We have several LTE's on which to labor today.
Just North Carolina
An emotionally shattered rape victim is forced to listen to anti-abortion propaganda and is made to watch a screen of an ultra-sound image. If she averts her eyes, she is compelled to sign a form confessing to this as though it is a crime.
Is this a Middle-Eastern dictatorship that treats women so disgracefully? Is it a country where abortion is illegal and where women do not have rights?
No, it's just North
Carolina, where a group of right-wing zealots decided they would set women
needing abortion services straight. No exceptions for incest, underage
victims, women too ill or girls too young to survive pregnancy. Pregnant females
need to know their place no matter what the circumstances.
These are the same people who are deciding who we can or cannot marry, forcing their religion on us at government meetings, trying to break unions and are busy laying off government workers, (themselves excepted, of course).
They said they wanted to get government off our backs.
Really?
ELIZABETH L. SANER
Kernersville
Good government
One test of good government is how well it takes care of its people — all of its people.
The Republican majority certainly has done OK for the rich and the zealous. Legislators have chanted scripted slogans and cast blame. They have thrown dust in the eyes of often desperate people, giving them glib answers and easy villains. They begged for a chance "to restore good government," but have committed the same sins they deplored, and have turned them up a notch.
Attacking education and juvenile justice, poor people and sick people fails any test of good government. It is eating the seed corn to get a quick meal. Out-gerrymandering the gerrymanderers may satisfy their political bloodlust, but it doesn't give us the impartial system they themselves always professed we needed.
Over time, it will become increasingly clear to the voters that these snake-oil salesmen have damaged the quality of their lives, and have tainted the futures of their children and grandchildren, when they were taken in by fast talkers and paid political propagandists. Voters will realize that once again they've been whipped up and used by the right-wing rich.
Good government puts the people — all of the people — ahead of political advantage. The Republican majority in Raleigh will be weighed and found wanting.
HAYES McNEILL
Winston-Salem
That was
Many moons ago, there was a popular TV program called "That Was The Week That Was." The week before last, we went through an earthquake and a hurricane. It really was the week that was.
I don't have a clue how others feel, but I feel very blessed.
ANNE BOWMAN MAYFIELD
Winston-Salem
Now
Now that we understand that it is OK to mix religion and politics (ignoring the constitutional imperative regarding the separation of church and state), I would like to suggest that everyone pray to his/her own higher power that we not be saddled with any candidate who believes that global warming is a hoax.
BARBARA JOHNSON
Winston-Salem
Who would benefit?
Imagine the owner of a professional baseball team in the process of interviewing candidates for a general manager position. One interview is going pretty well when the candidate makes the following statement: "Actually, I never have liked baseball, the game bores me to tears. Oh yeah, one more thing, I believe all baseball parks should be torn down and golf courses built in their place." Is this the person who should be hired to lead a team to the World Series? I don't think so.
Yet this type of funhouse-mirror statement has become the biggest campaign-trail applause line for the past three decades. Starting with Ronald Reagan, it has been repeated so often that it has become collective conventional wisdom. Even some Democrats have bought into it, Bill Clinton among them. If "government" would just get out of the way, everything would be just fine. We could take the place back to the days of silent Calvin Coolidge. Ayn Rand would be so proud. But I digress.
The point I am making is that when any group of people try to drive a wedge between the government and the people it serves, to make it some sort of external entity that should be shrunk down to the size that it could be "drowned in the bathtub," we need to start asking questions.
Who would benefit the most from an ineffectual, hands-off government? Follow the money.
RANDALL PEGRAM
Kernersville
Responsible path
The writer of the "take names, round them up and ship them home" letter ("Very simple," Aug. 31) may share my name, but not my opinion.
A responsible path to citizenship is a good idea; trying to round up, sort out and ship back some 11 million people is not.
DAVID PHILLIP HATCHER
Buena Vista
Winston-Salem
Defining personal relationships
As a Winston-Salem resident, I was horrified by Rep. Dale Folwell's hateful diatribe ("The people's decision," Aug. 30) about the need to "protect" the definition of marriage by amending our state constitution. He wants to amend the constitution because, "Marriage is the foundation of our society. It is the most personal relationship and provides the support structure for life and death decisions, family relationships, tax policy, and a stable and growing economy."
I guess he means that he trusts everyone but gay citizens to define their own personal relationships and does not want gay people's abiding, secure relationships to help in stabilizing society, contributing to our taxes or helping grow our economy.
Well, fine; define "marriage" as you will, Rep. Folwell, in our state constitution, and I will stop paying my share of state taxes, stop contributing through my labor to the economy of our state and stop being a good neighbor and friend to recognizably "married" folk.
How does he explain how that will help him — and other heterosexuals — protect their own marital stability and add to the growth of our economy? It will not.
Let's not let him and his ilk scare us into believing that there is any contribution to anyone in amending the constitution to enshrine such bigotry and to validate such unreasonable prejudice. No one is threatened and no relationship can possibly be harmed by anyone else's stable civil marriage. And, by the way, doesn't state law already make gay marriage illegal in North Carolina?
MIRIAM E. FELSENBURG
Predictable LTEs will bring predictable responses.
ReplyDeleteYou already know what the responses will be and who will make them.
The ignorati will argue in favor of the abortion and marriage laws, citing a centuries old work of political fiction, of which they have no idea who the authors were and why they wrote it.
The cognoscenti will argue against the abortion and marriage laws, citing scientific evidence and the law.
In a formal debate based on reason and fact, it is obvious who would win. And that would be that.
But here, reason and fact are subsumed by ignorance and emotion, so in the end it will be just another day at the office. In fact, you can be sure that there will be fewer posts than on a normal weekday, because so many do their posting on their employer's time and equipment.
Ah, but there is always tomorrow. Maybe somebody will write an LTE about how the most pressing issue today in the USA is somehow getting the economy functioning again and beginning to build a new job base.
Nah, that won't happen, or if it does, it will just be about who's to blame for the problem, not how to solve it.
Have a good Labor Day.
Ms. Saner's LTE seems to suggest that it is better to leave pregnant women in the dark than to provide them with information to inform their choice. Government commands that we wear seatbelts, bicycle/motorcycle helmets, and we are hearing of government telling us not only how to eat more healthy foods, but banning foods that are not healthy enough. The more liberal among us never complained about these laws "for our own good." With the proposed law to provide information to women contemplating abortion, liberals morph into libertarians, now calling for less government interference. (I guess the same arguments can be made of conservatives from the other direction.) Keeping victims of "incest, underage victims, women too ill or girls too young to survive pregnancy" in the dark about the nature of the "women's health procedure" they are contemplating seems contrary to the position normally taken by those on the liberal side of the argument.
ReplyDeleteI would hate to be represented by a lawyer who is encumbered by such hazy thinking.
ReplyDeleteBicycle helmets are required only for children...just another example of how many lousy parents there are out there.
Seat belts and motorcycle helmets reduce damage in accidents, which is a public interest matter, because it reduces the amount of medical cost to taxpayers.
As usual, we get this condescending attitude toward pregnant women, I imagine all women, as in the great Bo knows better. Here the state SPENDS money, rather than saves it, while meddling in matters between doctors and patients.
And of course, we all know that the real purpose of the bill has nothing to do with the health of the mother. To say otherwise is to reveal yourself for the hypocrite that you are.
Well, I thought maybe on Labor day we would read about our struggling economy. All but a couple of LTEs here are back to the same subject. In the next election, it makes me wonder which party will "need" the social issues the most.
ReplyDeleteThe use of emotional "catch words" throughout these similar LTEs is interesting: rape, propaganda, dictator, zealot, break unions(?)!, global warming(?), Ayn Rand. Day after day these themes reappear as if orchestrated.
"one test of good government is how well it takes care of its people". The Nanny State has reached its zenith. We the People have had it. This quote fits in well with today's LTEs.
ReplyDeleteWe the people? That tired old phrase which doesn't apply in our modern political structure. Is this phrase an attempt to add a perception of noble purpose to a group whose main obective is simply to cut taxes?
ReplyDeleteAjv...long time no see. We the People was good enough to open our Constitution so it still works for me. If it is truly "tired and old" then "noble purpose" has been long gone.
ReplyDeleteMs. Saner is like a lot of liberals that write into the Journal. She's on her monthly crusade, come hell or high water. I invite people to 'Google' the writers names, most if not all are liberals writers, spreading the Democratic mantras.
ReplyDeleteMs Felsenberg: I would agree that it would normally be a waste of time to pass something that is already in effect (gay marriage is illegal in N.C.). However, because we've got activist gay judges all over the country determined to get their way without regard to the will of the people, a N.C. Constitutional Amemdment IS needed to protect the definition and the institution of heterosexual marriage.
And Mr. Hatcher, what's up with Buena Vista add-on? Does that mean that what you have to say is more important than if someone added-on East Winston? I'll just add him onto my long list of pinheads.
Ms. Johnson while you're preaching to everybody about global warming, may I remind you that the State of North Carolina is not a finite environment. Another Jeez...
It's gonna be a good day. I can feel it coming on. Where's Kitty Kat? I'm ready.
Problem is, Tea Partiers tend to fancy themselves the tribunes of "we the people", when in fact they represent about ~18% of the population. "We the People" is so broad as to be almost meaningless.
ReplyDeleteI agree Arthur. What's your book going to be about, and when can we expect it? I guess the Tea Party is really not in the running, huh?
ReplyDeleteArthur...I wouldn't get too caught up in aproximate percentages of those you oppose. "Management of many is the same as management of few. It is a matter of organization" (AoW). A committed 18% can greatly influence 25% in no time flat.
ReplyDeleteI've never been much of an activist, but after the Democrats hijacked and destroyed the whole country the last time around. I think I'm going to have to get really engaged this time. The Democrats call the Tea Partiers every name in the book, so I figure they must be pretty good people. I may hook up with them during the next election.
ReplyDeleteI always like to use those Democratic buzz words, like: hijack and destroy, so that Democrats can understand me.
ReplyDeleteOT, almost everyone agrees that bike helmets, motorcycle helmets, seat belts and child safety seats are good ideas. The issue is whether government ought to pass laws mandating their use. This is generally not questioned by the liberal side. Fair enough. Most people, liberal and conservative, see abortion as an unfortunate choice, or at least a troubling one. Those in favor of providing additional information think that if this information is presented to women considering abortion, at least some will reconsider that decision and opt for life. No hypocrisy there, the lawmakers would admit it, I suspect. I agree with them.
ReplyDeleteAs you suggest, there are plenty of lousy parents out there (and you call ME condescending!). There are also plenty of mis/uninformed women and children dropped off at abortion clinics by their "baby daddies" to "take care of things." A little information about the choice they are making and its impact on their bodies and the baby/fetus/lump of cells inside them should be welcomed by anyone wanting to make a truly informed decision.
OT, I appreciate your arguments, but can your side ever make the argument without the insults and vitriol? Can you not disagree without the hatred? Is it so important that your opponent be not only wrong, but evil?
Bo Houff...have you read the editorial by Dan Henninger "Why the Left Lost it" WSJ online? It is from back in the winter and gives good incite to your question. You can search the title and still read it. The piece will help.
ReplyDeleteMr. Houff.....you seem like a fine person. Stab is apparently not around, but I would like to invite you to participate in this forum on a more routine basis. Generally, this forum is filled with left-wingers spreading hate and hateful statements against or about those with whom that they disagree. I would like to cordially welcome you aboard, and don't be a stranger.
ReplyDeleteState Reps Earline Parmon and Larry Womble are busy beating the racial drums over in East Winston over Judge Denise Hartsfield's alleged misconduct. It seems she liked to fix tickets, especially for black folks.
ReplyDeleteThere is a photo in the WS Journal that looks like a scene of the movie 'Lean on Me', where Rep. Parmon is behind a pulpit of a black church screaming to the crowd for justice.
Yes, the WS Journal likes to whip-up racial anxiety. It certainly seems to sell newspapers.
Bucky, I enjoy coming to this site. However, I cannot access it from work, due to website restrictions. I was on the Journal website frequently before the change to Facebook was instituted. Thanks for your comments, though, as NClaw441
ReplyDeleteWhitewall, I may look that article up. My view for why the left is so uncivil is that the left has faith in government and its political views as religious, or quasi-religious, and any challenge to their religion they take personally. They would deny this, of course.
Bo Houff...you are pretty close in your view.
ReplyDeleteHi, this is Mike/Stab. For some reason I can't sign on to my own damn site :( Perhaps it's the ratty 3rd-hand computer I'm using.
ReplyDeleteGood comments today. I don't have time to go over the LTE's at the moment, as Mrs. Stab and I are heading out to enjoy some of the day after AM chores, but a few comments:
Helmet laws and seatbelt laws were passed to protect "we the people" from idiots. An unhelmeted biker can be concussed by rock thrown by a truck tire, leaving his mount an unguided missile. Likewise, an unbelted driver may be knocked away from controlling his vehicle after an intitial collision, and be unable to avoid a second collision. Then, there is the need to help society avoid the economic consequences of an unbelted driver's ruptured aorta.
"Break unions": what is wrong with that? Unions have broken many a company, with the wreckage blamed on the companies. To be truthful, some of the blame is deserved, as shortsighted managers did sign those contracts (nevermind the pols who sign contracts with public sector unions--those pols are paid by those very unions). However, those companies didn't stage wildcat strikes, work slowdowns, sloppy work, and high absenteeism.
Hey, Mike. I think the better rationale for the seatbelt/helmet/etc. laws is public safety, rather than economic consequences. Once we breach the threshold of economic consequences as grounds for laws, we are going to be in big trouble. That rationale would support dietary limitation laws, laws requiring certain levels of exercise (perhaps in a public forum as in the old days in China), taking of state sanctioned vitamin supplements, etc. All of these may be great ideas, but should not be required of a "free" people. The better solution to such economic consequences is to take them out of the public realm. The public should not foot private bills, including emergency room fees and aortic blood spill clean up. If everyone knew these would not be taken care of, individuals might make arrangements by buying insurance. Sadly, we don't have the stomach for requiring personal responsibility.
ReplyDeleteThe "christian" right will do whatever it can to impose its religious beliefs on the rest of the country. Their condescending arrogance knows no bounds. They know what is right and the rest of us don't.
ReplyDeleteThe so-called abortion law in NC is yet another attempt to do just that. They like to pretend, or perhaps are just ignorant enough to believe, that women who have abortions do so on the spur of the moment and receive no counseling of any kind.
In real life, beyond the christian fantasies, women DO receive counseling before undergoing an abortion. That counseling is provided by a variety of sources, family, friends, ministers, health professionals and, of course, Planned Parenthood.
The recent attacks on Planned Parenthood reveal a great deal about the anti-abortion set. Since PP is one of best sources of information for women who can't afford visits to their doctors, the anti-abortionists are revealing that they are either ignorant of what PP does or that they are simply hypocrites, perhaps a bit of both.
They like to portray the abortion process as a Keystone Kops melodrama:
1. Woman finds out that she is pregnant
2. She rushes to abortion clinic and flings herself on the operating table
3. Doctor rushes in and performs abortion
4. Woman pays and goes home and spends the rest of her life in agony regretting having had abortion
Well, that's not the way it happens, Charley.
Like any other medical procedure, it is carried out with the advice of the doctor and the decision of the patient. They don't need or want your hysterical uninformed intrusion. Sooner or later someone will challenge this law in court, and when they do it will be nullified for what it is, unwarranted meddling in the lives of others.
Mind your own business.
Jimmy Hoffa Jr. ....'Let's take these son-of-a-bitches out'.........(Tea Party)
ReplyDeleteMaxine Waters.......the Tea Party can go straight to Hell....
Don't you just love Democrats? The cream rises to top, but so does scum, and now we know what category the Democrats fall into.
Bucky..I think Maxine was enviting folks to visit her California district?
ReplyDeleteRe: Abortion.....if it's none of our business, why does Obamacare require that we pay for contraceptives and other related services?
ReplyDeleteThere you go whitewall....
ReplyDeleteI wish we could get some educated liberal Democrats in here to defend their political positions, it hardly seems fair debating with the ones we've got.
ReplyDeleteHere I is Buckster. Watcha need to know?
ReplyDeleteOkay....one of your comrades...O.T., better known as Kitty Kat, takes the position that requiring counseling before getting an abortion is too intrusive. We have to take a test before we drive a car, why shouldn't women have get counseling before they kill somebody?
ReplyDelete"What if someone sent out 60 or 70 highly trained teams of snipers to blanket the nation? People would be cowering in their basements and the economy would grind to a halt."
ReplyDeleteO.T. Rush A/K/A Kitty Kat
Have you ever wondered at what time they shut down internet access at mental institutions? I know I have.
We can attempt to draw false equivalencies ad absurdum. For instance, if we have to take a test to drive a car, why don't we have to receive counseling before we can post here? It kills me and others I'm sure to read some of this stuff. It all depends on your perspective. Driving a car is a public affair and subjects others to dire consequences if done so by someone untrained. An abortion, despite your choice of inflammatory words, is not killing "someone". When does it become someone? What is a someone? What is your authority on that? When does the woman lose the ability to control what happens to her own body? When do we require counseling for vasectomies? When do you morality legislating republicans begin making sense? I've got to assume you are a type of republican. You guys just hate the big ol' evil government sticking its nose into places it doesn't belong. Right? So you tell me why you right-wing guys and gals are always sticking your noses where they don't belong.
ReplyDeleteAJV.....that was a lucid, cogent response. I was afraid the 'Kat' had gotten your tongue.
ReplyDeleteGovernment can be a good thing. The problem that we have now is that is too big. It's too involved in all aspects of our lives. Personally, I don't really care about the abortion law. I was just trying to lay-out the ridiculousness of some the Democratic arguments over the matter.
ReplyDeleteI still like your photo.
There isn't enough room here to discuss the problems with government and our political system. For the moment, suffice it to say that people haven't evolved completely from their primitive ancestors. It's still all about the acquisition and maintaining of power just like in the barnyard. Why would we expect that to not be reflected in all forms of government?
ReplyDeleteGood afternoon folks!
ReplyDeleteLTE 1: A federal judge struck down this same law in another state. It will probably be appealed to the SC. I wonder if the legislatures will be as concerned with men's prostrates.
LTE 2: Bit of a rant, but I do agree that replacing one style of gerrymandering for another does no good.
LTE 3: It was an interesting week.
LTE 4: I just pray that we have a president who is science and economic literate instead of a TB
LTE 5:"Who would benefit the most from an ineffectual, hands-off government? Follow the money." - good advice for any political stance. See who will benefit, then you will know whom the politicians are REALLY working for.
LTE 6: I agree. The "ship 'em out now" crowd are out of touch with reality.
LTE 7: Another reasonable response to Rep. Folwell.
Sure enough, switch to a new computer and my site will let me in.
ReplyDeleteLooking back through the posts:
Bucky, thank you for encouraging Bo's participation, and yes, he is very welcome here.
Government: Although I have voted for the pols who have used government as a campaign whipping boy (and subsequently as a publically funded vote purchaser), I regarded campaigns against the government that they aspired to run as political puffery. I wondered to whom those pitches appealed.
We can all find aspects of the government we don't like. As most know, I am furious at the NLRB, but that is a problem an election can correct. Ditto Holder's DOJ. To some extent the government is like the legal profession. We grouse about government pettifogging, and we liken lawyers to sharks, but let pirates take an American hostage or your spouse leave town with an intinerant carnival employee, then the Feds and the attorney all of a sudden wear halos.
(No, Bucky, I have not had a wife take off with a roustabout from the James Strates Shows. I did have a wife whose departure with a midway employee I might have subsidized, had the opportunity presented itself.)
More on the comments:
ReplyDeleteOT: With a couple of caveats, I regard your initial post today as profound. I agree that there is much in the Bible that was agenda-driven when written, but there are indeed Truths within it. I am probably as scientifically versed (for a layperson) as anyone who posts here, except perhaps for Bob, and I find some of what you would call the fictional aspects of religion compatible with the purest of science: quantum mechanics.
All that aside, the rest of your post was excellent particularly the following:
"Ah, but there is always tomorrow. Maybe somebody will write an LTE about how the most pressing issue today in the USA is somehow getting the economy functioning again and beginning to build a new job base.
Nah, that won't happen, or if it does, it will just be about who's to blame for the problem, not how to solve it."
I have said similar previously, but not so well as that.
Yeah Stab....we've got a good thing going on in here. We just need to get a few more decent and articulate liberal Democrats. Besides AJV and Bobby, we're lacking.
ReplyDeleteI hate to see these other liberal wanna bees bloviating and going nowhere in their shallow attempts to make a political point. It almost makes me feel sorry for them.
I will repeat what I said once before:
ReplyDeleteOne year in grad school I worked with a research team that was studying IQ testing in hopes of either replacing or improving the commonly used Stanford-Binet scale.
One day while we were taking a break, a female colleague asked, quite seriously, if it could be possible to have a NEGATIVE IQ.
That question has just been answered.
That's real nice Kitty Kat...I wonder who in the world you might be talking about?
ReplyDeleteBucky, we have other capable liberal debaters, Arthur is one. OR has not self-labeled, but he likewise is formidable. And we have good right and center posters as well.
ReplyDeleteOT, I laughed at the "negative IQ" comment, and chuckled again at seeing it a few minutes ago.
Arthur would be great....but he won't engage. He's like Maverick in Top Gun.
ReplyDelete