Response to Guest Editorial # G31
Since Tom Painter raises the broad issue of "human history",
it may be pertinent to note that our current ideas about marriage are
not as timeless as some may believe. First, there are the shifting prohibitions
and limitations pertaining to marriage. In some societies, in various
eras, marriage was forbidden if the members of the couple were from different
tribes; from the same tribe; of different religions or races; infertile;
or developmentally disabled. The infamous laws in this country prohibiting
marriage between "whites" and "coloreds" are well-known.
Less familiar are the remarkable exceptions, throughout history, to the
"one man, one woman" model of marriage. In Native American culture,
the "berdache" tradition permitted the marriage of one man to
another; some tribes recognized a similar right for two women. Yet the
berdache was regarded as a valued member of the tribal community. Professor
John Boswell has amassed persuasive evidence that the early Christian
Church permitted same-sex union rituals that constituted a form of marriage.
Chinese literature also records instances of lesbian marriages.
If there is anything timeless about marriage, perhaps it is this: marriage
draws its sanctity from the love, trust, and commitment that unite two
souls. --Ronald Pies MD
Response to Editorial # G29
James Benerofe very cogently
writes that the likelihood of terrorism
targeting Indian Point is very low, which it is. He then writes that the
more likely event would be a nuclear industrial accident like Three Mile
Island or Chernobyl. He fails to acknowlege the absolute change for the
better in American Nuclear plant controls since 1979, and the unique Russian
incompetence
responsible for Chernobyl. When these are taken into account, the chance
of
his "more likely" Nuclear industrial accident happening at Indian
Point also
becomes vanishingly small. The Brouhaha ignited by activist agendas has
blinded us all to the fact, that nothing is going to happen here.
The Anti-Nuclear "True Believers" keep imagining disaster on
purely
religious grounds, facts be damned.
John Sweeney 08-21-02
Response to Guest Editorial #G20
The war that Tom Painter is so eager for will not put and end to terrorism. That's because this war is targeting only unauthorized terrorists - freelancers such as the AI Qaeda gang. But authorized terrorists, most of them state-sponsored, will be keeping their licenses to kill. Two of the worst offenders - the governments of Colombia and Israel - also happen to be the two biggest recipients of military aid from the United States.
In Colombia, paramilitary death squads (that is, terrorists), supported by the Colombian army, have killed more than 25,000 civilians in the past ten years. With $650 million a year coming from the U.S. to fight a war on drugs in Colombia, the army can easily afford to back paramilitary activities: "massacres, torture, the destruction of communities, and the displacement of the population", in the words of Amnesty International. Our new war on terrorism, with its shadowy enemy and unlimited scope, has a lot in common with the war on drugs. In Colombia, that drug war has solved nothing and killed a lot of bystanders.
Meanwhile, the Israeli military (backed by $1.8 billion per year from our government, with no strings attached) continues to retaliate against Arab attacks as it always has - by repaying every killing fivefold and imposing a way of life on the nonviolent majority of Palestinians that looks very much like South Africa's old apartheid system. And as in Colombia, its army manages to kill a lot more civilians than terrorists: 1880 of them since 1987, 443 in the past year alone. Almost 30% of the dead in the past year were children.
Israel has terrorized an entire population for over 30 years because it wants to continue hogging almost 70% of the land and 85% of the water in the territories it occupies, despite the fact that all of it belongs to the Palestinians. And like Israel or any other group of "haves" who want to enforce their claim to an unfair share, the U.S. has had to kill an awful lot of "have-nots". We killed hundreds of civilians to punish Slobodan Milosovic. We killed thousands of Panamanians to punish Manuel Noriega. We have killed 600,000 Iraqi children through war and sanctions in an unsuccessful attempt to punish Saddam Hussein.
And, now, all the talk about "draining the swamp" and "doing whatever it takes" and being "either with us or with the terrorists" implies that many Afghans and others will end up as unwilling martyrs for bin Laden. It also means that once again we'll be befriending murderous thugs, as we once supported Noriega, Hussein, and bin Laden and still support Israel's Sharon and the Colombian death squads. I love America and I believe that this vast and powerful nation can protect itself without that. But if what we really want is more than just security, if it's to make sure that "our" privileged world never changes, well, then it's going to mean another slaughter and another and another, over there and over here.
Thomas S. Cox
Salina, KS
10/09/2001
Response to Editorial: The Immoral Feast
June 18, 2001
The Party of Principles Sidesteps Moral Compromises
While I agree that Clinton hasn't "cornered the market" on immorality in today's government, there are different circumstances involved in each case. We should strive as a nation to prevent all of these circumstances from occurring, but some are more preventable than others.
For example, Bill Clinton only needed to do one of many things to prevent this fiasco: he could have refrained from lying in public, lying on the stand, or having sex in the Oval Office. Easy problem to fix. Maybe it would have also helped if he hadn't been suspicious enough in the recent past for an open federal investigation to exist on him. Certainly, Clinton's problem is easy to fix.
On the other hand, what about these tobacco contributions? Is it really immoral to take money from tobacco companies? What would they use that money for if it wasn't for these contributions? The answer: making more tobacco products.
In my view, as long as the politicians don't take it as a bribe, there's nothing too terribly immoral about it. However, let me emphasize that there must be no bribing involved, no favors involved, and there shouldn't even be an opportunity for favors involved. If the size of our bloated government has actually gotten to the point where there are hundreds of millions of dollars worth of subtle favors it can do for the tobacco industry, we need to change something.
As far as I know, the only party willing to sidestep these contributions is the Libertarian Party. I'm not a Libertarian candidate, I'm not a party member, and I've never even donated any time or money to their cause, but I could guarantee that they haven't earned the name "the party of principle" for nothing; if they ever get past all the federal regulations designed to stop third parties from being successful, our lives will be better, and our government will be smaller: the tobacco companies won't be handing out little bribes, because no single authority will have to power to promote cancer sticks anymore. And as I've said, the Libertarians aren't contaminated by outside money.
Even if it's just for a county sheriff or local school board, Libertarians must be elected to show our other main parties they have to shape up, or they'll ship out.
Jake Lowery
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