Letters To The Editor

Honest Culture Should Prevail in Modern World
Editor, Times-Dispatch: Victor Davis Hanson, in his Op/Ed column "Has America Become Premodern Again?" described three electronic-age problems and his frustrations in resolving them. He observed that humans keep us from realizing the full benefits of the electronic age and recommends better education.

Better education is not likely to have prevented any of his problems. A retail clerk entered his address incorrectly and billed a wrong address. As a result, his credit rating was affected. A check that was forged against his name was paid by the bank. Another time he was charged for unwanted TV channels and had trouble getting the charges removed.

We can all feel his pain. However, better education, while desirable, won't stop people from making mistakes. I have also had unordered TV charges. I suspect this is simply a sales technique. If the customers pay, it boosts sales. If they even notice the charge, some will tire of waiting on the line and give up. For the persistent, the charge is usually refunded.

Better education won't stop check forgeries. An educated crook is still a crook. People will still make deliberate mistakes that may pay off.

What is needed is a culture that stresses honesty, personal responsibility, and pride in one's work as well as education. Some think we had a such a culture back in premodern times. Individuals were instructed by families, their religion, and volunteer organizations such as the Scouts and service organizations. Unfortunately, it wasn't perfect. So government programs were and are being installed that will provide for all our needs from womb to grave. Since this will all be handled electronically, there is no chance that we will return to premodern. Bankruptcy is more likely. S.P. Gauntt. Richmond.

Our Nation Is Safer With Obama in Office
Editor, Times-Dispatch: I do not like to question the motives of anyone, but I am feeling a growing embarrassment about politicians, of both parties, who are pandering to fear as they decry plans to bring prisoners from Gitmo to the U.S. We cannot base national security and national honor on fear.

We are leading the continuing campaign to stop terrorists from destroying what world order does exist, and as such we, the most powerful nation on Earth, have to step up and do hard things. That is what leaders do.

Sen. Lindsey Graham told the truth: "The idea that we cannot find a place to securely house 250-plus detainees within the United States is not rational."

And the growling that is coming from former Vice President Dick Cheney would be laughable were it not taken so seriously by the fear-mongers. Does he not remember that closing Gitmo was endorsed by his former boss and the torture Cheney advocates was taken off the table by his own administration?

I feel safer today than I have for a long time because we have a president and an administration engaging the world, using all our resources with subtlety and cunning. No longer do we rely only on military might and bullying, but on a true recognition of our entire strength as a free people.

Robin Gorsline.
Richmond.

Iran's president has never called for wiping Israel off any map. That myth was the result of the now-widely acknowledged mistranslation of a remark he made in 2005 in which he said, "This regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time." He was calling for a regime change, not war.

There is absolutely no evidence that Iran's pursuit of nuclear energy is part of any program to develop a nuclear bomb. That's the conclusion of the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency, which monitors Iran's nuclear program as well the National Intelligence Estimate, issued in November 2007 by this country's 16 intelligence agencies. And yet the U.S. media, as with this cartoon, repeatedly attempts to give the impression that Iran's nuclear program is linked to building a nuclear bomb.

Unlike the United States, Iran's president is not the commander-in-chief. That responsibility falls to Iran's leading religious figure, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, whose stated position is that developing nuclear weapons would violate the country's religious principles. Whether one believes that position or not, the fact is that Ahmadinejad himself has no bombs to carry.

With our new administration, like the previous one, continuing to demand that Iran surrender its sovereign right to pursue nuclear power for peaceful energy purposes -- and with Israel threatening to attack Iran -- if Washington's demands aren't successful, this is no time to perpetuate dangerous myths about the intentions of a country whose only real crime is to possess vast reserves of oil while refusing to bow down before the empire.

Phil Wilayto.
Richmond.