Letters to the Editor
DLF
Published Letters: 252 Editor's Choice: 23
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Lose a city? How about New Orleans?
[Read the article: Newt Gingrich, supreme fear-monger]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Where was Gingrich's concern when the US really DID "lose a city" three years ago? Too bad they couldn't lock up a hurricane without due process -- then maybe they would have shown some interest in it.
How can these anti-human rights "conservatives" justify their positions as anything other than sheer hypocrisy (mixed with a deadly dose of watching too many TV thrillers)?
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@bearpaw
[Read the article: This Modern World]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Fewer casualties in Iraq is only good news relative to an alternative of more casualties in Iraq. Being in Iraq at all is bad news all around.
Only the Republicans could have sold the media (not the people, however) on the idea that the goal and justification of our occupation of Iraq is to lower the number of U.S. casualties caused by our occupation of Iraq.
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If only
[Read the article: Comcast's efforts to protect members of Congress who, in turn, protect Comcast]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Dam', I wish we could skip the middleman and just vote for Comcast. Straight up-or-down. After more than a decade of Comcast "service" -- which mainly consists of the company giving themselves an uncontestable, unnegotiated 10% raise every year, year after year -- I know how I'd vote.
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slow growth v. no growth
[Read the article: The bad economics of rapid population growth]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I was struck by the fact that the cited article seems to refer only to slowing the rate of population growth, not stopping it.
Surely anyone with even the most cursory acquaintance with exponential rates is aware that any rate of growth -- no matter how seemingly minuscule -- will eventually overwhelm the earth.
For example: assume the current population of the earth is 7 billion. Assume a growth rate of 3% per year -- roughly the high rate we've seen lately. At this rate, in just 1,020 years the population of the earth hits an astounding 61,800,000,000,000,000,000,000. And at that point, assuming that people weigh on average 150 lbs (68 kilos), human beings will outweigh the Earth itself.
Ok, so 3%/yr is pretty high; let's lower that growth rate to 0.3% per year. Does that eliminate the problem? Hardly: at that rate it will take humanity 10 times as long -- 10,000 years -- to outweigh the earth.
And so on: at 0.03%/year, we outgrow the Earth in 100,000 years, and so on.
Add to the mix the inconvenient fact that we will run out of resources (even water and oxygen) long before we reach that date.
The point is that NO growth rate is sustainable in the long run -- not even in the relatively short-sighted long run of a millennium. At some point, we (humanity) will have to stop, even reverse our growth; when do we start planning for that?
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Holds: please explain how this works (or doesn't)
[Read the article: Hoyer hails FISA bill as "a significant victory for the Democratic Party"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Recently on NPR I heard a story about a bill to renew US support for international AIDS prevention, and how it was being kept from a vote by a "hold" that Sen. Tom Coburn of OK (if I remember correctly) had placed on the bill.
Which begs a whole series of questions:
What is a "hold"?
How does one right-wing Republican senator, acting on his own, get this superhuman power to stop legislation that a majority of senators support?
How can Democratic senators get some of the magic force of the "hold" for themselves?
Is it being in the majority that makes Democrats weak, sort of like electoral kryptonite?
And if so, shouldn't we be working to defeat Democrats and elect Republicans to the Senate so we can get some of the Republicans' mysterious power?
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The Americas (not just the US)
[Read the article: On the morality of immigration]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Most immigration (both documented and undocumented, or legal and illegal if you must) to the US comes from Latin America. But the average population density of Latin America -- contrary to a typical view of teeming overpopulated countries -- is just 72 people/square mile, even less than the US at 84.
Sample statistics from the Americas:
Country / Density (per sq. mi.)
Canada 9
Bolivia 23
Belize 34
Argentina 37
Paraguay 38
Uruguay 47
Peru 57
Chile 57
Brazil 58
Venezuela 78
U.S. 84
Colombia 108
Panama 115
Nicaragua 121
Ecuador 126
Mexico 138
Caribbean (total) 150
Central America (total) 215
As many commentators on this post have already noted, the key fact is not people per square mile (a "dumb" statistic) but how many resources are available.
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@ blunderdog
[Read the article: On the morality of immigration]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]So, you're saying that it would be ok if people from (let's just say) Mexico came to the U.S. to conquer, kill, and take the land of those who are living here? What's not ok is to try to become part of U.S. society? I'm trying to understand your point...
Which, in any case, is mistaken on a factual, historical basis. It is true enough that there are vast differences between the portrayals of conquest and immigration. The historical truth, however, is that the demographics, intentions, aspirations, life experiences etc. of the "conquerors" of the New World (from Spaniards in 16th-century Mexico to the "pioneer" settlers of the U.S. Great Plains in the 19th and 20th centuries) were indistinguishable in almost every way from those of non-conquering immigrants to the U.S. and elsewhere over the centuries.
(It is also true that, except in the end-game years, the "conquerors" did not come with the aim of killing Native Americans and stealing their land; they came to exploit opportunities, which most often meant exploiting, not trying to kill, Native Americans. Note: I'm not justifying or papering over anyone's actions, just describing what happened.)
(An interesting book, if you are interested, is the unfortunately out-of-print "Letters and people of the Spanish Indies, sixteenth century," translated and edited by James Lockhart and Enrique Otte, Cambridge University Press, 1976. Reading their letters, you really understand for the first time that the "Spanish conquistadores" were immigrants like any others.)
Migration is a fact of human life that probably has not changed significantly in millenia. Migrants (immigrants, emigrants, "conquerors") tend to move from one place to another because they want a better life. And they tend to be young people, either unmarried or just starting a family. That was probably also true of the first apes to come down from the trees.