America's liberals need to wake up

6/9/2007

Radical Islam is based on an anti-liberal system. Liberals here at home need to wake up to the inhuman policies and practices of Islamists around the world. They need to realize that Islamism spells the death of liberal values and liberals must not take for granted the respect for human rights and dignity that we experience in America.

Looking back, perhaps we can take a lesson from history. I believe the Vietnamese propaganda would have fallen far short of its mark had it not been supported so strongly by the anti-war groups here in the United States. The same people who plugged for Communist victory during the Vietnam War pushed amnesty for deserters and draft dodgers, claiming they were forced to break the law because they were so idealistic. But 98 percent of those men were no different from the deserters and draft dodgers of other wars we have fought.

They were cowards and malcontents who were trying to hide behind a moral issue to cover their crime. Just as the shrill anti-war individuals of today. They all want to live in this country and enjoy the freedoms of our society, but are unwilling to contribute anything to assure its maintenance or survival.

Playing the same anti-American card, the Democratic liberals' strategy, in order to ensure political victory in 2008, is to ensure that there is an American defeat in Iraq. It is all about scoring political points while sacrificing national security and the lives of innocent Americans.

Fred Nofziger

Maumee

Recycling? Or just spinning our wheels?

I am all for helping our community by recycling and signed up for this program that our mayor and city council said will help our city with expenses and our environment. I bought the required containers and marked them. I carefully cleaned the required items and placed them in the required containers.

I'm on the "B" pickup schedule and on that day my neighbors and I placed our containers at the curb and nothing happened.

The next day I called the recycling office and informed them of their mistake and a supervisor assured me that it would not happen again and he promised on the next pickup date (two weeks later) he would stop by to make sure it was done. Yesterday my neighbors and I repeated the above process and again they never showed up.

If the City of Toledo is committed to the recycling program, then let's do it right. If not, then please take my name off the recycle program list.

Lee S. Armstrong

Heatherdowns Boulevard

Thomas Sowell's May 29 column, "Political left often motivated by hostility," illustrates, among other things, that hostility, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. Mr. Sowell cited examples of leftish hostility, but had this to say about Dick Cheney: "It is hard to think of a time when Dick Cheney has even raised his voice" and by implication called him "non-confrontational or even genial." I wonder what Patrick Leahy would say about that description?

Albert Misseldine

Adrian, Mich.