updated July 10, 2009
2005 / 2006 / 2007 / 2009
Apology Not Accepted
In his Tuesday letter �A true free market is the best apology,� Thomas William Kubica claimed �a truly free market economy� offers �little incentive to discriminate[,]� since �limiting your range of potential customers� is bad for business.
Thus, �reintroducing the true free market� in this country would help �all African-Americans.�
Judging from our racial history, we cannot reintroduce a true free market we never had. Does he think we had a true free market during slavery or during the Jim Crow era?
During those eras, what incentive did businesses have not to discriminate against anyone?
The above entry appeared as a letter today in the Beaver County Times. Kubica's letter appeared in that newspaper on Tuesday, July 7, 2009.
February 24, 2009
Eeeeeeeek, Rush Limbaugh!
The February 20, 2009, editorial �History Will Judge� urged congressional Democrats not �to investigate the Bush administration�s misdeeds,� such as torture and illegal spying.
First, the editorial stated, without offering any proof, no one cares about the administration�s misdeeds except for �partisans on both sides[.]�
And second, an investigation would displease the big, bad �Republicans and their fellow travelers� in talk radio, and no smart person really wants to do that.
In short, if the country ignores what the Bush administration did and moves on, somehow �the truth will win out� eventually.
I doubt the Times would print an editorial in favor of letting ordinary people, not just Republican rulers, get away with illegal acts because only partisans care about something as boring as the law, and because someone might oppose a criminal investigation.
The above entry appeared, in slightly different form, as a letter today in the Beaver County Times.
January 12, 2009
Get-Out-of-Jail-Free Cards for Everyone!
Sure, as this country�s attorney general, Alberto Gonzales facilitated �torture and cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment of those in our custody.� However, the incoming Obama administration shouldn�t subject torture-enablers like him to �criminal prosecutions,� or so Charles Fried puts it in his opinion piece �History�s Verdict,� in yesterday�s New York Times.
Fried, a professor at the prestigious Harvard Law School, writes in arguably America�s most prestigious newspaper that our �over-lawyered culture� would drag out such prosecutions and trials to boring lengths, and who likes to be bored? Also, Bush administration officials had a really, really good excuse for authorizing torture--namely, they wanted to protect us from the e-vile terrorists. Unlike Hitler, Stalin, and Mao, �our leaders were defending their country and people � albeit with an insufficient sense of moral restraint � against a terrifying threat by ruthless attackers with no sense of moral restraint at all.�
Actually, Hitler, Stalin, or Mao could have made the same argument about having to use torture to defend his country against what he considered ruthless, morally-unrestrained attackers (such as, er, the United States), but I guess Harvard doesn�t teach world history.
I e-mailed the above entry in different form as a letter to The New York Times on January 12, 2009. One guess as to whether the Times published my letter.--DVM, 2/17/09.
January 2, 2009
Noah the Gourmand
In his December 28, 2008, letter to the editor (�Nothing Wrong with Goose Hunt�), the Reverend R. Daniel Knox attempted to justify the Bradys Run Park goose hunt by citing the Biblical story of Noah.
After God had �destroyed all men and animals except for those he saved in the ark,� he told Noah that people could survive from now on by killing and eating beasts, birds, and fish. Thus, the Bible implies that humans were not carnivorous until after the flood.
Also, what does the reverend think of this story depicting the god he worships in this way? What did almost every person on Earth, including infants and children, do to deserve drowning? What did almost every animal on Earth do to deserve drowning?
The above entry appeared in different form as a letter in the January 2, 2009, Beaver County Times.--DVM, 2/17/09
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� 2009 David V. Matthews