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Aug. 30th, 2001 12:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
libertangoAnother Slate post, this one in response to a particularly silly comment:
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Subject: RE: Don't you just love liberals...
From: Hal O'Brien
Date: Aug 30 2001 11:46 AM
A few points:
* You are aware, aren't you, that many of the most important documents written during the Revolution and the Founding were written pseudonymously? Were Cincinnatus and the Federalist authors not "Real Americans"? How about "Poor Richard", aka Ben Franklin?
* Re defense cuts, how do you know that some of the posters here adovocating cuts aren't themselves military veterans, either active or retired? This is text -- there's no way to know the background of who's speaking ("real" names or not). Let alone, cuts in the defense budget don't necessarily mean cuts in efficiency. If we spend billions for a particular weapons system that doesn't work under battlefield conditions, how much better "defended" are we? Why are efficiency and productivity good things in the private sector, but not when it comes to defense?
This even leaves aside the issue of, just whom do you think is the threat? Is a large conventional military the best response to, say, terrorism? Are our civil rights safer or more threatened by a military that's permanent, entrenched, and increasingly contemptuous of civilian authority -- all of which was anathema to the Founders?
* As to people moving to this country... In my experience, they are the most genuinely patriotic of all Americans. They have a committment to the ideals of this country that those of us fortunate enough to have been born here just don't appreciate, because for us it's background noise, while for them it was the biggest decision of their lives. When they speak of the blessings of living in this country, they speak without posturing, and without irony. They speak from the heart. Go to any college campus, see the degree immigrants and the children of immigrants dominate the top scholastic rankings, and participate the most, and then tell me that the future for my children isn't immeasurably enhanced by the people who have chosen to join us in being Americans.
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Subject: RE: Don't you just love liberals...
From: Hal O'Brien
Date: Aug 30 2001 11:46 AM
A few points:
* You are aware, aren't you, that many of the most important documents written during the Revolution and the Founding were written pseudonymously? Were Cincinnatus and the Federalist authors not "Real Americans"? How about "Poor Richard", aka Ben Franklin?
* Re defense cuts, how do you know that some of the posters here adovocating cuts aren't themselves military veterans, either active or retired? This is text -- there's no way to know the background of who's speaking ("real" names or not). Let alone, cuts in the defense budget don't necessarily mean cuts in efficiency. If we spend billions for a particular weapons system that doesn't work under battlefield conditions, how much better "defended" are we? Why are efficiency and productivity good things in the private sector, but not when it comes to defense?
This even leaves aside the issue of, just whom do you think is the threat? Is a large conventional military the best response to, say, terrorism? Are our civil rights safer or more threatened by a military that's permanent, entrenched, and increasingly contemptuous of civilian authority -- all of which was anathema to the Founders?
* As to people moving to this country... In my experience, they are the most genuinely patriotic of all Americans. They have a committment to the ideals of this country that those of us fortunate enough to have been born here just don't appreciate, because for us it's background noise, while for them it was the biggest decision of their lives. When they speak of the blessings of living in this country, they speak without posturing, and without irony. They speak from the heart. Go to any college campus, see the degree immigrants and the children of immigrants dominate the top scholastic rankings, and participate the most, and then tell me that the future for my children isn't immeasurably enhanced by the people who have chosen to join us in being Americans.
