Top 10 Letters

*1*
In response to Wesley J. Smith’s Life, Death, and Silence, I have been fighting from up here in Canada, desperately trying to save Terri Schiavo’s life. The injustice that is being done to her is criminal.

Once you stop defending the defenseless, you are stripped of decency. The strength of a nation is determined by how it cares for the weak. This is a disgraceful display of inhumane behavior inflicted on an innocent victim merely because she does not fit some people’s criteria for what is “valid” quality of life.

–Sheila Zetter

*2*
As an individual in the manufacturing sector who has seen the “Mass purchasing power” of companies like Wal-Mart, Target, and Pep Boys in action, I would have to say that Irwin M. Stelzer’s Retail Economics does not fully address the true threat to the economy and American manufacturers.

Most Americans do not understand that the Big Box stores consistently demand annual price reductions from their vendors. Also, they demand programs, such as cooperative advertising and volume rebates that further cause profit erosion. Couple these items with inventory burden shifting, crippling vendor compliance policies that force manufacturers to send ready-for-the-shelf merchandise to the distribution centers (without any price increases), and the lack of competition in the marketplace and you begin to see why every sector of the economy is adding jobs except for manufacturing.

I wonder if the American public would be so willing to spend its dollars knowing that every $200 a year they save at the big boxes ultimately means that their neighbors are headed for the unemployment line.

–Keith Trotter

*3*
Hugh Hewitt asks if there’s any way to reconcile the Los Angeles Times’s treatment of Clinton and Schwarzenegger (Defending the Indefensible). Well, duh.

While I’ll be the first to admit that the Times leans left, and the whole last-minute scandal-shocker business was, well, questionable–it’s becoming a bit ridiculous how pundits for both sides have been screaming for equal treatment on this issue. Clintonites moan and bitch about how the press isn’t giving Arnie the same trash-talking they gave their boy while conservative pundits moan and bitch about how Arnie’s getting it so much worse than Clinton did. I’m beginning to think that conservatives only read left-leaning papers and liberals only ever watch Fox News. A friend of mine has a great line about these matters: No one cares except people who care–and no one cares what they think.

–Seth Gordon

*4*
I am distressed at the leering and obscene attention that pundits of all stripes have paid to the Schiavo case.

A few years ago, I was engaged to be married to a woman who fell into a coma as a result of an asthma attack that cut off the oxygen supply to her brain. After three days the doctors found no sign of brain function, and her family and I decided that the best thing to do was to turn off the machines and allow her body to die. Since she was unable to breathe without the aid of the machines, she was dead within a few minutes.

Luckily, her parents and I were in agreement that whatever the mathematical odds of recovery, in practice these odds amounted to zero. Under different circumstances, and with different folks for potential parents-in-law, I could imagine a struggle over who gets to determine the point at which life support should be terminated. I can also imagine a situation in which I could have been painted as a monstrous wife-murderer.

The harsh truth is that no one wins in these kinds of situations.

–Brett Marston

*5*
As a legal alien of Mexican descent and Republican in leaning I wholeheartedly agree with Rachel DiCarlo (Border Politics). There is, however, a very important factor to be taken into consideration: A revised immigration policy must not reward population dumping policies of the Mexican government.

The Mexican government carries out absurd domestic policies with a two pronged strategy: benefiting internally groups of privilege (such as corrupt unions and economic players) and shepherding towards emigration able-handed age groups that, otherwise, would pressure domestic reform. This beggar-thy-neighbor policies are devastating both to Mexico and the United States.

–Andrés Lozano

*6*
Hugh Hewitt’s Who Is William Arkin? raises important questions about the critics of Lieut. General Jerry Boykin and their motives. But the article raised another question, too:

Recently my wife and I took a cab from the airport. The driver had white hair and turned out to be a retired Russian air force colonel. We got to talking about his service for the USSR. He remarked that if he had ever gone to church on Sunday, the next Monday his superiors would have known about it. At the very least he never would have been promoted, and probably he would have been transferred to a dead-end assignment or forced to retire.

What, exactly, is the difference between what the Soviets did to intimidate believers and what the critics would like to do to Boykin?

–David C. Stolinsky

*7*
As an “American by Choice” I have pondered Erin Montgomery’s question about Immigrants for President? for many years–less for myself than for my (four) children, only one of whom was born in the United States.

My conclusion is emphatically that the Constitution should not be changed. Why? The Founders were concerned about the possibility of foreign influence on their as yet unformed nation. I am concerned about my ability to steep my children thoroughly enough in the richness of their nation’s foundations and culture to give them the national instincts I want in a president. If I can’t do it and all too much of the educational establishment is in active opposition, it falls to them to do it for themselves. For this they need every minute of every reinforcement they can get.

It is not talent we’re short of in our leaders, it is character–deep, patriotic, American character.

We immigrants understand that we close off some possibilities for ourselves in choosing to become Americans. Fine; the benefits will far outweigh the costs, as long as America stays America. The one thing we demand of our presidents is that they take decisions–big, big decisions always in the face of massive uncertainty–in the interests of our country. Prudence dictates that ensuring this judgment is as genuinely, instinctively and thoroughly American as possible far outweighs the loss of opportunity for, or access to the talent of, first generation immigrants.

–Mike Davidson

*8*
Jonathan V. Last is wrong: Hollywood doesn’t confront evil, Hollywood propagates evil (War? What War?).

A couple of the members of the Academy board that I know are ex . . . well maybe not ex-hippies. One of them edited “Easy Rider.”

The last thing the young guys want to think about it is chasing bad guys. Who wants to be an embedded reporter chasing bad guys when you can chase bad girls with large embedded breasts?

Islamic fundamentalists who want to kill every Jew on the planet isn’t nice coffee conversation at Nate ‘n’ Al’s or Canter’s Deli.

When they made “U-571”–you know, that movie about Americans grabbing the German Enigma machine that the British actually grabbed after the Poles cracked the code–the only person on the set who had ever served in the military was a co-writer who got himself an honorable discharge by smoking dope.

It’s not “War, What War?”–it’s “Reality? What Reality?”

–Skip Press

*9*
Living in Germany it is interesting to see what misperceptions the American media and people has of this country. (Victorino Matus, What Europe Really Thinks of Us) Over the last 60 years Germany has been one of the best friends of the United States. What has to be recognized however is that Germany is not a colony of the United States. Through extremely mishandled diplomacy the United States has lost most of the goodwill it enjoyed amongst Germans, who do not like to be treated as mere vassals.

Germany has been involved in many bloody wars, on its own soil and elsewhere. The fact that Germany doesn’t take up every opportunity to go to war may be seen as treachery in the United States, but for Germany it is a huge advancement. Furthermore the fact that the war in Iraq is clearly a preemptive war makes the situation even more critical. Don’t forget that Germany “preemptively” started World War II to “protect” itself.

–Ben Potter

*10*
I have read Katherine Mangu-Ward’s well-written article on Paul Wolfowitz’s appearance at the unveiling ceremony at the Hungarian embassy (Hungary for Freedom). Perhaps it should have been noted that Michael Kovats Fabricy was a Hungarian Hussar, prior to becoming an American citizen and receiving a mandate from the U.S. Congress to form the cavalry. The uniformed Hussars who were the honor guard were representing that fact, traveling from California to honor this man who gave the ultimate price for this country. The honor guards were members of the First California Hussar Regiment. This group was organized to keep alive the traditions from Colonel Kovats’s era. The uniforms and the weapons are authentic and designed to show the historic appearance of the proud and feisty Hussars with their pageantry from a time almost forgotten.

–Frank Bakonyi, Colonel, First California Hussar Regiment