Dumb Letters: It's Science If I Say It Is

'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.'

The words "science", "reason" and "facts" apparently don't mean what we think they do.

Here's what some folks at the Creation Museum have to say about science and religion.

"Accepting the Bible as God’s literal truth doesn’t mean that we discount science. It does mean that we interpret scientific evidence from the biblical viewpoint. We evaluate the same evidence as evolutionists, but they interpret it from their viewpoint. Evidence isn’t labeled with dates and facts; we arrive at conclusions about the unobservable past based on our pre-existing beliefs. This exercise also involves reason."

It doesn't mean that you discount science? That's exactly what it means! Oy. If you arrive at conclusions based on your pre-existing beliefs then you, by definition, are anti-science. The letter writer seems to think that science means taking something you believe and making the facts fit it. Their "viewpoint" is no different from those of "evolutionists", even though the creationists are working backwards and the actual scientists are working forwards.

Science requires an open mind. And while this isn't always in complete evidence even in the best of us, a true scientist will throw out everything they think they know if the facts prove them wrong. These people won't. Ugh.

Believe what you want, people. But please don't bother trying to convince us that you're into science. It makes you look even sillier.

Dumb Letters: Who's Really in Charge Here

This is hilarious. It's from today's Boston Globe. I don't know if I can even respond to it, it's so wrongheaded in every respect.

I'll quote it in full.

"CALLING THE Tea Party movement “terrorists’’ is grossly misplaced. Indeed, the real domestic terrorism going on in our country is our socialist government’s confiscatory taxation, public education indoctrination, and economy-crushing regulations, and the extreme environmental movement raising the cost of living.

The spontaneous Tea Party movement is a reaction to the way many American voters feel about big, intrusive, out-of-control government. Demonizing the movement will only make it grow to be heard loud and clear in the 2012 elections and beyond, until the people and the states take America back.

A push from two-thirds of the states for a constitutional convention to propose amendments is long overdue. A balanced budget amendment with teeth should be first on the agenda."

Oh my god. Does this person actually believe that our government is socialist? We have the least socialistic government in the free world. By far.

And is there really an "extreme environmental movement"? And what would be their goals? Really really clean air? Incredibly pure water? Oh no! How nefarious! And we all know how powerful they are. (Check out the pictures in those links and ask yourself how much "economy-crushing" regulations we think we need. I'm thinking more than we have.)

And does he really believe that the Tea Party "movement" was spontaneous, and not created by Dick Armey in order to capitalize on racism and grievance? Everyone all just had the same idea at the same time? Okay, if you say so. Everybody likes to think that they're "grass roots".

And what exactly are we taking America back from? The corporations that dominate it? The Tea Party is doing nothing if not ensuring further and greater domination by an economic elite, all in the name of populism. The irony would be rip-snortingly funny if it weren't doing such incredible damage to our nation. These people have no idea how much they're helping to perpetuate the status quo.

The sad truth is that the country has not changed much since Barack Obama took office. At least not in how it's governed and in who really controls things. The only difference is in perception, which has been mercilessly fueled by the right-wing media.

I'd love to take America back too. From ignorance.

Dumb Letters: Privatize Yourself

This is a whopper from some knucklehead from the Cascade Policy Institute. (I'm not linking to them. You can Google them if you want. Basically they worship at the altar of Milton Friedman.)

The issue seems to be that U.S. National Parks aren't serving their "customers" the way some people think they should be. The letter writer seems to think that the issue is the "bureaucratic mentality" at the Parks Service. I always love this idea. Free-market ideologues always love to complain about "bureaucracy" in government, as if there were absolutely no bureaucracies in corporations.

"Instead of remaining a lumbering Leviathan, the Park Service should embrace market principles and privatize the parks. ... Since these privately managed parks wouldn’t have the luxury of using other people’s money, they would need to accommodate consumer demand. The solution? Privatize them, of course."

Of course. Consumer demand? Really? I thought that the Parks Service was about keeping lands pure so they wouldn't be overrun by sprawl, industry and advertising. Privatizing them would lead to exactly the kind of "progress" that the National Parks were supposed to forestall.

Of course, if they were using private money, those people supplying the money would naturally be expecting a return on their investment. And how would they be getting that? Trees don't generate a lot of revenue, unless you're cutting them down. I'm thinking it would be along the lines of turning all of our parks into Disney World, with fee-based attractions and miles and miles of advertising. A significant improvement over all of those boring trees, I'm sure.

"In addition, since these lands would be managed by environmentalists in the private sector, there would be little risk of regulatory capture by special interests, which was all too common in the Reagan and George W. Bush administrations."

What environmentalists in the private sector? I also love how "special interests" means people looking out for the public welfare and not, oh, the oil industry, which looks out for the profits of a very few people.

The comments section shows a wealth of wisdom in knocking this lunatic down. I wish the WaPo would have given the responses to this letter equal placement. This guy is ludicrous.

Dumb Letters: The Narcissist

I reckon we see what we want to see. I'm loving this letter to the WaPo about The Prez's announcement of an assassination you may have heard about.

When the happy announcement that Osama bin Laden had been killed was made, it was disappointing to hear the president report the event by drawing so much attention to himself. He practically made it seem as if he had been there and pulled the trigger. Even if credit is due to him, it was immodest at best not to give all the attention to the men and women of the intelligence and Special Operations services who ushered bin Laden out of the world.

So much of contemporary life is sullied by politicians seeking advantage from situations largely outside their control. The country needs good news more than it needs the president’s preening.

Really? Do I even need to comment on this? He neither said nor implied that he did it. Or anything even close to it. He said "The United States" has done this. And then he went to New York City and didn't say a freaking word. Contrast.

I suppose the president, commander-in-chief of our military and supposed leader of all of us, was supposed to have one of the Navy SEALs do the talking. Because he shouldn't seem immodest. The dude gave a speech and announced what the hell happened. Get over yourself and your fantasies about the guy.

Crikey, this is about as preen-free a president as you can get.

Dumb Letters: Stem Cells Are People Too

See if you can spot the flaw in this argument from today's NYT letters section. We're talking stem cells here.

I commend Chief Judge Royce C. Lamberth for issuing a ruling on Monday preventing the Obama administration from carrying out its embryonic stem cell research. The American people should not be forced to pay for experiments that destroy human life.

Human life begins at conception with the formation of a genetically complete, self-directing human entity, the embryo.

Human beings are not raw materials that can be exploited or commodities that can be bought and sold. We must help those who are suffering, but we may not use a good end to justify an evil means. The respect for every human life is an essential condition of our society.

Any method of genetic manipulation that involves the alteration or destruction of human embryos is nothing more than Frankenstein science.

Did you catch it? It's a bit clever.

My first question to this letter writer would be "Where do the embryos in question come from?" I'm guessing they aren't yanking them out of women's bodies after they have been heteronormatively inseminated by their lawfully wedded husbands. These embryos, for the most part, have been created in petri dishes with the express purpose of being selected for their health and desirability and then placed into women's wombs with "scientific" implements, after choosing among several of them so that the customers can keep the best one(s) and discard the rest.

"Conception", in this case, takes place in the lab. And the embryos in question are "commodities" that are being bought and sold already. That's why they exist in the first place. The fact that the ones being used for research were going to be thrown away doesn't seem to affect the writer. How is this evil? Sounds like the creation of these embryos should be classified as evil, if the writer wants to be consistent. Either that or we need to keep every single one we create frozen forever. We can keep them with Ted Williams's head, I guess.

Oh, and "self-directing"? Not sure what that's supposed to mean. But I'm sure it's some kind of religious code.

Dumb Letters: That Robe Is Sooooo Gay

Shall we do a dumb letter? Yeah, it's been a while. We've missed several months of sheer idiocy. Back to the grind.

Here's a lulu from the Boston Globe. I love the title: Judge's Decision on Prop. 8 Tears at Throat of Democracy

It isn't just bad. It tears at the throat of democracy. Ow! Stop! You're tearing at my throat! And I'm wearing white! I have to give them props for the vivid language, as dumb as I think the sentiment is.

Let's just reprint the whole damn thing, shall we?

THE DECISION by chief US district judge Vaughn Walker, who is openly gay, to overturn the voter-approved Proposition 8, which defines marriage as between one man and one woman in California, slices at the jugular of true democracy. His 138-page ruling is nothing more than an exercise in rationalizing without thinking rationally.

Actually, it was one of the most rationally argued decisions I've ever heard, legally, morally culturally and logically. And hey, he's openly gay? (Well, he isn't exactly open, but that's another story.) Two problems with that. First, if he were not gay and he decided the other way, would we then be able to say "A straight man passed this judgment! How dare he!" Second, the "openly" part. Would it be better or worse if he were a closeted gay? I'm not sure. Tell me, please, dear rational letter writer.

Walker bases his conclusion primarily on his ability to divine the “discriminatory intent’’ of California voters when they cast their votes for Proposition 8, but leaves out the possibility of his own preconceived bias as a gay man.

No, he didn't base his conclusion primarily, secondarily or tertiarily on discriminatory intent, although that was certainly in the bill and in its mostly out-of-state pimpers. (Does people in Utah pushing a bill in California "tear at the throat" of democracy?) He based it on equality before the law. Read it. No, really, read the fucking thing. It's about equality and whether the state has a compelling interest in discriminating. And his "preconceived bias" as a gay man seems to pale in comparison to your own, which you are about to show us.

Walker’s ruling illustrates that he does not understand the essential public purpose of marriage, which is to attach mothers and fathers to their children and to one another. He replaces this public purpose with private purposes of adults’ feelings and desires.

Do I even need to respond to this? Really? The public purpose of marriage is as a legal contract between two parties. And this is where equal protection comes in. The private purpose is whatever the crap you or your preferred religious institution want it to be. My dad remarried well after he or his wife had any intention of having children. Not married, they? I have two other sets of friends my age that have no intention of reproducing. Not married, they? My uncle has been divorced twice and widowed twice. He just married Lucky Lady #5. Why? He doesn't want to be alone. Not married, he? He got married for an "adult feeling", perhaps even a "desire". You wanna tell him? And how about people who can't conceive? Not married, they? I feel stupid even writing this, it's so obvious.

It’s time to put a stop to judges who redefine our most fundamental social institutions and use liberal courts to obtain political goals they cannot obtain at the ballot box.

Okay, let's just quit now. Why have judges if they don't have the power to overturn laws? Really, what purpose do they serve if we cannot sue what we consider to be an unjust law? Why even argue the decision on its merits if the ballot box is supposed to be the end of the story?

Howzabout we pass a law saying no one past child-bearing age can get married? Okay? Or maybe no one who has had a letter published in the Boston Globe? Sound good? If we did, I'd support your right to sue to have that law overturned. Because the people don't always know what's best. And they rarely know what's constitutional.

Dumb Letters: Whatever It Is, I'm Against It

Some of them just leave you scratching your heads. This one is almost entirely incoherent. I have no idea what the writer is really getting at, other than "I'm a concerned citizen and I have something to say." Although the Globe editorial board tried to give it some focus in its title.

I am an unenrolled voter. President Obama did not say anything in his State of the Union address that he should not have said long before, and he could not list a single achievement.

Um, okay. So would he have been better off not saying it at all, then? So you could then complain about how he never said it? And if he had listed his achievements, I'm guessing you would have complained that the speech was self-congratulatory and called him an arrogant narcissist. Right?

He chided the Republicans in attendance, and made a misguided attack on the Supreme Court of the United States, by calling for legislation around its recent ruling on campaign spending.

Some of us don't consider this misguided. In fact, most of us don't. The Supreme Court has a long history of making bad decisions. And Congress has a long history of passing laws to mitigate the effects of Supreme Court decisions, most recently the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay act. Often the Supreme Court makes a ruling in a certain way because Congress has not been clear on what the law should be and so the court reverts to the closest constituional interpretation they can make. If this doesn't sit well with Congress, they clarify the law. If the court doesn't like this, they strike the new law down when a case comes before them. It's called checks and balances. Don't like it? Get a new country.

Oh, and if anyone ever deserved a good chiding, it was the Republicans in attendance. He said nothing out of line about them. In fact, under the circumstances, he was downright charitable towards them. He's done nothing but reach out to them to try and work with the minority party. He's received nothing but scorn (and zero votes) for his efforts. It takes two to tango. And one party isn't dancing. GWB was much much worse when it came to chiding the opposition party over not following his demands.

He promised to open up the rolls in the military to special interests, which
should be the military’s call.

And who is the commander-in-chief of the military? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? And how much do like that "special interests" business? Exactly which "special interest" are we discussing here? The oil lobby?

President Obama has a long way to go, and continuing to put down traditional
American values will not get him far.

If anyone can point to a single instance of Obama doing anything of the sort I haven't seen it. Exactly what "traditional American values" are we talking about here? Fairness? Equality? (Whiteness, maybe?) This dude is making this up. And I'm not sure how "far" he wants to go, but right now he's the POTUS. And he didn't get there by being anything other than what he is right now.

The nation has woken up, but the current leadership has not.

When did this happen? Woken up from what? The implication here is that the 2008 election happened in some kind of drunken stupor and that cute flight attendant has turned out to be, in the harsh light of day, not only 15-20 years older than we thought but also of dubious gender. And married to a member of the Gambino family. Now that we're all right and sane we don't like what we really liked just a year ago. Okay, bud. Whatever you say.

There is still time for the president to lead and prosper. However, his State of the Union address was unconvincing as to his willingness to put country first.

What the hell is that supposed to mean? Which country was he talking about when he said "my fellow Americans" and "God bless the United States of America"? Slovenia? This was the McCain campaign's slogan and they proved how country-first they were by picking an uneducated spokesmodel to be one rather irregular heartbeat away from the presidency. If Obama isn't putting country first, then what exactly is he doing? Is there some agenda that we don't know about that is ahead of the country's? The writer doesn't say. Which is par for the course.

Dumb Letters: It's All So Simple If You're Not Nuts

From today's LA Times:

So U.S. border security officials learned enough about alleged Nigerian bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab while Flight 253 was airborne that they planned to question him when he landed. I guess they wanted to be sure the horses were well clear of the barn.

Had a sky marshal been aboard this high-risk flight, as we were promised by our government after 9/11, it would have been a simple matter to have the airline send the flight crew a data message while en route, whereupon the sky marshal could have handcuffed the suspect, then searched him -- while the horses were still safely in the barn.

Is this administration nuts, or is it me?

It's you.

It's always a simple matter, isn't it? That 20/20 hindsight sure makes things nice and clear, doesn't it? Damn, if I ran the circus we'd have some awesome shit.

There are over 30,000 commerical flights in the air every day in this country. Let's just say one air marshal can handle being on two a day. That means we'd need 15,000 trained air marshals in action every day. So, taking weekends, vacations and personal days into account, we really need about 25,000 air marshals.

How much does an air marshal make? If answer.com is to be believed, between $36,400 and $83,900. You can do the math. Nah, I will. If we take a pure average, we're looking at $1,503,750,000 a year. I suppose that's chump change when you compare it to the bank bailout or, heck, any of our foreign wars. But do we really want to add this to our already anxiety-ridden flights?

So, after sending everyone through a full body scan, removing their shoes, digging through all of their bags and making them sit quietly in their seats for at least the last hour of the flight with no book to read, no iPod to listen to and no snacks, stress-reducing grippy things or barf bags we'll have a sky marshal in there to whom we can send a text message so he'll know which dude got through all of the other stuff. Oh, and rather than watch the dude like a hawk, he'll just cuff him. 'Cause that's how we roll now.

Yep, it's you.

Dumb Letters: Still Not Paying for That

Rarely is such a clear distillation of a simple-minded mindset presented to us. I can't even call it an ideology because it doesn't even rise to that level.

From today's LA Times.

I am not so worried about the employee retirement program that will reduce the city of Los Angeles' civilian workforce at least 9%. It all boils down to priorities. In order of importance:

1. Tax cuts.

2. Tax cuts.

3. Tax cuts . . .

26. Tax cuts.

27. Make sure the city can be a reasonable place to live.

There is always fat and waste to cut.

Yep. The myopia about tax cuts is just mind-boggling to me. It says a lot about the anti-government forces that they have nothing else to add to the discussion other than "I don't want to be taxed so much." There is never a discussion about where the tax funds are going, whether the assessment is progressive enough or whether anything worthwhile is being done with those funds. All that matters is their personal bottom line.

It's most hilarious when they tack on to their "list" that the only other thing anyone should do is "make sure the city is a reasonable place to live". Yes, we'll do that by cutting taxes. Which pay for roads, parks, police, sanitation and schools. Smart.

Dumb Letters: Betraying America by Upholding American Ideals

It's a sign of how low we've sunk that bringing criminals to trial is now considered by some to be a capitulation to terrorists. I would have thunk that letting them go and giving them Hershey's Kisses would be capitulation. But apparently putting them on trial in a court of justice is now tantamount to surrender. I guess the lynch mob is a sign of progress for some people.

A story in the NYTimes about the impending 9/11 trials in New York City elicited letters ranging from those proud of our (occassional) adherence to our own standards of human rights to those out for heads on a stick. This is my favorite.

The plan to bring the terrorists to New York City is an abomination and easily the most pernicious step the Obama administration has taken to date.

Wow. Strong language. Merriam-Webster's defines "pernicious" as "highly injurious or destructive" and notes that it infers "irreparable harm done through evil or insidious corrupting ior undermining". The implication here is not one of poor judgment but of actual conspiracy. It's a willful act of treason against the president's own country. Beyond that, the writer calls it only "the most pernicious" of what are presumably many pernicious things the Big O has done. This guy must really hate America. I won't even get into abomination.

It is almost certain that such a monumentally misguided decision will have a chilling and deleterious effect not only on our ability to prosecute current and future detainees, but also on our ability to prosecute the overall war on terror. These are war criminals, not American citizens.

So if you aren't an American citizen you must be a war criminal. It's one or the other. And if you aren't an American citizen you apparently have no rights whatsoever. That's us, America, the shining beacon for the rest of the world, where all men are created equal, as long as they were born here. (And white.)

The reason you have a Guantánamo in the first place is to avoid the circus that this will inevitably become.

Actually, no. The reason we have a Guantanamo in the first place is because we needed a place where no laws exist. We can't give people American trials there because they aren't in America. And we can't give them Geneva Convention rights because they aren't in Cuba. They aren't anywhere so we can just make up whatever rules suit our purposes.

And any trial has the potential to become a circus. If that potential was a factor in whether to prosecute any trial then we wouldn't bother with half of them. I guess we shouldn't have tried O.J. Simpson or Bernie Madoff or David Berkowitz or Charles Manson or Timothy McVeigh. Can't risk a circus now.

In so doing, the president has placed politics above principle and consequently has violated his most sacred oath: the protection of American citizens.

Politics? What politics? There's nothing more boring than justice, dude. The Idiot had no problem trampling on our constitution for political reasons. The principles that Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder are dealing in here are the ones in that same constitution. You know, the one that says that everyone (everyone) gets their day in court. And their day in court is also ours. They get to plead their case but we get to plead ours too. Don't like it? You can leave.

And here's some news for you. I know that listening to The Idiot for 8 years may have given you some goofy ideas about what our government, and specifically our president, is supposed to do. But, putting aside the fact that this decision will not endanger American lives in any way (do we really think that they'd let this go to trial if they didn't have a slam-dunk case? or that they'd really let them go if they were actually acquitted?), no American president has ever taken an oath to protect the American people. They take an oath to uphold the constitution. You can read it here. It's short and sweet. Our ideals are more important than any life or lives. And way more important than yours.

Dumb Letters: The Oxy Morons

I don't get some people. Here's a couple writing to the NYTimes about what they didn't like about "Sesame Street".

Two decades ago, when our children were young, we weren’t wild about “Sesame Street.”

Most of the puppet characters were male, and the choppy format seemed designed to help reduce a child’s attention span.

Okay, I don't think that the first area of critique is an entirely valid reason for not watching something. If most of the characters were female, would that be okay? And the writers use the word "most". So there were some female characters, apparently. Not enough? What's the right amount? And were the male puppets (that, from what I know, lack genitalia) pushing some agenda of male-domination? If they were, I missed it. Which was probably part of CPW's nefarious plan, I guess.

The second point is a valid critique, althought the letter writers infer an active plot to reduce the chidrens' attention spans by using the phrase "designed to" instead of something on the lines of "had the unintended consequences of". This leaves a bad taste.

And no one really learns anything from a passive experience like television.
“Educational television” is still an oxymoron.

Okay, this is bullshit. We learn passively all the time. I'm all for hands-on education, but it isn't the only way we learn. I taught myself to read by watching "Sesame Street". I learned from it. It's simply impossible that I'm the only one. I continue to learn by watching television. It's not that you watch. It's what you watch. Just like it's what you read, what you listen to and who you talk to. And yet these snobs dismiss the entire concept with "no one really learns anything". So I guess they didn't ever tell their kids not to touch the stove. That would be passive learning. Better to let them learn by touching it themselves. "Educational television" is not now, nor ever was, an oxymoron.

But wait, these people can't leave well enough alone.

Our children preferred a now-forgotten series, introduced by James Earl Jones, called “Long Ago and Far Away,” which presented a wonderful tale accompanied by beautiful art.

There were no product tie-ins like Tickle Me Elmo, though, so that program wasn’t a moneymaker in the way that “Sesame Street” is.

WHAT? They went right from complaining about how nobody learns anything from television to extolling the virtues of...a television program.

And the fact that "Sesame Street" licensed their characters for merchandising is entirely irrelevant to the conversation. The program is the program. The products exist entirely outside of it. You can watch the show without buying the Tickle Me Elmo, believe it or not. I'm really not sure how one program is better than another because it didn't market its characters. Is making money a bad thing? Is it better to give money to CTW, that has a mission to educate kids, albeit in a way that these two chuckleheads find inferior to wonderful tales and beautiful art, or to some for-profit whose only interest is making money?

These are the kinds of people that even liberals would want to slap in the face.

Dumb Letters: You Have No Idea What I'm Going Through!

Sometimes I'm just not sure.

This person wrote in to the LA Times to decry the horrible horrible liberals infesting today's Republican party. Didn't know about that? Me neither.

Describing people like Dede Scozzafava as a "moderate Republican" is disingenuous. She's a liberal on almost every issue.

The GOP rebellion is led by those rejecting the left's attempt to undermine their party with liberal Democrats who pose as Republicans.

Wait wait wait. It's the left that's undermining your party? The Democratic Party doesn't even count as left-wing. What leftists get anywhere near the Republican Party? Or want to, for that matter?

You may get an occasional person with a gay relative that keeps their mouth shut on gay rights issues. (Doesn't fight for them, by the way. Just doesn't actively fight against them.) But since when are moderates, i.e. persons who occasionally think for themselves on one or two issues, been some kind of disease inflicted on you guys by the left. What are they, spies? They chose their own party, ya big dummy.

And by the way, a "liberal Democrat" is not the same thing as a liberal. It's all relative. Real liberals are as disgusted with their party as you seem to be with yours.

News stories imply these core believers are extremists -- but these are accusations by a media that for decades have been in the pocket of Democrats and supported radical agendas.

Like the Civil Rights Act. And the Environmental Protection Agency. And the Constitution.

Consider the following alternative scenario: How would liberals feel if the Democratic Party had pro-life candidates who supported the war on terror, reduced taxes, voted against bailouts, didn't want government healthcare and saw the United Nations as a threat to American sovereignty?

Okay, this is the part when I lose him. Is this guy serious? That, by the way, is not a rhetorical question. I really don't know. Is this guy dumb enough to not know how many Democrats support one or more of those positions? Or is he making an ironic point? Does he actually understand and feel our pain and this is his clever way of commiserating and therefore bringing us gently into his point?

Pro-life candidates? How about Bob Casey? And Harry Reid, who is only the Senate Majority Leader.

Supported the war on terror? How about...ALL OF THEM. What was the vote on the Patriot Act again? Oh yeah, 98-1. Thank you, Russ Feingold, for spoiling the no-hitter.

Reduced taxes? Um, yeah. This actually happens quite a bit. The Dems just don't ordinarily agree to give a lot of money to people who already have a lot of money. Like the really really rich people who got really really richer under GWB. You may note that Barack Obama promised to, and did, reduce taxes on everyone making under $250K per annum. And a good chunk of them are now screaming in the streets about how high their taxes are and how they can't take it any more. Because Glenn Beck asked them who they believed, him or their lyin' accountant's tables.

Bailouts? That, I believe, was a Republican plan. Plenty of our guys on board though, yes.

Government healthcare? Joe Lieberman ring a bell? Not Democrat enough? Okay. Ben Nelson? Mary Landrieu? Max Baucus? Max Baucus. You know, the head of the freaking committee that deals with it?

And UN as a threat to American sovereignty? Okay, you got me there. This is the one that makes me think he may be serious. I can't think of a single Democrat that has gone on record with that paranoid fantasy.

You were so close, letter writer. You almost had me. But you pushed it.

Dumb Letters: Problem? What Problem?

You know, I could pick a dumb letter out every day just on health care and what passes for debate in the this country.

Here's a nice one from the Chicago Tribune that's basically just the usual self-reliance thing. But there's a myopia to it that is alarmingly typical of those on the other side.

This is another one of those letters that has something to pick apart in every other line. Let's do that. If you want to read the whole thing first, I'll wait.

Done? Okay.

I find it rather disheartening to read many of the letters to the editor regarding the health-care debate. I wonder where people come up with some of the stuff they're griping about.

Uh oh. This spells trouble. We're going to see a lot of this in this letter. "I don't have any problems, so why would anybody else? Your HMO just denied your claim and your husband died? I'm fine, thank you. What's your problem?"

All of my experiences with the doctors and hospitals were very positive. I never once thought that I would want to go to another country for any of this work.

Great. Good for you. But that's not what the debate is about. It's about how it's managed and paid for. The doctors and hospitals aren't the problem. The insurance racket is.

And I never thought that it was someone else's responsibility to pay for it. Whatever happened to self-reliance?

Here we go. We're going to revisit this, because the letter writer later complains about "handouts". You knew it was coming.

The Democratic Party has done everything that it can to make as many people count on handouts as possible. We subsidize housing, heating, cooling, food, school lunches and breakfasts, day care; now we want to add health care to that list.

What, like this is some kind of plot? To what end? What do we gain by making people dependent on "handouts"? More votes? Wow. Great. Hey, it worked for the Republicans. They hand out so much to corporations that they all count on it now.

And I have two things to say about those awful hadnouts. First, all of the things that the letter writer mentions as subsidized are good things, essential things, things that a caring society would have no problem with.

Second, let's add a few things that Mr. Self-Reliance has undoubtedly taken advantage of himself. The police, the fire department, the highway department, the military and, not just the school lunches, but the whole damn school system. Want to be self-reliant? Put out your own fires. Take down that mugger by yourself. Teach your own kids (actually, don't; please don't). And invade that foreign nation on your own. Enjoy.

Nearly everyone I know has good things to say about their health care.

Yes, we know. But that isn't the problem. Don't you read my blog?

The main problem seems to be the cost of insurance.

Ah, good. Now we're getting to a point of agreement. Maybe this guy is okay after all.

It seems to me that the main reason for the high costs are that they are caused by government regulations. They force insurance companies to cover things that have nothing to do with a person's health, such as Viagra, fertility treatments, etc.

WHAT? You really think that this is the problem? A few boner pills? The cost of all of the Viagra in the world wouldn't cover one CEO's salary. If the government really wanted to force the insurance companies to do something, it would force them to cover everybody and not exclude based on pre-existing conditions. Or better yet, make all profits illegal. But they won't. They get too much money from them. Which is why things like Viagra are covered, by the way.

Let's have real competition in the market like we do with everything else. Health Savings Accounts work great. You have every incentive to go to the doctor only when you really need to, as you get to keep the money you don't spend.

Do I have to point out how stupid this is? Let's think about the "more competition" thing. How do insurance companies make money? Not by providing care but by denying it. More competition would mean companies working harder to drive down costs. There is one, and only one, way to do this: by denying more claims. Great idea, sport.

And Health Savings Accounts. They "work great" if you have money in them. If you don't, then what? My wallet works great when it's full of pictures of Andrew Jackson. When it doesn't, I can't get any of the stores to give me anything. I say I have a wallet and they just laugh at me. But don't worry. Competition will take care of everything.

And if it's in my account, then the benefit of not going to the doctor is really pointless. If I spend the money I saved by not going to the doctor (which would stimulate the economy, by the way), then it's not in my account in case I need it, which is the whole point of having the account. And if I do need it and use it all for health expenditures, well, now it's empty. What if something else happens? Do you understand this, dipshit?

I have incentive not to eat food too. The less I eat, the more money I keep. Think how much I could save by fasting for 365 days a year.

These accounts are in the Democrats' cross-hairs and will be gone if they get this health-care bill through. The only reason I can possibly think of why they want to get rid of them is that they work and people like them.

Okay, they don't formally exist. So they can't be in anyone's cross-hairs. Dude, if you want to keep an account for yourself strictly for health care, there is nothing to stop you from doing so. And hey, you know what else works and people like? Medicare. And all of those aforementioned "handouts". But this guy has a problem with that.

That is the problem. They want to control every aspect of as many people's lives as possible.

By giving them more choices. Yes, it all makes perfect sense. Knucklehead.

Dumb Letters: I'm Not Rude, You're Boring

This letter (the second one on the page) bugs the heck out of me on two very different levels. It's in response to a bit about just how rude it is to be diddling with your name-brand smart-phone device during a business meeting. Read letter first, read me gripe later.

If listeners are pulling out their BlackBerries at a meeting, speakers should take it as a signal that they need to improve their communication skills. It is the speaker's responsibility to be concise, show his or her commitment to the topic and reach out to make a connection with each listener in the room.

Making an impact in a meeting doesn't just happen; the speaker needs to work at it.

Too many executives get caught up in what they're saying that they don't think about the impression they're sending out by how they're saying it. No wonder listeners are tuning out and turning on their BlackBerries.

Okay, first off, rude is rude. I shouldn't have to, but let me say that again with italics and bold and - what the hell - all caps: RUDE IS RUDE. I don't care if the speaker is as boring as the TP(X)611. If you have a meeting scheduled from 12-1, then you can pick up your messages at 1:01. End of story. If you even have one of those things in the meeting, you may as well just say "fuck you" to the speaker and be done with it. Obviously, your time is much more important than anyone else's and you shouldn't deign to be in this meeting with these low-lifes who bothered to show up and meet you in person rather than ping you on your little toy from their secure undisclosed location, which is probably the Starbucks on Broadway and 51st. Get over yourself.

Second gripe: this is another self-serving letter, a close relative to yesterday's dumb letter. But in a way, more pernicious. Guess what the letter-writer does for a living? Here's what it says under her name.

The writer is a speech coach.

Ha! You know, I probably could have told you that without even reading that tidbit. Of course, she can't make any money off of people just having common courtesy. So it's obviously the speaker's fault. And hey, she can help! For free, I'm sure. This is essentially an advertisement for herself, published gratis by our pals at the NYT. Congrats, fellas. Either you're complicit or you've been had.

And what great logic. Next time I'm at the movies and I'm bored I'm just going to whip out my banjo and start hollerin' some folk tunes. Nobody else will mind. After all, it's the filmmaker's responsibility to keep me engaged. If they can't, well, it's no wonder the banjo comes out and "Come Home Bill Bailey" takes over. What else am I supposed to do? It can only lead to better movies.

You-Must-Really-Think-We're Dumb Letters: The Cost of Health Care

Some people say that numbers don't lie. Others say "There are lies, damn lies and statistics."

I say that numbers don't lie, people do. Which places me squarely in the middle of those two sayings. That's just like me.

Here's a lovely letter about health care costs from a chap at the Pacific Research Institute, as published in today's New York Times. (By the way, the PRI's website touts the organization as "promoting individual freedom and personal responsibility". Guess where they're coming from.)

A recent study that I conducted for the Pacific Research Institute contradicts the majority opinion registered in your recent poll, namely that “government could do a better job of holding down health-care costs than the private sector.” Across nearly four decades, the opposite has been true.

The institute’s study compares the cost increases of all health care nationwide apart from the two flagship government-run programs, Medicare and Medicaid, with Medicare’s cost increases. Since 1970, Medicare’s costs — even without the prescription drug benefit — have risen 34 percent more per patient.

The government has done a far worse job at holding down health care costs.

Hmm, notice anything missing there? I do. Monsieur notes that Medicare/Medicaid costs have risen at a higher rate per patient compared with what I'm assuming is a national average. (He doesn't say exactly what the comparison number is.) But it doesn't say what the actual cost is for each.

Is this important? Let's say I get my broccoli at Sam's Government Produce for $1.50. You get your broccoli at Max's Corporate Fruit and Veggie Stand for oh, $90.00. Forty years later, the price at Sam's has gone up to $10.50. Wow, a 600% increase! That's way more than the mere 50% increase at Max's, where you're now paying just $135.00 for your broccoli. So Max clearly knows how to keep his costs down, right? Right?

But wait, there's more. This "study" goes back to 1970, which means that about half of the data come from a period before managed care became the standard in the 1990s. Hardly a fair comparison. Coincidence? Uh-huh. I'd like to see the numbers from, say, 1995 on.

Sit down. We're not done here. This also doesn't take into account the quality of the care. Insurance companies hold down costs, as the first letter-writer in the NYT link notes, by denying care to existing patients and by charging giant deductibles that dissuade people from seeking treatment in the first place. Oh yeah, and by not even covering people who might actually need the coverage (i.e. sick people). So, a large and costly segment of the population is not included in the study for the writer's "good guys". Here's a surprise: sick people cost more to treat than healthy people. Who'da thunk?

This attempt at "research" is a joke. It's a level below a damn lie.

Dumb Letters: I'm Not Paying for That Either

From today's NYTimes, a response to an editorial concerning a potential tax on soda and other sugar-based empty-calorie drinks.

What happened to personal responsibility? What happened to parental responsibility? When did taxation become the best solution to any problem? Is the federal government the only entity in our country that can raise children now?

This is just another idea on how to raise money for state-sponsored health care with a fig leaf of a reason to do so. Let’s try removing soda machines from our schools, providing healthier school lunches and ensuring that our gym classes are financed. There are plenty of commonsense things that can be done to achieve healthier progeny, alas not many that simultaneously finance health care.

Hmm. Looks like this isn't a person who really cares much about this issue. It's just a knee-jerk anti-tax response.

Let's begin with the opening statement. We've got four rhetorical questions. Questions 1, 2 and 4 are the standard libertarian mantra that we're all responsible for our own lives and government should just butt the heck out, cultural forces be damned. But these are a bit of a smoke screen for Question 3, which is basically "stop taxing me". For anything. Ever.

How do we know this is the real issue? Let's go to paragraph 2, wherein the writer gives us some other "ideas" on how to reduce obesity in children. (I should point out that, contrary to the suggestion by the writer that these are original ideas, almost all of them are suggested in the editorial about which this letter was written.) So, if government doesn't have solutions to our problems, why are you suggesting them? Who's going to kick the soda machine vendors out? And how do we make up the lost revenue when they do? And how, pray tell, do we propose to finance those gym classes? Surely not taxes. Taxes are bad, in case you haven't heard.

The writer probably has a 12-Coke-a-day habit and isn't interested in having to shell out a few more bucks to feed his habit. The fig leaf is on this writer, who is so against "socialized" health care that any tax on anything that may be used to provide it in any form must be seen as bad.

Dumb Letters: Jury Rules

I hate to call this one a dumb letter. It's not really dumb. But I disagree with it strongly.

Actually, I'm going to bring in a few of the letters on this topic. The letters are in response to an article in the NYT about jurors -- who are supposed to be trapped in their little courtroom world in order to avoid outside influence in a case -- using the internet (thank you, iPhone) to get information during the trial.

It's a thorny issue. I don't have all of the answers for it. But here's an uber-democratic missive from a gentleman in Miami.

Our system of justice claims to seek the whole truth, and that needs the whole facts, not a censored set of information controlled by a judge and lawyers.

Jurors should be encouraged to participate in a trial and discover information for themselves by any means possible — Internet, books and so on. They should also be encouraged to question prosecutors, defendants and witnesses, with the judge and lawyers assisting (not controlling) the process.

We need to adjust our justice system to modern times and make it a more participatory, democratic process and discard the closely controlled, adversarial game favored by judges and lawyers. Open up the system and let the facts fall where they may.

Okay, I'm all for more information. I like information. I seek it out relentlessly. And I served on a jury once. It was a murder trial. There was some information that we didn't get but were made aware of after-the-fact by the judge. This information would have swayed some of the jury into imposing a harsher sentence on the defendant. (I thought that what was presented in court was already more than enough.) I didn't get any outside dirt on the case, but over the course of the trial I did manage to read all of Gunter Grass's "The Flounder" while waiting in the jury room for the lawyers and judge to hash out what we could hear and what we couldn't. For the record, it didn't sway my opinion. Ultimately, a nonsensical verdict of manslaughter was given in what was clearly a case of murder. (Manslaughter is for accidental killing, like from drunk driving. It is impossible to "accidentally" kill someone by shooting them in the chest from two feet away, unless your defense is that you thought it was a marshmallow gun.)

In addition, I have a friend who was peripherally involved in a murder case. He was a witness to an act of violence against someone who was later murdered by the same perpetrator. This prior act was also considered inadmissible. After the fact, some of the jurors in the case were on a national television newsmagazine. They were played the 911 tapes of the prior incident and admitted that they would have been swayed by this if it had been presented in court.

But there is a reason that some information is inadmissible. It isn't because it's not the truth. We may not agree with the judges' rationales (and I certainly didn't in the above cases), but they make their decisions based on their knowledge of the law and not on emotions or a sense of retribution (we hope). I certainly don't think we should just trust all authority figures. But I also don't think we should always trust ourselves and we certainly shouldn't always trust the 12 random people who couldn't get out of jury duty and who have no knowledge of the law other than what they saw in the O.J. Simpson trial, which was hardly a stellar example of grave jurisprudence.

Back to the letter. The writer suggests that the jury should be allowed to question the lawyers, witnesses and defendants. This may sound great on the surface. But after my experience on a jury, all I can say is I am utterly relieved that some of these people never had a chance to open their mouths in that courtroom. It was bad enough listening to them in deliberation. Some of them didn't seem to have heard anything said in the courtroom other than what they wanted to hear. Others didn't seem to have heard even that.

There has to be some kind of a bar (no pun intended) for participation. Otherwise, we won't have trials, we'll have "The Jerry Springer Show". ("Yo, how come you didn't slap that bitch?") Another letter writer also has a much higher opinion of the general populace than I do.

Jurors’ use of the Internet reflects both the day-to-day importance of the Internet as well as a revolt against a system that insists on keeping intelligent and discerning jurors from being given the whole truth before they render a verdict. We should have greater faith in jurors’ abilities to separate and weigh evidence properly.

Okay, again this is great in theory. But I counted one other juror in my trial who seemed truly intelligent and discerning. There were about three or four others who seemed at least marginally capable of coming around to reason, if such a thing should ever rear its homely head. The rest of them I wouldn't trust with the decision on whether we should all stab ourselves in the eyes with chopsticks. You can have greater faith in people, if that's your thing. I sure don't.

Another letter writer modulates this concept some.

Allowing jurors to submit questions that are screened by the judge for witnesses is one way to overcome the limitations of the purely adversarial trial system.

As full an account of the truth as possible is the goal of a trial, and answering admissible juror questions can mitigate the problem of jurors seeking better understanding of the facts of a case outside the courtroom.

Okay, I can get behind that. This would allow some participation from the jury but keep control of the situation in the hands of the professionals. The judge could decide which, if any, questions were relevant and mediate in their dissemination. In this case, the middle ground is entirely reasonable and should be acceptable to all parties.

Dumb Letters: I'm Not Paying for That

I'm a bit behind on my Dumb Letters. Here's a missive to the NY Times from yesterday.

I have happily paid federal income taxes for 64 years. President Obama’s repeal of our current ban on embryonic stem cell research will force my tax money to be used for what I believe is murder.

As a Christian, and a Roman Catholic, I know that my beliefs are shared by a multitude of other Americans. We are appalled, angered and saddened to be powerless.

Elaine C. Murphy
Boynton Beach, Fla.

Ms. Murphy, I hope you're enjoying the feelings that I, a pacifist, have been feeling since the beginning of The Idiot's war in Iraq. I feel for you. Really, I do. But before I allow myself to commiserate too greatly, let me engage in a bit of Can You Top This?

About half of my tax dollars are currently going to the military. A fraction of a percent of your tax dollars -- so small you'll never miss it -- will be going to stem cell research. But don't worry. When you get Alzheimer's you won't remember any of it. Your soul will rest easy.

The money is being spent very efficiently though. The teeny tiny amount of money that's being spent on stem cell research is only going to "murder" those teeny tiny embryos that a) are barely visible to the naked eye and b) were going to be thrown out anyway.

On the other hand, the massive amount of money being spent on Iraq is going to murder hundreds of thousands of innocent sentient beings of all ages. Beings with histories, families and friends. As a Christian and Roman Catholic, how do you feel about that?

Cry me a river for your precious embryos.

BONUS SMART LETTER:

On an entirely unrelated note, in yesterday's Washington Post, letter writer Walter Bardenwerper of Bethesda, MD says it all quite nicely.

Economics professor N. Gregory Mankiw of Harvard University derided President Obama's tax proposals as "one citizen" laying claim "to the wealth of his more productive neighbor".

What a generalization. Despite my own misgivings about the direction and timing of the president's tax plans, is it really so evident that a competent nurse is less "productive" than Citigroup's Charles Prince, who, it might be argued, helped to cripple that giant bank; that a dedicated police officer is less "productive" than former Merrill Lynch chief executive John Thain, whose $1.2 million expenditure of company money on renovating his office included $87,000 for a rug; and that an inspiring teacher is less "productive" than limousine liberal Tom Daschle, who failed to pay more than $100,000 in taxes?

I suspect that Mr. Mankiw would agree that it is our good fortune that not every citizen dedicates his or her productive energies principally to the pursuit of personal wealth. And while honest productivity does yield honest wealth in some professions, I doubt he would seriously contend that the accumulation of wealth necessarily denotes a more productive citizen.

Challenging the president's stated redistributionist intentions with a gross oversimplification conveys an arrogance reminiscent of the departed Bush administration and undermines a legitimate -- and necessary -- debate on future tax policy.

Dumb Letters: And Yet More Bad Economics from Scary McStupid

Geez, they're really pushing this one. Here's one from the Boston Globe, responding to a columnist's suggestion that Massachusetts, which has a flat income tax, might try >gasp< progressive taxation.

TOM COSGROVE advocates changing our state constitution so that those who make at least $250,000 could be taxed a little more in tough times. He writes, "The constitution currently mandates that the state tax all citizens, regardless of income, at the same rate," and argues that progressive taxation is "the fairest way to distribute the tax burden." Since the wealthiest are a quiet minority, they are being discriminated against. We can call it wealth redistribution, or proclaim it is fair, but at its core it is discrimination. What would happen if we proposed a higher tax for women, or blacks, or gays? The outcry would be enormous. Just because someone makes more money doesn't mean they should pay more than those who don't. Do they drive more on the roads or use the educational system more?

The wealthy minority who are being targeted by President Obama's proposed budget are being treated unfairly. There will be a backlash. Charitable spending, entrepreneurialism, and small-business hiring will be affected.

Call these moves that Cosgrove wants for the state and the president wants to implement for the country what they are: discrimination in its purest form.

Kevin A. Richardson II
Beverly

This has more holes in it than Dunkin' Donuts at 6AM. I almost don't even want to say anything and just let this one stew in its own stupidity without comment. Alas, I cannot. I do it for you, dear reader. And for me. I need to vent.

"What would happen if we proposed a higher tax for women, or blacks, or gays?" How mind-boggling is it that this jerk is comparing progressive taxation to a civil rights violation? Oh no! The poor rich! Who are...A MINORITY! Woe unto them and the horrible unfair burden of paying a bit more to keep their state functioning at a barely acceptable level for those lousy free-loaders.

"Just because someone makes more money doesn't mean they should pay more than those who don't." Um, yes it does. Blood from a stone and all that. "Do they drive more on the roads or use the educational system more?" By this logic, even a flat tax is unfair. Everyone should pay the same amount in total, rather than a percentage of their income. Is that what this meathead is arguing? Everyone drop your $50 in the bucket and we'll call it a year.

"There will be a backlash." Ah, yes. Just like in yesterday's letter. The rich will rise up and take their country back. By not hiring people. Listen, nobody hires anyone out of altruism. They do it to make more money. Except maybe the person who wrote yesterday's letter, who seems to have some other issues. If you have a need, you will hire someone. Your tax burden has virtually no effect on that. And the charitable giving that you won't be doing? Unnecessary if we just give it straight to those people in the first place. So go ahead and shoot that hostage.

"Call these moves that Cosgrove wants for the state and the president wants to implement for the country what they are: discrimination in its purest form." Maybe not its purest form, but it is discrimination of a sort. The good kind. Discrimination isn't always a bad word. "Hey, why are only criminals being put into jail? That's discrimination!" "Why are only really talented people allowed to play left field for the Red Sox? That's discrimination!" "Why am I not allowed to have sex with Kevin A. Richardson II's wife and daughter(s)? That's discrimination!"

Ha! How fanciful my hyberbolic examples are. In reality, I would never have sex with anyone who would marry a creep like this.

Dumb Letters: Reaganomics Redux

Here's a pre-translation of the following letter from the LA Times: "I'm a selfish fucking bastard."

I'll take this one piecemeal.

I have employed about 50 people during the last 20 years, and my
family's taxable income is about $300,000. In order to avoid paying a higher percentage of taxes on all of my income, I will decrease output, lay off some staff and still end up keeping the same amount.

Wait a minute. If you're keeping the same amount either way, why on earth would you lay people off? You're saying that if it's all the same to you financially that you'd rather see someone else lose their job than to have more money go to the government in the form of taxes? This may be the most offensive thing I've heard in quite some time.

This person should not be employing anybody. She's like a child who grabs a toy that she doesn't want just to keep another child from having it. And then hits the other child in the head with it. I hope the person who gets laid off robs their former employer's house. And the cops don't come because they had no tax funding.

I have no incentive to hire people or expand my business, because the more I make, the more President Obama will take to expand government. This discourages expansion of the private sector. It will backfire with disastrous consequences for all.

Really? No incentive? None? This is one of the most tired arguments I've ever heard. It is a rare person caught between two tax brackets that will actually lose money by making a bit more money. If you're one of those people, then you do have an incentive to make more money: make more money. If you currently make (and I'm just making numbers up here, for the sake of argument) $300,000 and are taxed at x% but will be taxed at x+(x*0.10)% if you make $350,000, then your incentive is to make $400,000. And don't you want to make $500,000? More really is more, in almost all cases. The idea that higher taxation discourages expansion of the private sector is plain and utter bullshit. Yes, the more you make, the more you will pay in tax. But the more you make, the more you keep for yourself as well.

Oh, and I love how it's about Obama "taking" her money to "expand government". Everyone already gets taxed. The only question is how much. This is nothing new. The supposedly "disastrous" consequences of progressive taxation have never materialized. Ever.

It is repulsive that Obama is being allowed to take this country backward by pickpocketing the very people who run the private sector through their energy, money and creativity.

Kay Santos
Diamond Bar

It is repulsive that a cheap, manipulative dirtbag like yourself is in a position of power over anybody. If there were a tax on being an asshole, you'd be flat broke right now.

The whole idea that people like this are somehow being stolen from is laughable. This person admitted upfront that she would take a job away from someone out of spite, even if she gained no financial benefit from it. And we're supposed to feel bad for her? Fuck you.

Obama is indeed taking us backward. And not nearly fast enough. To a time when Reaganite prevarications like the letter writer's were routinely discredited. To a time when progressive taxation was the norm and we had a pretty robust economy, thank you very much. If this person doesn't like it I won't lose any sleep over it. But at least the person who gets fired by her will have better unemployment benefits.