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Ilya Shlyakhter (notestaff) - letters to editors
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Below are the 9 most recent journal entries recorded in the "Ilya Shlyakhter (notestaff) - letters to editors" journal:
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11:17 am
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flag-burning amendment
Real patriotism
Re: "GOP's burning flag issue may pass," June 25:
I'm glad the flag-desecration amendment failed. It would wrongly equate patriotism with symbolic gestures like respecting the flag, rather than with more meaningful acts like conserving energy or exposing government misdeeds.
Patriotism, "love of country," refers to acts that help the country; the more helpful and the more difficult the act, the more patriotic. Worshiping the flag is neither very helpful nor particularly hard. Burning the flag is much less unpatriotic than, for example, crafting unwise policy. If senators who got us into Iraq want to ban unpatriotic acts, I suggest that they start with their own lawmaking.
Tags: chicago_tribune, flag_burning, hypocrisy, philadelphia_inquirer, replies
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08:37 am
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haditha as microcosm of iraq war
Haditha screams a message
Re "The warrior's way," Opinion, June 6
David. J. Danelo cautions against "placing too close an association on the Haditha massacre with the war's politics," but the connection is too important to ignore. Haditha is a perfect microcosm of the entire Iraq war. Some Iraqis killed a Marine, and his mates allegedly took revenge not on the killers but on the nearest defenseless Iraqis.
On 9/11 some Arabs killed our citizens, and we took revenge not on the killers but on the nearest defenseless Arabs. The Marines at Haditha took their cue from their commander in chief. President Bush's condemnations of their acts therefore sound hypocritical.
Tags: hypocrisy, iraq, latimes, war_on_terror
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09:36 am
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stem cell research
Slightest hope worthwhile
Sen. Tom Coburn justifies his opposition to embryonic stem cell research by saying that it cheapens the lives of the "terminally ill or severely handicapped." But most ill and handicapped people would welcome research that offers hope of a cure, however slight.
What really cheapens these people's lives is when politicians tell them that their lives are less important than the lives of doomed embryos. To say that the research should stop because no cures were produced in 12 years is absurd.
Advances in medicine often take longer — and this is a new field. It's also particularly disingenuous of politicians to point to lack of cures after actively working to starve the field of funding.
Tags: health_policy, hypocrisy, religion, stem_cells, usa_today
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11:13 am
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intelligent design
Creative science
Creationists concede the credibility of science when they insist on teaching creationism as science and not religion or philosophy.
They adopt names like "creation science" in the hopes of riding the coattails of science to credibility, while rejecting the methods and assumptions that earned science this credibility in the first place.
If they want to use the name "science," they must use scientific standards. Those standards require that any scientific theory be testable and subject to being disproven. Creationism clearly does not make the cut.
Tags: chicago_tribune, hypocrisy, religion, science
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06:46 am
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laura bush talks naughty
Laura Bush, Comic: They're Not All Laughing
Re ''Desperate White House Wife, Episode 1: The Ranch Hand'' (White House Letter, news article, May 2):
How ironic that an attempt to ''humanize'' this presidency with some informal humor had to be ''written by a longtime Washington speechwriter'' and required ''several days of rehearsals''!
Tags: bush, hypocrisy, nytimes, politics
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06:52 am
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religious displays in public buildings
The Commandments and the Court
I'm less bothered by government endorsement of religion than by the hypocrisy of having our government buildings shout ''do not kill'' and ''do not bear false witness'' while we start needless wars based on trumped-up evidence.
If government displays of religion had been pushed by Mother Teresa, I might accept them, but they're pushed by people who often contradict the very messages they want prominently displayed.
Such religious displays would actually serve a useful purpose if seen for what they are: not affirmations of righteousness but testaments to hypocrisy.
Tags: hypocrisy, iraq, nytimes, religion
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07:30 am
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nuclear arms
Curb the Spread of Nuclear Arms
In ''Nuclear Breakout'' (editorial, July 27), you missed an important step in curbing the spread of nuclear weapons: dismantling America's own nuclear arsenal.
It's hypocritical to call on others not to acquire nuclear weapons while we insist on keeping our own. If the United States -- with its dominant conventional army -- can't give up its nuclear deterrent, how can it ask weaker countries to give up theirs?
More important, are there still circumstances in which the United States would use a strategic nuclear weapon? In recent conflicts, we made a point of trying to avoid civilian casualties. Clearly this would be impossible with a Hiroshima-type attack.
Why, then, are we keeping these weapons?
Tags: hypocrisy, nytimes, war_on_terror
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08:02 am
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universal health insurance
Before We Lecture Cuba
Re ''Cuba's Other Face'' (letter, May 23):
The letter writer notes Cuba's low infant mortality and illiteracy rates. I'd like to add that all Cubans get free health care. By contrast, in the United States some 40 million people lack health insurance.
Before lecturing Cubans on how to run their country, shouldn't we close this shameful gap in our own backyard?
Tags: health_policy, hypocrisy, nytimes, poverty, replies
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08:22 am
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stem cell research
Stem Cell Research And Bush's Choice
Re ''Stem Cell Science and the Preservation of Life,'' by George W. Bush (Op-Ed, Aug. 12):
We routinely destroy the ''genetically distinct and valuable'' life of animals for research, food or sport. We have no problem with ending the lives of adult mammals, which are infinitely richer and more complex than the frozen existence of doomed clumps of human cells. What do these clumps have that complex animals lack?
Tags: health_policy, hypocrisy, nytimes, religion, stem_cells
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