roll over and let history happen to us.
Blah. Blah. Blah.
No one cares.
More bread and circuses, please. What? No bread? Then circuses will suffice.
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To Paraphrase the Onion...
[Read the article: Like father, like son]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]They say that in a democracy, you get the government you deserve, but I don't remember knife-raping any nuns.
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See - Louis, We're Not Ignoring You
[Read the article: Unhappily ever after]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Really, why would we? Why would anyone want to ignore some cry-baby who blames all women for the sins of one? Why would anyone ignore someone who does nothing but repeat his woe-is-me, my-woman-done-me-wrong story ad nauseam. I mean, everyone loves that guy. Everyone wants to sit next to him in the bar when he tells his story again, and again, and again, and again.
Your ex-wife was a selfish, narcissistic, deceptive, and dishonest second-hander, not a feminist - even if she called herself one. She used you, and then decided to lose you. Instead of blaming your woes on feminists (as if we're some sort of monolithic cabal), New Agers, TV commercials, Oprah, or whatever other scapegoats you come up with, just recognize your ex-wife's moral agency and say, "What a horrible person! Good riddance! Now I can get on with my life."
You've got your freedom, dude. Use it to be happy.
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Genetic Fallacy
[Read the article: Must-see TV: Olbermann on Rumsfeld]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The Genetic Fallacy is the dismissal or acceptance of a claim or argument based on the origins of the person or organization making the claim or argument without actually addressing the accuracy or logic of the claim or argument.