Letters for September 9, 2004

We can assure ourselves that certain members of the Republican Party are always ready to enlighten us and give us a good chuckle. I am surprised that Mike “Laugh"erty isn’t currently on stage in that television contest about the last comic standing. In his Right Hook commentary, he slams Kerry for not running a business and for being a public servant. OK, so what is the point? His man, Bush, ran several businesses into the ground, so his record isn’t quite sterling. And as for living on someone else’s wealth, if Kerry is “leaching” off his wife, Bush must have “blood let” off of his father. And as for the hit that businesses are taking, forcing them to “greener pastures,” isn’t it more like they saw a chance for greater profit margins by paying some foreign worker one fifth of what they make in the United States? So if his ego is so inflated by the fact that some child in India is making products that have been outsourced, and some sweat shop in Indonesia is raking in more profit for its share holders, I hope it doesn’t affect his sleep. And, finally, maybe he can explain to those same people that lost their jobs how his greed was a part of their losing their jobs.

Benjamin Africa
via e-mail

What a friend
Re “Whipping a dead dog,” (RN&R, Letters, Aug. 26):

Steve Dunn writes, “Dogs have been and will continue to be man’s best friend.” Wrong. Man’s best friend is Jesus.

Bill Humphries
Reno

Left left
Re “Third parties—surviving the wind damage,” (RN&R, View from the fray, Aug. 26):

You will, I’m sure, appreciate “congratulations” on your paper’s rightward tilt. All of your recent articles were either apolitical, carefully neutral (we can criticize both sides—aren’t we just too above-it-all?), or supportive of Republicans.

I should also include “congratulations” to Deidre Pike, a now-reformed liberal. Apparently her Significant Republican has transformed her in a way my Republican husband hasn’t been able to transform me. Her joining in Howard Knudsen’s wish for a libertarian President makes that clear.

Libertarianism is a philosophy of the right. To be sure, it is not of the authoritarian right which currently sets Republican Party policies, but it is of the right, nevertheless. Surely Pike’s bit on “cheap drugs for the very poor” must have been included for its delicious irony; Libertarians, who believe that the government should do as little as possible to or for anyone, would never stand for Washoe County’s involvement in securing affordable prescription drugs for poor people. The Libertarian view of poor, chronically ill people (or any other part of the population which needs help) is “Hey, if you can find some private outfit to do it for you, fine—otherwise, tough; government does not exist to help you.”

The difference between Libertarians and the Authoritarians who currently run the Republican Party is that Libertarians also believe that government (1) doesn’t exist to wage a war for which it provides ever-shifting justifications; (2) doesn’t exist to prosecute the “war on drugs"; (3) doesn’t exist to presume its citizens to be traitors and therefore to pass laws enabling it to spy on them, and (4) does not exist to police the sex lives of consenting adults.

But, hey, what the heck? Right is right, and you’re proceeding apace toward joining the right wing media. Congratulations.

Kathleen Hirsch
via e-mail

The letters we get
Bob Dole and George Bush Sr. have apparently redefined the terms for awarding a Purple Heart. They claim that blood must be lost in war. Well, if their definition holds true, then I’m entitled to three Purple Hearts. After all, I had three copious, bloody menstrual periods while serving in Operation Desert Storm between the start of the air war and the end of the ground war.

Do I deserve even one Purple Heart? Hell no! Dole and Bush are idiots.

Lisa Miller
Sparks

Clarification
In an Aug. 26 story, we reported on community activist Sam Dehne: “Dehne is now a candidate for the Reno City Council, though he says he wants to lose to his favorite member, Jessica Sferrazza.”

That sentence was based on a report in the Reno Gazette-Journal which reported, “Dehne, who calls himself the ‘Encyclopedia of Reno Government,’ is challenging incumbent Councilwoman Jessica Sferrazza for the Ward 3 council seat. He calls Sferrazza his favorite member of the council and said he doesn’t plan on spending one penny on his election bid.”

Dehne says not trying to win is not the same thing as wanting to lose, and he does want to win.