THE DAILY STANDARD welcomes letters to the editor. Letters will be edited for length and clarity and must include the writer’s name, city, and state.
*1*
In regards to Rachel DiCarlo’s piece on Paris Hilton, a very wise ruler once said, “A beautiful woman without discretion is like a gold ring in a pig’s nose.” (Do Gentlemen Prefer Paris?) There are a lot of us who say, amen to that.
–Brian Paulson
*2*
I’m not an economist but I’ve been investing and trading for many years and as Irwin M. Stelzer probably knows, as soon as the oil “crisis” hits mainstream media, prices are most likely at their peak and soon to head downward. (A Chilly July?) As far as unemployment goes, the markets don’t want to see robust growth due to the fact the Fed could raise interest rates. And since the market hates uncertainty, the handover of Iraq will most likely be a plus.
The only real danger for the markets this year is a Kerry win in November.
–Curt Massie
*3*
Six-hundred thousand men were killed in the Civil War, in some small part as penance for slavery. (Jonathan V. Last, What Can Brown Do For You?) This number may actually exceed the number of slaves brought to the United States during the slave trade. So if reparations are paid to the descendants of slaves, then shouldn’t we also be considering paying reparations to the descendants of those killed in the Civil War?
And what do you say to the millions of people who arrived in this country after the Civil War or who were slaves but not in the United States? Not to mention the millions of African Americans who are not descended from slaves. Seems there would be all kinds of burden of proof issues and besides, how far back do we go? Do we include indentured servants from colonial times? But to a more thorny issue, if we pay reparations to slaves who were kept more alive than dead for financial reasons, what do we do for the native population which was underwent a forced population reduction and land seizure?
–Scott Jackson
*4*
Indeed, it is all so confusing. (Larry Miller, What a Nice Man)When is someone a “spiritual leader” and when are they just a killer?
It gets more confusing here in America where, if you are a conservative spiritual leader, you are a dangerous mixture of religion and state. Yet it’s all right for left-wing reverends to run for president.
–Brian J. Dunn
*5*
Hugh Hewitt’s argument based on the consent of the governed principle misses a more fundamental principle and one already embodied in the Constitution: equal protection. (Without the Consent of the Governed) If denying gay people the right to marry equates to denying them equal protection under the laws, then it is entirely beside the point that a majority of the governed may not favor gay marriage.
The passing reference to the 14th Amendment as one concerning the principle of legal equality between races ignores that the amendment does not limit the principle to race. And for good reason–it is a broader principle. Though the courts have not yet extended that principle to gays, that is not an argument as to why they should not.
If this is indeed an issue of equal protection, neither supermajorities nor 228 years of legal history should carry any weight.
–William Rohner
*6*
Hugh Hewitt’s central theme is contradictory. He points out that the principle of equality between religions, races, and genders had, in each case, a “long and difficult passage to majoritarian and statutory status.” In each case local and/or state statutory action preceded federal action.
Yet in his support of a federal constitutional amendment, Hewitt would strip the states of any rights to determine gay marriage law. This would preclude the possibility of any jurisdiction leading the way in this “long and difficult passage,” and would make tautological Hewitt’s point that in 228 years no “legislative body at the federal or state level [has] passed any law with the intent of establishing the proposition that two people of the same sex could marry.”
Hewitt’s blanket support of stifling states’ rights on an issue that has always been a state matter (with the exception of Supreme Court intervention to strike down racist anti-miscegenation laws), suggests that he is less interested in “preserving the essential structure of representative government” than simply prohibiting gay marriage.
If Hewitt was truly interested in representative government, he would back a federal amendment which allowed each state to continue to write its own marriage laws, with the proviso that any state could decide not to respect the marriage laws of any other state, thus insuring that that section of the federal DOMA Act would not evaporate if DOMA were to be struck down by the Supreme Court.
–Walter Burr
*7*
If the New York Times, and others, agree that the Clinton administration was taking terrorism very seriously, and yet they did nothing in eight years to stop Osama bin Laden, what could they expect any administration to do in eight months? (Jonathan V. Last, Walking Out on the Job) If you were to take a very large leap and believe that the Bush administration is twice as smart as the Clinton administration and twice as adept, wouldn’t you have to give them at least four years to compare them to the Clinton administration?
–William Redner
*8*
Hugh Hewitt correctly notes that no law has ever been passed in this country allowing gay marriage, but this doesn’t mean that gay marriage is not constitutionally valid. He further notes that the government is by the people and for the people. But Hewitt should also have noted that our laws are only valid if they are constitutional. A law banning gay marriage, although popular, is still not constitutional. The Constitution allows may things which are not popular, such as the right to burn our flag, but we recognize that our rights are based the Constitution, and not on polls.
–Doug Westhoff
*9*
I’m a sophomore at Brown University and The Trend of “Narrow Tailoring” Terry Eastland describes is even reaching our shores. We’re probably the most reluctant school to do away with our racial-preference problems, but following a debate a few weeks ago, university president Ruth Simmons began looking into the “legality” of our “Third World Transition Program,” which resembles the minority orientation programs Eastland describes at Yale, etc. At the very least, Simmons has said “the name is puzzling.” In light of the fact that 30 years of criticism rolled off the program’s back like water off a duck, this ruling was surprising. A majority of students polled think that the decision is a blast of common sense. So the tide of history is in fact affecting our very own peculiar institution as well.
–Barron Young Smith
*10*
As an Englishman, it pains me to have to listen to the Arab apologists, defeatists and appeasers in the British press. (Fred Barnes, Leadership and the Press) The average Tommy and Jane have backbones of steel, but, as in the land of the free and the home of the brave, the whining intelligentsia always know better–and are always Monday-morning quarterbacks (that’s if the Brits get that reference!). My humble apologies on behalf of my countrymen–but we’re not all like that.
–Steve Rogerson
