Letters to the Editor
Our Founding Fathers Had Strong Beliefs
Editor, Times-Dispatch:
It seems to me as if Fea Wintersteen ["U.S. Was Founded for Believers and Atheists"] is another product of public schools and universities and the constant indoctrination of liberal views upon our children. I am so tired of hearing the argument that our Founding Fathers were not God-fearing men.I challenge critics to research Benjamin Franklin's comments at the Constitutional Convention where he says, "I have lived, Sir, a long time and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth -- that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an entire empire can rise without His aid?" Franklin goes on to urge the convention to adjourn for prayer and to pray before each meeting, thus establishing a precedent that is still followed in Congress today.
Let's not forget George Washington's words, "It is impossible to govern the world without God and the Bible." The First Amendment's intention was to protect religion from government, not government from religion. And while I'm at it, nowhere in the Constitution is "separation of church and state" even mentioned.
True, this is a country where one has the freedom to either have faith in a higher power or not. I just have to wonder and fear how much longer it will stay that way.
Diane Acors Dalton. Chesterfield.
Organized Labor Has Helped Everyone
Editor, Times-Dispatch:
George Mitchell's letter, "Level the Playing Field for the Big Three," makes quite a grandiose statement -- that "organized labor has driven out and stymied a lot of expansion in the U.S." Without supporting his statement, the overreaching generalization excludes the fact that capitalists and entrepreneurs are consistently seeking out cheaper labor sources. Because of what Karl Marx referred to as the "industrial reserve army," they can find them, whether it be in the southern U.S. or the global South.Taft-Hartley was the first in a series of sweeping and crushing attacks targeting worker solidarity, creating right-to-work states. The presidency of Ronald Reagan followed as he manipulated and mobilized the interests' free-market capital via the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization's strike. Financiers were also integral to the refinancing of New York City, crushing public employees' unions, leading to the upper-middle-class refuge that is now Manhattan.
We must remember that unions operate on a very basic tenet of American mythology: democracy. National Labor Relations Board elections are decided upon by the majority of the workplace. If all of these previous statements have not rung true in Mitchell's mind, I must ask him: Does he have weekends off? Things we consider common sense in the workplace now, such as weekends and the end of child labor, came because workers exercised their collective strength. If he so hates monopolies, then maybe he should first look to the dissolution and abolition of business owners' solidarities -- the IMF, World Bank, G-8, and locally, chambers of commerce.
Justin Hubbard. Mechanicsville.
Maybe Conservatives Just Preach Less
Editor, Times-Dispatch:
Correspondent Robert Adams ["Maybe Liberals Are Simply Less Ignorant"] has observed that liberal bumper stickers in a bookstore parking lot give possible evidence that liberals read more books. This evidence is purely circumstantial.It may be that the conservatives in the store at the time of Adams' visit had not found it necessary to post bumper stickers. I am a conservative; I don't have a bumper sticker on my car. Yet I have been known to haunt the aisles of bookstores.
Maybe the bookstore had removed all books of conservative ideology, so there was no need for conservatives to congregate. After all, a conservative would be interested only in conservative books, right? Yet, I'm positive that there are books on many subjects conservatives find interesting. I would bet my NRA membership on it.
Sticker sleuthing would not be complete without investigating public library lots as well. Maybe the bumper sticker count would even out, what with all of the soccer moms whisking their conservative kids to the library to check out, and return . . . why, yes -- books!
Also, we had a recent election in which the "conservative" candidate was soundly defeated. Given the local outcome, it may be expected that any parking lot in town would sport more liberal bumper stickers than conservative.
All this aside, the idea that liberals read more books was put forward, I believe, in explanation of the widely held belief that a liberal news media bias does exist. This was not refuted by Adams. But his attempt to explain a national news community bias, by counting bumper stickers in a local bookstore parking lot, seems a stretch in logic. I would just call it a conservative guess.
Chris Lucas. Chesterfield.
Reader Reactions
Literate Republicans is almost an oxymoron. Just look at Bush. They get all their information from Fox News and Rush Limbaugh, literacy not required or advised, just a closed mind. So, if by see a Bush/Cheney bumper sticker in a Barnes & Nobel parking lot, be assured they’re in section where the books have lots of pictures.
Excellent letter Chris! If I might add, most Barnes & Noble Bookstores are a part of a larger shopping center. Seems to me that our liberal friends might very well be parking in front of Barnes & Noble, but, may very well be shopping elsewhere.
You can learn alot about liberals in parking lots, for instance, the vast majority of perfectly healthy people (who quickly gallop in and out of stores) I see parking in handicapped parking spaces at the mall usually have some sort of bumper sticker supporting Barack Obama or other very liberal cause.
Finally, you’d think that if liberals are spending so much time in book stores, they might crack open a history book to learn that their ideas aren’t new, innovative, enlightened or progressive in any fashion - they’d learn that their ideas simply don’t work. Liberals might very well be in Barnes & Noble, but, they can’t seem to get past the comic book rack.
Well Done Mr. Lucas… Well done indeed. Let us not also forget, that Barnes and Nobles is a bit pricey, and as we conserve our funds in these economic times, we usually order our books from Amazon at discounts, or peruse used bookstores. Just a conservative process of elimination.
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