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To the Editor,
posted 01/30/2010
Some of what Shu wrote in his column on 1/28/2010 makes sense. There is copious gray between extremes in the American political spectrum and we would probably also agree that Republicans and Democrats could point fingers endlessly saying things like, "Well, what about ….. and what about ….."? We might even agree that by the time one becomes a politician he/she has probably lost all sight of who and what they stand for – especially at the higher levels.
However, Shu goes off the deep end of his "political perspective" when he espouses that Osama bin Laden and Hussein are created devils against which right wing commentators launch unfair and unbalanced political attacks against liberals.
From Wikipedia: "The Halabja poison gas attack (Kurdish: Kîmyabarana Helebce) occurred in the period of March 16–17, 1988, during the closing days of the Iran-Iraq War, when chemical weapons were used by the Iraqi government forces in the Kurdish town of Halabja in Iraqi Kurdistan.
The attack instantly killed thousands of people (3,200-5,000 dead instantly) and injured 7,000-10,000, most of them civilians;[1] [2] thousands more died of complications, diseases, and birth defects in the years after the attack.[3] The incident, which some define as an act of genocide, was as of 2010 the largest-scale chemical weapons attack directed against a civilian-populated area in history."
If Shu believes that the attacks against the United States World Trade Center and numerous others, as well as the Hussein era history, are "created" events by right wing commentators, then he lives in world I haven't since I was a little kid and the good things about his article are lost in the blather.
I was a democrat; I was the founder of a Young Democrats Club at Diablo Valley Junior College in Concord, CA in 1963. It was a vital group with about 30 dues paying members and a string of excellent speakers. When I transferred to Berkeley, I was invited to help organize junior colleges throughout California by the Young Democrats at Berkeley.
I declined so I could scope out what they were doing. Within six months I had become a conservative because of the microcosmic direction I saw the liberals wanted to take us. It has come to pass in the 45 years since my graduation from Berkeley.
Shu wrote, "Rush's fans feel like we are being dragged into socialism. Never mind that most of them couldn't define socialism, or admit that the basic reason for the existence of a government commons at all is to provide for social well-being." I haven't listened to Rush for several years because of his delivery style.
"We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
I'll take the word of the Preamble to the Constitution of the United States about the reason for our United States.
Why does Shu fall right into the name-calling routine by his "couldn't define socialism"? I know what socialism is and have for many years. My conservative friends also understand the concept.
The essential difference between liberal and conservative Americans is captured by Shu's assertion that "… the basic reason for the existence of a government commons at all is to provide for social well-being." Liberals believe that government must provide all things since the populace can't take care of itself and that liberals are the only ones who know how it should be done.
Conservatives believe that the populace, composed of individuals, is competent and able to take care of itself. Liberals claim the high ground because of their noble aims and high ideals without regard to cost while conservatives know that government can't be all things to all people and that we, as a nation, must live within our means just as we do as individuals. That tends to make the conservative a bad guy in almost every issue with high ideals and costs.
In our democratic republic there is room for diverse opinion. Whether one is liberal or conservative seems to be a result of how they are wired internally. I think that the higher nature of liberals is to nurture or nurse those who can't care for themselves while the higher nature of a conservative is to trust that most people can and should care for themselves and their families.
I could be wrong about that type of comparison; others might be better. Neither the liberal nor the conservative is wrong – they just approach situations differently and can best do that without name-calling.
Shu should remember that.
Dennis R. Hazelton
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