Letters to the Editor
Published Letters: 2149 Editor's Choice: 7
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Self-selection in action.
[Read the article: Why has world opinion of the U.S. changed dramatically since 2000?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I agree with the person who noted that with the collapse of the Soviet Union, our virtue has become less self-evident. Certainly when we functioned as a couterweight to the "evil empire" we benefitted from the comparison. But part of our problem is one the founders understood well. Those who lust after power the most are the ones least qualified to wield it. Our system of checks and balances was designed with this in mind, but the lack of pushback against the current administration's power-grab has led to disaster on multiple levels - our loss of moral standing in the world being high among them.
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Stick with the script
[Read the article: Why has world opinion of the U.S. changed dramatically since 2000?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]RealName=Always obnoxious
usually for no apparent reason....
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@bucky1
[Read the article: Why has world opinion of the U.S. changed dramatically since 2000?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Glenn prefers that his substantive post of the day be ABOVE the publishing notes one. So if he happens to post it first, he'll then post a duplicate and eliminate the original. You just happened to catch him in the act.
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Back to the USA
[Read the article: Why has world opinion of the U.S. changed dramatically since 2000?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Upthread someone was lamenting that the US has pretty much always left a trail of brown or red corpses in the wake of its history and has therefore pretty much always failed to live up to our own standards of decent behavior. This may be true, but since I'm travelling this week, I have a seemingly unrelated observation that nevertheless comes into play. In the grand scope of history, commercial air travel is an exceedingly new development. Our dependence on oil is likewise a very recent phenomenon when measured against the extent of written human history. In both cases even though, these are new developments, our infrastructure has grown up around them to the point that life without them would be close to unimaginable.
What I assert is that our notions of human equality are experiencing a similar pace of development. In the face of the face of the racism inherent in the cries against "Islamofascism" or "Illegal Aliens", you may think this assertion odd but if you consider that human slavery was only marginalized a mere 150 years ago, then perhaps the notion that all people should have an equal stake in the future of our planet is likewise a new development that nevertheless has taken on a life of it's own and represents the new benchmark against which our actions can be measured.
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You referred to the logic of standing as Kafka-esque
[Read the article: Yesterday's ruling on NSA warrantless eavesdropping]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]but as noted above, Joseph Heller's construction is more accurate.
Regarding the phrase:
deeply confused and/or engaged in a campaign of deceit
This is the one area where our best effort ahead lies. Our resident troll has already tried to throw sand into the discussion by bringing up irrelevancies and no doubt the debate this ruling inspires will drift far away from the actual issues that are in play.
That's one reason why its important to stick to the facts even when they don't fall our way (as Glenn does in the paragraph on standing) but also to stress the Catch-22 nature of the controversy and to note, as Glenn does, that Congress is in a position to fix this if it is encouraged to do so.
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The man on the street....
[Read the article: Our broken political discourse]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]What our Beltway pundits fail to realize is that even if few can recognize a photo of scooter, they now know for sure that GWB will gladly rewrite the law in order to shield a crony. How they feel about that may vary, depending on the perspective of the individual but pretty much everyone in the country agrees that it stinks.
Perhaps the reason the press corps so badly misses the point is that they too, value loyalty over truth....which is a pretty terrible thing to say about someone who pretends to be a journalist.
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Why are we discussing
[Read the article: Our broken political discourse]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]whether or not someone is a genuine Texan as if that were a good thing?
Not to diss anyone but isn't being unduly proud of accidents of geography part of the problem we face as we try to understand why most of the planet thinks America has lost its collective mind?
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This quote is particularly important:
[Read the article: Various matters]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The war, which started out as a demonstration of US strength as the world's only superpower, has turned into a demonstration of weakness. Its 135,000-strong army does not control much of Iraq
because it also describes why we are losing to Iran. Our overreliance on air power and other expensive toys as well as our commitment to having ground forces stationed in places where they have no discernible function reveals to the world that we have no power beyond the ability to throw tantrums. Our enemies have been emboldened and the very people who've accomplished this are the ones who assert that acting intelligently would embolden our enemies.
Its bad enough that we've done something really stupid. But to insist that having done so, our only option is to continue digging defies reason.
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Blaming the victim
[Read the article: Various matters]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Notice how the debate over shooter's hurricane experience completely glosses over the point that he's blaming the victims in order to sheild his President from any accountability for anything. And by the way, NO's status as a city BELOW SEA LEVEL sort of makes comparisons with any other hurricanes somewhat beside the point.
Other than that he's just regurgitating Reagan era racist talking points. Quite unsurprising.
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I think one of the reasons the story resonates
[Read the article: Tucker Carlson, stalwart defender of sexual privacy]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Is that it's the very same forces that drive people to judge others' sexual behavior is the one that forces them into compromising situations. I believe Freud's term for the phenomenon was "reaction formation". I'm not aware of any serious research on the subject but anecdotal evidence accompanied by a simple comparison of divore rates in various parts of the country suggests to me that a lack of concern with what goes on in bedrooms that are not one's own correlates with a tendency toward healthier and happier relationships within those that are.