Letters to the Editor
McGarrett50
Published Letters: 29 Editor's Choice: 2
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Let me do the honors of...
[Read the article: Bush knew Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]..driving most Salon readers absolutely crazy with a defense of Bush. The intelligence gathering here was always going to be a mess and there was no way to know what the actual facts would be. Bush had to make a judgment. Do you do nothing in the belief that he doesn't have WMD or do you do something because you think he does? This is how all of history works. Imperfect information from sources who have every incentive to lie. I still believe that we are safer with Saddam dead and Qaddafi (sp) scared into giving up his weapons.
Now, suppose we guess that Iran doesn't have the ability to make a nuclear weapon and then they test one. Is that scary enough for you? Is that scary enough for our allies the Israelis? How scared do you have to be to act? History is made based on these judgments.
Fire away, Salon readers.
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People took it easy on me - Some responses, fun and serious
[Read the article: Bush knew Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Well, I guess my baiting was a little to straight forward. The naming calling to me wasn't too bad. The short list for people lacking time is: fucking stupid, fascist, dumbfuck, traitor, and ninnie. But, the best was probably the person who said I should wear Depends. Nice touch but I'm always a bit disappointed when liberals use insults that may offend a minority groups such as people with medical problems related to their bowels.
Some more serious comments:
-There was a bit of discussion of how great a President FDR was. Back to my original point of people making judgments with inherently imperfect information, FDR is great example. FDR made a judgment that the Japanese would not attack the US. He was wrong. They did attack killing a couple of thousand Amercians in one morning and then leading to the deaths of many, many thousands. For years, conspiracy theorists thought that FDR knew the attack was coming and did nothing. I don't think that. FDR just made the wrong judgment. Ultimately, we dropped fire bombs and atomic weapons on civilians to end that war. Might a more aggressive policy in 1940 have deterred the Japanese? Tough call at the time when you don't really know what the other guy is planning. Waiting to find out may mean finding out by having them execute their plan. Then of course, the Prez gets blamed for doing nothing.
-I like the fact that the people most opposed to the war are wanting to hold the Democrats in Congress accountable. I too suspect that some Democratic votes for the war were far more cynical than Bush's reason for the war. To be fair and balanced (nudge, nudge), as a conservative, I get sick of hearing Republicans talk about fiscal responsibility while spending money on special interest earmarks and clearly worthless givernment programs. Even Ron Paul does earmarks.
-David Schlaefer's point about if Bush knew their were no weapons, why did he set himself up to look foolish? He can't both be an evil genius and a complete idiot.
-Another question I wish someone would answer: Why did Blair join the war as wholeheartedly as Bush. Blair is not exactly a Halliburton, gimme-oil type.
-I'm glad a few folks are bringing up that Bill Clinton has to be part of this "conspiracy". Avoiding the technicalities of who "owned" the UN sanctions, Clinton definitely signed the 1998 law that called for regime change in Iraq. Why would he do that unless he believed that Saddam was a threat?
Anyway, maybe I'll get a few more insults out of this.
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Doctor's Orders
[Read the article: Middle age threw me a wicked curve]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]You have to like a doctor that prescribes jerking off to his patients. I wonder if a woman doctor would do the same.
A good thing about it is that it's probably easy for the patient to remember to "take their medicine."
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This is going to be fun
[Read the article: Stop your sobbing]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]This is one of those rare occasions where Salon has an article that actually attempts to challenge the opinions of most of its readers. I'm early to the game, but there's already a good number of postings where people find this article to be silly.
I like this article because it reverses the conceit of the enviornmentalists on itself. For example, fear of global warming is only valid if one assumes that today's climate right now is somehow inherently privileged and that the current allocation of climate across the earth is "right". Well, there is simply no factual basis to say that today's temperature is right. It can only be asserted if a person values some current attribute over another which means that they somehow believe that the people alive right now are somehow important. The people who 400-500 years ago during the little ice age probably agree that its better to be warmer. Some folks in Russia might be happy for it to be warmer so they can go more crops. Hmmm...who's conceit should win? Easy answer...your own backyard. Problem...we don't all have the same backyard.
So, what do we do? We try to live the best we can but don't turn any current view into dogma. So, I personaly do look to buy more energy efficient products than less efficient ones. But, I don't want to mandate that because we just can't know that much about the science. And, not all people can afford to make the choices I can. Nature is diverse. Humans are diverse. Our economy should be diverse. Free markets are diverse.