Letters to the Editor
melthough
Published Letters: 1264 Editor's Choice: 102
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The reason the Dems are in the majority
[Read the article: The House takes on clemency]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]is that oversight IS the business of governing, and the Republicans weren't doing it. I am not surprised that the R side is resistant, but that was a really stupid thing to say. Howling "at the moon" serves a very important function among wolves - and among congresspeople. Apparently the sound is making the rival pack nervous....
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Why fetishize the mainstream categories of faith?
[Read the article: Is atheism dead?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I think what you are finding is that you have closed off a part of your mind - the very thing most of us are avoiding by declaring ourselves atheists. You need to reopen it and find what there is to find there - not let some outside authority tell you there isn't anything there. I still don't believe in a deity of any sort, but the diehard atheists who think logic is the only true religion don't appeal to me in the least. I believe in love, intuition and lots of other things that logic doesn't explain. And if logic could explain them, I wouldn't give a damn one way or the other about why I was experiencing them.
Spirituality is about personal experience, and you don't have to try to fit your experiences into a pigeonhole. But you do have to let yourself HAVE spiritual experiences, or you will remain depressed. I am a pretty loyal materialist (I don't think I have a separable soul that will depart upon my death and go somewhere else), but that doesn't mean that spiritual experience isn't real. In fact, it is universal and probably just part of our neurophysiology. But it doesn't have to be explained or even explicable, as far as I am concerned. You need to stop fetishizing the categories and open your own heart to your own beliefs. You will probably find that you are still basically an atheist, but that doesn't require that you cling to someone else's definition of what that means. What are they going to do, anyway? Excommunicate you?
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@stevio
[Read the article: House subcommittee authorizes subpoenas against RNC]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]For a while I thought impeachment was a backward-looking waste of time, but now I share your fervor for getting them out of office before their term is up - and I think a lot more people are feeling that too, in the last week or so.
The problem is that we need to pick one big crime (oh, there are SO MANY) that we can prove they committed beyond a reasonable doubt. Once it gets to the legal level, all these niggling questions at all these niggling hearings are going to be EXACTLY WHAT IMPEACHMENT LOOKS LIKE. It's not like a revolution. It's a court case.
The hearings get on my nerves, but I think they are the necessary pre-impeachment war drums. Also, they basically ARE what impeachment will be. So not a bad way to cut our teeth and get the general public used to it. Also, as a Vermonter, I like to see my senator getting a forum to rip into the administration. :)
All that said, what do you think is the one big crime we should try to go after them for? It looks like the Plame thing could be it, if the hearings about the commutation go anywhere, but I wonder what you think it will be (since you are the most impeachment-focused person I have never met).
Personally, I'm hoping for something more like a revolution. Something peaceful, but which fixes the deep, deep problems of our systems of election and representation. A brand new constitution. Because this one ain't working, and what I see is that these criminals have only shown us the holes in the system, without making that many new holes themselves.
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Calling is more important than the funeral
[Read the article: My Southern grandmother is dying, and I don't want to go back]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Funerals are for the people who are still living. Don't go if you don't want to maintain ties with the innumerable distant relations. But you need to call your grandma. Come on, woman! She made you wear dresses you didn't like? That is not exactly abuse. (Unless I made a mistake and you are a guy.)
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I think the supernatural bit is a red herring
[Read the article: The Senate says "Om," Part 2]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]You're mistaking religion for actual belief in something here. What the hecklers are displaying is pure tribal chest-thumping. If they were in a forest instead of a neoclassical building, they would be brandishing sticks and sharp rocks while they heckled the people saying Om. I don't think it has a bit to do with evolution. It's just the nature of animals to form groups (for adaptation purposes) and somehow the groups always end up sticking their tongues out at and/or getting into actual physical fights with the other groups (for fun).
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Yeah, it sounds ridiculous...
[Read the article: House Judiciary issues subpoenas to RNC, warns Miers]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]but you have to cover all your procedural bases and give them a last, public chance to clear their names before you start frog-marching them into Congress to tesitfy. That's the way it's done in a democracy. That's why we aren't allowed to spy on people without warrants, put people in prison without charging them with anything, or torture them once they are there. There are certain rules you have to keep playing by if you're going to oust this authoritarian regime with the moral highground and without a bloody coup. I was impatient until now, but I think the hearings are gaining traction, and I am starting to feel the tiniest little glimmers of hope. Trying very hard not to let myself hope, of course. But it's getting harder.