Letters to the Editor
McGarrett50
Published Letters: 28 Editor's Choice: 2
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I'm with CocoMademoiselle
[Read the article: I'm cheating on my husband and loving it. Is that a problem?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I actually find it a bit refreshing to see someone admit that they have no guilt about the crappy way they treat people. I see people treat others like crap at work and they don't seem to feel bad about it. Most marriages end because people cheat. I suspect that some people don't feel bad about it. We see politicians who have a lot to lose do stupid things. I doubt they really feel guilty. I suspect they are more just frustrated and embarassed they got caught. We often read about people murdering their spouses and/or kids. Did they feel guilty before they were caught?
So, to paraphrase Coco, what perfect world do people think they are living in? Now, I WISH that people did live more moral lives and would feel guilty when they fail to live up to what is right. But, it is unrealistic to count on it.
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Why Optimism?
[Read the article: Stop your sobbing]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]There seems to be a few comments that state that the authors are wrong to be optimistic. This reminded me of a similar discussion of a few months back when there was article about the book re: what it would be like on Earth if humans were extinct. Many posters almost seemed to be pro-extinction. I think part of that discussion is relavant here.
The reason for optimism is that things have never been better than they are now and they are far more likely to be better in the future. Comments to support:
-Slavery, gone.
-Starvation, mostly gone (where it exists, it is usually because of government action, not "nature getting back at us").
-Health, longest average lifespans ever. Enough to cause people to have fewer kids *by choice* not by oppressive government action like in China (how any of you can express admiration for the actions of the Chinese government since 1949 is beyond me...millions of people were murdered)
-Education/Art/Self-fulfillment, never more free or open to all people than now.
A major part of achieving the above is modernization and urbanization. The environment is best taken care of where people are wealthy. Poor countries abuse it the most. Birth rates drop *by choice* when people live in cities. Using government coercion to force people to not have families is evil.
Our best hope is to protect individual freedom because that is the real driver of human progress. Progress is real and we are living it now.
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Dammit
[Read the article: "Seven countries in five years"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]We're behind schedule.
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Folger, you called it
[Read the article: Al Gore wins the Nobel Peace Prize]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Any organization that gives something called a peace prize to Yasser Arafat has zero credibility.
Jimmy Carter should have declined his prize on that issue alone. Doh! I forgot, Carter wants Israel destroyed also. Grrrrrrrrr
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Gregory's Questioning is Stupid
[Read the article: Bush, Putin and World War III]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]What is the point of asking Bush about an event in 1981? I actually like that Bush was smart enough to see that the question was framed as a "what did you think then?" instead of "what do you think now?" He should have gone on a 5 minute wistful monologue on the dry weather in Midland. Make those jackass "gotcha journalists" sit through boring story after boring story and then go have a beer with Cheney.
As for the WW3 comment, I think most people would think that Iran dropping a nuclear weapon on Israel would lead to a really bad situation with an Israeli nuclear counter strike. The use of the term "World War 3" is a metaphor for nuclear war. I suspect that if India and Pakistan came close to a nuclear exchange again, then people would also call that WW3. I think it is silly for someone to argue that Putin would think that Bush is referring to a nuclear exchange between the US and Russia.
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The article about SCHIP has a fundamental flaw in logic
[Read the article: Don't think of a sick child]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The basic premise of this article is that insurance companies have an incentive to provide as little service at as high a price as possible and that this is somehow unique to insurance. The fact is that ALL businesses have an incentive to provide less at higher prices. However, all customers have an incentive to get as much service for as low a price as possible. Markets resolve this to the satisifaction of both the business and the customer EXCEPT when the customer isn't the one paying. When a third party pays then the customer has an incentive to get as much service as possible regardless of cost and then the payer and the business have the same incentive to provide less service. This is the simple reason that socialism always results in rationing of services by some artbitrary authority in some uninformed way that satisfies no one. We already have a near socialist healthcare system now and that is why costs are always increasing far more than the costs of other types of products.
My standard example is that there is zero problem matching the number of people who want TVs with all sorts of different options to the providers of TVs. America is overflowing with TVs including every so-called poor household in the country (third world citizens risk their lives to be "poor" in America). I have three even after donating two to Goodwill Industries. If only healthcare worked the same way, we would all have easy access to the kind of care we want at prices we are willing to pay even given the fact that some of us are hypochrondiacs and some of us think most doctors are quacks. Insurance is about risk not about service. Once the customer pays for most care and uses insurance only to mitigate risk, costs will come down and care will go up.