Liberals indeed `generous' and `tolerant'

1/9/2001

One wonders what it must be like to be privileged to dwell in the rarified intellectual atmosphere of smug, self-assumed omniscience such as that displayed by the author of the Dec. 27 letter “Anti-liberal rants are good for a giggle.”

So liberals are “marked by generosity ... broad-minded, tolerant ... not bound by orthodoxy.” If by “generosity” one refers to the apparently limitless capacity of liberals to spend other peoples' money to do for people what in many cases they should be doing for themselves, thereby sentencing vast numbers of our populace to the demoralizing and initiative-sapping reliance upon cradle-to-grave federal government nannyhood, then I'd agree that liberals are “generous”.

And, if by “broad-minded,” “tolerant,” and “not bound by orthodoxy” one means the capacity to look the other way as the moral and spiritual underpinnings of our national character and the social and ethical principles upon which this nation was founded are subject to continuous degradation, derision, “political correctness,” and avoidance or circumvention via the initiatives of those who would interpret our Constitution as best suits their own political interests in current secular society rather than what is in our nation's long-term interest, then I'd agree that liberals are “broad-minded, tolerant, and not bound by orthodoxy.”

One might add to those characteristics “not limited by pangs of conscience” where abortion, cohabitation sans marriage, homosexuality, divorce, dysfunctional families, absence of responsibility for one's own actions, and the deplorable exposure of our youth to a devastating tide of sex and violence in current “entertainment” are concerned.

“Reactionaryville, Ohio” is, in my personal opinion, simply a sequel to the national lifestyle and limited governmental control of and/or interference with the normal entrepreneurial spirit and freedom to seek “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” envisioned by our Founding Fathers.

LOREN L. PACE

Findlay

Draconian gun-control laws have once again contributed to the loss of innocent lives. A madman in Massachusetts opened fire on seven of his co-workers, and not one of them was able to defend himself because Massachusetts denies its citizens the right of self-defense - the most fundamental right of all.

Guns save hundreds of thousands of lives every year, many times without a shot being fired. If the gunman's intended victims had been armed, there might have been no death toll at all. Thugs avoid people with guns because the risks are too great.

Guns are neither good nor inherently evil. Like chainsaws, they are simply an emergency-response tool for which there is no adequate substitute. We will never know the final thoughts of those victims, but I know that if I were in that situation, I would have been wishing I had some way of fighting back rather than passively waiting to be slaughtered. Everything the anti-gun types claim about firearms is either factually wrong or an outright lie. Usually it is both. Their arrogance in jeopardizing the lives of so many in the furtherance of their own agenda is reprehensible.

JOHN RANDALL

Bowling Green

As the mother of a bride, I commend SeaGate Centre for a job well done. The hall that had been booked in February for my daughter's October wedding was sold, and I was told that the hall was scheduled to be torn down and I would have to find somewhere else to have the reception.

Needless to say, we were in a panic. It was just by the grace of God and 23 phone calls to every hall I could think of that I even thought to try the SeaGate. They understood my situation and were just wonderful. I was stressed beyond belief and the SeaGate personnel made the reception planning a pleasure.

For all future brides, I am here to tell you that working with SeaGate's staff was a very pleasurable experience. The center is beautiful and the food was excellent. All of our guests commented that it was so elegant and how fortunate we were to have the reception there.

DIANE BOHLAND

Rolland Drive

Right before the end of the year President Clinton, by executive order, passed 29,000 pages of regulations. How many do you think he read? My guess is zero to none.

His reason for passing them is that being a political animal, he knows that many Americans, including those at The Blade, have an erroneous notion that the best politicians are those who get things done, and by passing this legislation he somehow will improve his pathetic legacy, especially if a life is saved because of it.

The problem is that regulations now cost the average family more than $7,500 per year and some EPA regulations cost as much as $4.5 billion for every life saved. OSHA's regulations on benzene cost $1.5 billion per life saved.

Some would say how could you put a value on human life? But when you consider that these regulations make us poorer the question becomes how many lives are lost because of poverty? With each new regulation there are more people who can no longer afford health care or prescription drugs. And how many lives are lost because people can no longer afford smoke alarms, security lighting, handguns, nonslip bath tubs, safer automobiles etc. The answer is far more than what these regulations will save.

If President Clinton wants to put a positive spin on his legacy he should pass a sunshine law that would kill any regulation that ran contrary to the Constitution or the concept of private property rights.

JIM BOEHM

Drummond Road

There you go again. You really can't put it to rest, can you? As an obviously biased newspaper in a highly Democratic, union-dominated town, it appears that you really can't accept the fact that your candidate lost. By attacking a Supreme Court justice, you have once again demonstrated your inability to get beyond your own narrow-minded agenda.

While I have the utmost respect for the talent and dedication of the vast majority of your staff, the transparent and disgustingly partisan writing of your editors does nothing but make a joke of your much acclaimed moniker, “One of America's Great Newspapers.”

And, oh, by the way, I drive a 1993 Oldsmobile and found it to be a great car.

CATHERINE SCANNELL

Maumee

You editorialized about the ethics of the Army and Air Force importing more than $138,000 in Myanmar goods to retail stores on military bases despite an economic sanction set forth by the White House. You add that Myanmar garment workers are among the lowest-paid factory workers in the world: “They make a pathetic 8 cents an hour.”

While I'm sure this is true, the U.S. government has no problem paying prisoners in minimum security U.S. federal prisons 23 cents a day to make Army uniforms that the government then purchases from the prison for our men and women in service to our country.

I bring this to your attention because the facility of which I speak, Alderson Federal Prison Camp in Alderson, W. Va., is home to my sister, who slaves there in the sewing factory at a wage of 23 cents a day, half of which is held back for restitution ordered paid, but which she in fact never received. Net income for her is 11.5 cents for a 12-hour day.

Do the math. At 8 cents an hour the garment workers in Myanmar are ahead of the game. This is simply a case of our government doing its best to ignore some terrible wrongs in our own country.

To paraphrase your missive, it may not be illegal to pay prisoners less than a penny an hour to perform skilled labor while supplying goods to our American military, but it ought to be.

THOMAS J. BRADY

Sylvania Township