Letters to the Editor
Jeffrey P. Harrison
Published Letters: 354 Editor's Choice: 39
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C'mon Andrew
[Read the article: "Hardball": Barack Obama is no Neville Chamberlain ]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Shrub has been in the Sewer for a while now and he's headed straight for the primordial ooze. The answer to how much lower can he go is as plain as the nose on your face. Step 1. Launch airstrikes into Iran, say sometime in June, maybe early July to coincide with the 4th of July. Step 2. When Iran maybe shoots down an aircraft or two, maybe launches a few missiles at American installations in Iraq, you launch as much of a full scale assault on Iran as we can muster at this point in retaliation for the Iranians having the temerity to retaliate for our initial attack. Step 3. When he discovers the hard way that the Iranians learned something whilst fighting off an American armed Saddam Hussein back in the 80s as well as watching how we operated while we invaded the two countries on either side of it, Shrub declares a national emergency, invokes the Patriot Act, suspends elections, declares himself dictator for life ... I mean promises to hold elections as soon as we are victorious in Iran.
Actually, I'm stunned that nobody has been jumping up and down asking the question: You right wing loudmouths are constantly invoking images of WWII and comparing losers like Shrub et al. to the leaders of WWII but you don't even know the history! All you're doing is shooting your mouths off! Even Chris Matthew's only got the answer half right (if all he said is what you reported). The "appeasement" actually started with the anschluss of Austria which was a violation of the Treaty of Versailles. Chamberlain (and the rest of Europe) sat by and let Hitler annex (anschluss) that part of Austria which was largely German speaking. Chamberlain argued that Hitler would be satisfied if he had half of Austria. Then came the icing on the cake - the annexation of the Sudetenland. That was when Chamberlain sold the Czechs down the river with the famous phrase (echoed by Henry the K 35 years later) Peace in our Time. Czechoslovakia didn't have a prayer. It wasn't so much of an invasion as a stroll for the Wehrmacht, one sanctioned by the rest of Europe.
If there are any appeasers in today's scenario, it's the Brits again. Oh America only wants Afghanistan. Oh America only wants Iraq. Soon it will be Oh America only wants Iran. I'm stunned that we haven't attacked Burma for flying in the face of God and his emissaries.
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Personally, I think you're crazier than a loon.
[Read the article: Gay marriage, so what?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Even though I am married, I am opposed to marriage regardless of flavor. This is not because I am unhappily married, quite the contrary. My wife is my best friend; the first person I turn to for advice and counsel and I fulfill the same role for her. I think that having a person fulfilling those roles is a fundamental, primal human instinct. If the person who fulfills that role for you happens to be the same sex as you, I'm afraid my reaction is yeah, well, whatever.
Thus far, I've been talking about a relationship between two people, not marriage. You point out that gays have been having relationships for a long time, just without the legal "benefits" of marriage. What is most often ignored are the legal liabilities of being married. Those liabilities come into existence if the relationship breaks down. If the relationship breaks down and you are married, you're basically going to be turning your life over to the state. They will require you to reveal the most private aspects of your life publicly; they will take your money; they will, in hundreds of different ways, circumscribe your life for years into the future. Why would anybody in their right mind want to assume that risk? I have no rational answer to my own question.
It took my wife 11 years to convince me to marry again. My position was very clear: if you have the relationship, the piece of paper is meaningless; if the relationship breaks down, the piece of paper offers you neither surcease nor help. So why do I want the paper? The answer, it turns out, is that I was causing this woman who meant so much to me serious psychic pain without the paper. So I relented.
That is me but to rephrase my question, why would gays want to assume that risk? The only answer that seems rational is that they want to protect the person that means so much to them. So they opt for marriage. But, really, is that the best answer? The urge to protect your partner is also a powerful human instinct but what are you protecting them from? You're protecting them from capricious rules written by the state that discriminate against single persons. Would it not make more sense to tear down the laws that favor the married over the single instead of simply following the establishment's road?
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Harrumph
[Read the article: McCain's amazing Iraq somersault]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]With the price of gas, we're going to be so broke keeping vast armies in the field that we will have destroyed ourselves. Since we are such a debtor nation, our security is really in somebody else's hands - the countries and organizations that lend us money. As soon as they figure out that the emperor has no clothes and they stop lending us money we are gonna be so screwed.
The American people haven't been presented the bill for Iraq yet. We're still putting it on the credit card. Wait until the billing cycle comes up and we have to pay the credit card debt.....