Letters to the Editor
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Capital Punishment
Dear Camille Paglia,
I enjoy your columns and agree with your opinions a lot of the time. However, I believe that your support for capital punishment requires further discussion. In theory, I think that there are people in the world who commit horrible crimes and who need to be cut off from human society in a way that can only be accomplished by killing them. It’s not a matter of personal “closure” for the families of victims, whatever that means, but of fundamental societal responsibility.
In real life, however, I find that this theoretical concept doesn’t work. What actually happens is that those who are executed are poor and friendless and that those who escape the death penalty are well connected with access to money and legal representation. This is true both in the United States and in China, a county that relies more heavily and less ambiguously on the death penalty than we do.
How do you reconcile the gap between social theory and what I see as hard reality?
Respectfully,
John Peters
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Paglia has "Readers"?????
… Yeah. Right!
She's not a contrarian; she's not an intelligent commentator; she's not even intelligent.
Heck, I don't even think she really qualifies as a blogger.
Most "bloggers" even the really bad ones have something to say.
Not "Our Camille."
High-sounding, self-important drivel is her forte.
She'd never have found her favors in demand before Ms Walsh arrived. "Our Joanie" has decided to turn Salon into a commercial property designed to generate ad revenues and get her face on the TV with the other blowhards.
It's working a treat Joanie.
Salon is now the perfect example of the way in which "commodification" has taken what was one of the best freakin sites on the net and turned it into a pissing contest.
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My dear Bloomsbury
If you will kindly provide the county where Mr. Gore had 16ooo votes subtracted from his total, I will be happy to check it out by referring to a reputable news source (A Rosie O'Donnell blog or Keith Olberman rant would not count ... a major daily newspaper will suffice.) If such an occurence did take place --- and no action was taken to correct it --- I would be interested in that.
As to black voter suppression, please provide confirmed instances when this took place. To my knowldge Civil Rights Commissison investigations following the elections turned up no such actual incidents.
If improprieties did take place, I would be willing to admit that human error and even possibly malicious intent MAY have swung an election, though I suspect that would cut both ways. (Why do you think Democrats are so opposed to stopping voter fraud?) Either way, it hardly qualifies as George Bush, himself, stealing EITHER election.
However, I suspect that your anger is rooted not in facts, but rather is remiscient of a small child who screams, "Cheater!" if he loses some kind of contest.
Liberals hurt their cause by insisting on the truth of their fantasy worlds. Perhaps the reason so many of you dislike Camille Paglia, is that she'd didn't mortgage her ability to think just to be in the liberal camp.
I agree there is much to be concerned about in this country, though I would put the loss or property rights (example: Kelo vs. Connecticut), restrictions on free speech (McCain-Feingold, political correctness on college campuses, etc.) and loss of individual liberty (gun control, seatbelt laws, smoking bans, etc.) as chief among them. Pretty much, if a policy is collective or communitarian, it disturbs me a great deal, and I am committed to opposing such threats to personal liberty.
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Hi Capertree
I'm unwilling to wade through the letters to see what Bloomsbury actually stated, but to answer your questions, I'd recommend a quick search of the google.
It reveals that 16,022 votes were subtracted from Gore's tally in Volusia County, Florida. The information comes from Diebold internal memos.
About the suppression of African American votes, I'd refer you to the tactic called "caging." It has routinely been used specifically against African Americans serving in the military. Yes, the RNC supports the troops, but just doesn't want them to vote. That was easy to find using the google, too.
This question of yours is really funny: Why do you think Democrats are so opposed to stopping voter fraud? Let me ask you a question. Why do you think Republicans are so enthusiastic about voter suppression? But you know that's a loaded question, just like yours ;)
I find it a little odd that you pass judgment based upon your own ignorance. You doubt the factual information another reader provided, can't be bothered to look it up yourself, and therefore declare it to be *fantasy*. How convenient!
You last paragraph leads me to think you probably label yourself libertarian with a little "l." Why is it all about you? Looking at your top issues facing the country, they are all about you, not the country. I think the reason the libertarian party will probably never have influence in this country is because all of you are only looking out for yourselves -- individually.
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To Catherine 100
Please stop posting your opinions. You sound like a raving lunatic and your utter contempt for all things, Liberal, Democratic(i.e. Bill and Hillary)makes you sound shrill and silly. How in the name of Jesus Christ did you make it to the Navy? Unfucking believeable!
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Hello Michilines
I thank you for your relatively temperate response to my post and I apologize to other readers here, who no doubt are finding me quite tiresome. I promise this will be my last exposition.
I took your suggestion and did a bit of Google searching. It took me a while to find articles from sources that I had some degree of confidence in, yet are perhaps acceptable to this audience (e.g. no Fox News).
Wired magazine reported on the Volusia vote anomaly. The miscount was discovered and corrected.
I WAS completely ignorant of caging, but apparently I'm not alone. The author of an article in Slate magazine (in May or 2007) said none of their journalists had heard of it either. While there ARE allegations of Republicans CONSIDERING a strategy of caging, I did not discern any actual instances of it taking place within the past 20 years.
All of this goes to my original assertion that Bush did not "steal" an election --- a point of view shared by Paglia and no doubt one reason she is disliked by so many Salon readers. There is simply no credible evidence that Bush became president by illegal means.
And yes, I do consider myself a libertarian. I believe that a culture that promotes self-reliance first and foremost, creates a society that is stronger at all strata. We are not absolved of a responsbility to care about our fellow human beings, but private charities are better suited to the task.
Along these lines, I'm convinced that Katrina was such a disaster because so many of those struck by the hurricane were conditioned to look first to government for assistance rather than their own abilities and initiative. Of course, government had already sapped most of them of those capabilities. Crippled by government and the "soft racism of low expectations" they could not escape the rising flood waters.
On the economic side, the wealth that the left is so eager to redistribute only exists because of capitalism. While socialism could provide universal health care, it would likely be on the order of leeches and burning incense were it not for the profit motive that drives the medical industry.
Aside from infantilizing the population,and cripppling our the economy, I also resent the "it takes a village" decree because that necessarily entails giving the village idiot --- along with everyone else --- a voice in how I live my life. I have enough stupid ideas of my own without having to adopt other people's as well.
There, I thought I'd leave you with a statement you could find some agreement with.