Correspondenc
Correspondence To the Editor: Paul Gottfried's otherwise perceptive review of E.J. Hobsbawm's self-serving biography carelessly accepts its Communist author's characterization of Zionism as Jewish...
...I have never seen so much unenlightened and sexist mistreatment of women...
...When asked what he thought of proposals to lower the voting age to eighteen, Harry snapped back facetiously—but not so facetiously when you really think about it—that the voting age should be raised instead to thirty...
...must be turning in his grave...
...Events that followed have, alas, proved the Zionists to have been more correct in their prognoses than they would have wanted to be...
...Most convictions come from the weight of circumstantial evidence...
...Pasour should face the problems which the application of his principles would entail for national security...
...McTiernan's review assumes that unless the government were there to regulate every cook, farmer, and sausage maker in the economy, in the public interest, all food would be adulterated (instead of only our politicians) and snake oil would replace aspirin on pharmacy shelves...
...It is all the rage and fashion to lower the drinking age to eighteen across the nation, and I think that doing so is only accelerating the decline of our watering holes...
...we have by now all grown accustomed to Soviet propaganda's treatment of Zionism as synonymous with Nazism...
...Accordingly, I write not to criticize but to inquire...
...Beer-drinking has truly fallen from a great art form to a joyless ritual, and you gentlemen are performing a great service in trying to protect our great saloons and to restore them to their rightful station...
...McTiernan in his incisive analysis states "Suppose a parent values his automobile so much more than his child that he arranges with his protection agency to have a car thief followed and captured but not a kidnapper...
...John W. Bowling Troy, Alabama To the Editor: No matter what one's doubts about David Friedman's political philosophy, think it is very uncharitable to ignore (as McTiernan did in your October issue) that his is a clear voice in defense of freedom, and that it carries beyond the world of obscure conservative publications...
...Drinking takes practice, and in my opinion, the unpracticed should not be permitted any further to soil our saloons—the brightest spots of our civilization...
...But the Current Wisdom section in your latest issue (November 1974) convinces me otherwise: you really must be throwbacks to the Neanderthals...
...He was arrested afterward, at another location, and identified by witnesses who might well have been lying...
...At a time when this country may be going the way of 'England we should be thankful that Friedman is heard...
...The real killer, they insisted, was still at large...
...Pasour's "The Illusion of Common Cause" (October 1974) is up to the high standards of your journal...
...Do we want to electrocute even a convicted defendant when there remains that slight possibility that the authorities may have arrested the wrong man...
...Karl E. Peterjohn Sacramento, California To the Editor: I look forward to every issue of your magazine, but especially to your Great American Saloon Series, and Siegfried Weisberger's latest installment (November 1974) warmed the cockles of my heart...
...Rather, I think we should listen to the wisdom of our last great president, Harry Truman...
...Youngsters, and students especially, have no sense of dignity in drinking—their raucousness is not the same thing as robust good spirits, and their sloppiness is not what Siegfried Weisberger meant when he said you must guzzle beer and not sip it...
...Dignified drinking is an art form, and like all art forms it is partly the result of instinct, but it is also partly the result of long training...
...A responsible reviewer, however, might be expected to know that in conditions of prewar Europe, Zionism's "blood-and-soil" was in reality the desire for a plot of land which would avert the spilling of Jewish blood...
...I have no objection to letting these youngsters drink—on the contrary, I encourage them—but please, not in public places...
...The "sage of Cherry Hill" was right...
...Andrew Hacker New York, New York To the Editor: A yammerhead writing for The Alternative...
...it edifies and amuses...
...McTiernan defends the status quo even though airline rates are kept artificially high by FAA edict ands while drugs used in Europe to treat heart patients are banned by the FDA in this country...
...Not so long ago I served on the jury at a murder trial in my city...
...Yet that is the only conclusion I can reach after reading Robert McTiernan's review of David Friedman's The Machinery of Freedom...
...We had, facing us in the courtroom, the alleged killer...
...He argues not only for justice but to preserve that condition we call civilization...
...In my state, the drinking age recently dropped from twenty-one to eighteen, and what followed was a disaster almost as grave as Prohibition...
...This wisdom applies even more to the drinking age, at least in saloons...
...The Machinery of Freedom deserves a rational review and criticism which McTiernan is unable to provide...
...Suppose a parent purchases more insurance on his home than on his child...
...Other straw men and Halloween boogiemen (after all, it was the October issue) are foisted on your readers to frighten them from that dread philosophical affliction known as libertarianism...
...The policemen who had made the arrest were sure they had caught the perpetrator...
...But, it is so much easier to pounce on straw men than to analyze 1) What is wrong with current society as seen from a radical capitalist perspective and 2) the suggested remedies...
...None of us had a kind word for the muggers and murderers who maraud our streets...
...Of course not...
...However, they argued, their client was innocent...
...But it would be much more practical and convincing if problems of national security, of diplomacy and military power, were either exempted or dealt with specifically...
...I could almost hear H.L...
...You might call me a "dumpling," Mr...
...Charles Gallagher New London, Connecticut 30 The Alternative: An American Spectator December 1974...
...The concept of collective choice and the free play of self-interested groups, without the interposition of well-meaning though perhaps mistaken practitioners of the common cause, would lead us, for example, to support Greece rather than Turkey on Cyprus just because more Greeks than Turks happen to have migrated to the United States...
...Their stench is quite familiar...
...Hobsbawm's self-serving biography carelessly accepts its Communist author's characterization of Zionism as Jewish "bloodand-soil nationalism...
...A grand jury found enough evidence to recommend a trial...
...I am not surprised at Hobsbawm's choice of words...
...October 1974) His analysis combines philosophical sensibility with an acute awareness of human emotions...
...Does that mean the parent values the home more than the child...
...Ralph Nader has depicted the malfeasance involved in government regulation of industry (even though Nader's solution is more regulation...
...Mencken tinkling the ivories and the bass fiddler playing the Beer Barrel Polka, as I read the article, and of course I had a stein of fine brew in my hand...
...So was the district attorney's office, which asked for an indictment...
...Susan Katz Teaneck, New Jersey To the Editor: E.C...
...But that was not the issue before us...
...I think Mr...
...All of us on the jury were resident New Yorkers who longed for a safer city...
...The attorneys for the defense agreed that a murder had taken place...
...Maurice Friedberg Bloomington, Indiana To the Editor: I always thought your magazine came straight out of the Dark Ages...
...Immediately, bars were jammed with even more college students and sailors than before...
...It was true that the accused had not been apprehended standing over his victim, holding the proverbial smoking gun...
...Friedman attacks the status quo in these areas and many others while McTiernan ignores not only Friedman's solution but the existence of any problems in our society at all...
...This particular dilemma bothered the Founding Fathers and their predecessors clear back to Thucydides and Plato...
...Very few murderers are caught in the act...
...We had to vote on whether the police had brought in the right person...
...Elliott Banfield New York, New York To the Editor: Walter Berns makes a persuasive case for capital punishment...
...Tyrrell, but in my book, you are a turkey...
...if magazines like The Alternative are still around, we've still got an awful long way to go...
...Any valid criticisms McTiernan tries to make are lost in a morass of ad hominems...
...Outrageous...
...A fellow citizen had had his life wiped out, brutally and without warning...
...In order to assist in the protection and celebration of great saloons, I have a suggestion which I would like you and your readers to consider...
...Is this argument related to the viability of an anarchocapitalist society...
...The situation at our saloons is so awful now that I have been driven to drinking at home...
Vol. 8 • December 1974 • No. 3
