Correspondence
Correspondence Discontented with Civil Society David Brooks's ambiguity concerning "'Civil Society' and Its Discontents" (Feb. 5) reflects an attitude toward "greatness" that demeans the common...
...The only way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time...
...Scott K. Gibson, III Fort Leavenworth, KS...
...Or Else" (Jan...
...Much that is talked about is left undone...
...Gus Franza Moriches, NY Conservative Sports In making his point about the essential conservativeness of football, Fred Barnes quotes Vince Lombardi as stating, "Winning isn't everything...
...He extols the latter, decries the former...
...Even a socialist can submit a balanced budget simply by raising taxes...
...The CIA has scarcely begun to establish a defensible, post-Cold War information policy...
...It may be, in Brooks's mind, that pure ambition and power need shed the constraints of authority to succeed, but if this were so, those "Americans who can't sit still" would be the epitome of anarchy...
...John J. Di Clemente Tinley Park, IL After reading Fred Barnes's Casual, I noticed one omission...
...The dirty little secret is that Americans like bloated government as long as it serves their needs...
...Now the business crowd obediently shuns formality by dressing each Friday as if for light work in Grandma's garage...
...Republicans should understand that the real obstacle to smaller government is not bleeding-heart liberals or welfare queens...
...Paul Comfort Sudlersville, MD Embrace the Millennium David Frum sure is jumpy in his review of Millennium: A History of Our Last Thousand Years ("Defaming the Last Thousand Years," Feb...
...Republicans need to learn that problems that took decades to amass cannot be erased in one bright shining moment...
...James Madison Barr Hot Springs Village, AR We Haven't Won Yet Bill Clinton may have said, "The era of big government is over," but conservatives haven't won yet ("We Win," Feb...
...The great achievers of history may rise to the top, but the bowling league remains a metaphor for the foundation upon which develops a forum for discussion and development of ideas...
...29) demonstrates society's irritating ambivalence towards the middle-aged products of the flower-child generation...
...We cannot get greedy in the long-term struggle for the soul of America...
...As an Indiana University graduate and a lover of Bobby Knight basketball, I feel special consideration should be given to Hoosier basketball...
...But Podhoretz, Phil Gramm, and other Republicans are emphasizing a "green eyeshade" approach exemplified by the concern for a balanced budget at the expense of individual freedom...
...That's the very thing that hurt Dole when he returned campaign contributions from a gay organization, which advisers said would offend the Christian right...
...Sports Quotes, Joseph Klein...
...Expecting assaults like Frum's, Fernando-Armesto specifically says, "I had better say at once that I am a committed advocate of the traditional humanist curriculum for teaching history in schools and universities...
...For Friday's wardrobe, I recommend a starched shirt, Brooks Brothers suit, and spit-shined oxfords...
...Without decency, order, and authority, there will be no society, civil or otherwise...
...Perhaps the elite could exit their limousines and walk for a day...
...The development of stable, prosperous neighborhoods and communities by means of citizen involvement doesn't preclude or deter those who strive for greatness...
...Leach is right that the prevailing attitude of intellectuals is generally dismissive of the theistic world view, but she forgets that this has not been the case over the long haul...
...Stephen Merrill...
...Without decency we have a degradation unknown to any animal other than man...
...If they don't fire you, maybe they'll drop the Chairman Mao routine on Fridays...
...The next Friday, wear a pith helmet and wax nostalgic about British colonialism...
...When they gave undue attention to the balanced budget, they were trumped by Clinton, who eventually submitted a balanced budget...
...The main criticisms of Gramm are that he doesn't "sound themes Forbes wanted to hear" and that he doesn't follow the advice of various advisers or Gov...
...It's the only thing" ("From Bradley to Barkley," Feb...
...But accountability is the point of greater openness, which is required in order to subject intelligence to democratic controls, not to raise employee morale or to "educate" the American public...
...Without respect for authority we have "if it feels good do it...
...But this is a false dichotomy-indiscriminate secrecy has undermined the utility of intelligence far more often, and to far more damaging effect, than openness ever did...
...The insistence by House Republicans on covert action against the government of Iran suggests that we may need a new system of checks and balances on Congress as well as on the CIA...
...This statement differs in its implications and, I believe, undermines Barnes's view of the essential conservativeness of football...
...While the budget and abortion battles have strong moral implications, they are being fought in a democratic public policy arena...
...Both Podhoretz and Gramm miss a major point...
...Barbara Auch Athens, AL Reconsidering Reagan John Podhoretz is both thoughtful and provocative in suggesting that it is time to go back to the drawing board on the current Republican strategy that rejects compromise ("A Reaganite Reconsiders," Feb...
...Unbelievable for a senior editor of a conservative publication...
...If your colleagues whine, speculate aloud whether more intense carpet-bombing of North Vietnam might not have concluded the war on better terms...
...I know what I believe in" is a good contrast to Dole, who speaks about himself in the third person and will be whichever "Bob Dole" it takes to get your vote...
...Without order all is chaos...
...The "I, Gramm" style with the "I know who I am...
...Since openness can "boomerang," Pollock favors secret intelligence, as if it did not pose hazards of its own...
...As Moli?re said, "Words and deeds are far from being one...
...As one of the founders of the modern conservative tradition, Hume resisted its nontheistic strains...
...Just as the "all or nothing" approach in the battle to outlaw abortions has produced only a stalemate, so has the recent "all or nothing" approach toward the balanced budget...
...Remarkably, the word "accountability" does not appear in the piece...
...Theism could hardly have asked for a more extended and careful hearing than it has received in the past 2,000 years in the West...
...Amazingly, feminists scorn the cheerleading profession, where women are empowered to lead a predominately male crowd that follows their cues...
...Consider that it has the most brash, politically incorrect coach in college basketball and a history of a high-scoring offense coupled with a stingy one-on-one defense...
...Samuel J. Orr, III Beaver, PA John Podhoretz was right in his article...
...The history of evolutionary naturalism in the 18th and 19th centuries is a sober story of earnest and halting steps taken by gifted thinkers out from under the "cultural assumptions" that had accumulated during theism's epochal sway...
...Who knows...
...As a result, he hasn't listened to author Felipe Fernando-Armesto...
...Matthew Feely Philadelphia, PA Gramm, His Own Man Paul Gigot's article "I, Phil Gramm" (Feb...
...Brooks's championing of the United States over these United States-of the totality over its parts-is again surprising to me as a conservative...
...Unfortunately, the current Congress has little interest in intelligence oversight...
...5) reflects an attitude toward "greatness" that demeans the common person...
...Allen Zoroya Alhambra, CA Accountability at the CIA Richard Pollock ("The CIA Goes P.R.," Feb...
...Jessie Adams Wilsonville, OR Order, authority, and decency David Brooks opposes to the virtues of "audacity, high ambition, self-sufficiency . . . courage, steadfastness, might, and pride...
...Since when is being a puppet a virtue...
...Many conservative sports have sidelines adorned with beautiful women whose sole purpose is to arouse the crowd...
...Frum sees Fernando-Armesto as waging a marauding ideological battle to demean the West, but Fernando-Armesto makes his purposes perfectly clear in the prologue: "Part of the mission of this book is to rehabilitate the overlooked, including places often ignored as peripheral, peoples marginalized as inferior...
...Steven Aftergood Washington, DC Formal Fridays The mandatory casualness Evan Gahr describes in his piece "Be Casual...
...One of America's greatest problems is an over-dependence on government...
...And while he was not himself a religious man, he respected those who were...
...What the coach really said, however, is, "Winning isn't everything, but making the effort to win is...
...Quite the contrary, civil society is a springboard for ideas and accomplishments...
...Steve L. Lutes Tuscaloosa, AL Championing Reason In her review of Philip E. Johnson's Reason in the Balance: The Case Against Naturalism in Science, Law and Education ("Reason's Champion," Feb...
...To truly end big government you must tackle the sacred cows of middle class society...
...It is the middle class, whose interests transcend party affiliations...
...Barnes must be working from memory and from the oral tradition that attributes this remark to Lombardi...
...5) was curious indeed...
...Outside politics, Hoosier basketball is my only true passion, and I could never conceive of this style of hoops as liberal...
...5) writes that openness is at odds with intelligence and that we must ultimately choose one or the other...
...It wouldn't be a matter of "taming"-it could be a source of enlightenment...
...It is still the Agency's official position, for example, that the size of its original 1947 budget is a national security secret...
...5), Mary Sydney Leach objects to the presumption that naturalism should dominate the public square...
...In the day when finally we have a Congress bent on returning power to the states, to find Brooks on the side of the populist liberals is indeed disturbing...
...David Hume, for example, was mortally afraid to publish his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (which attacked the argument from design) before he died...
Vol. 1 • February 1996 • No. 22
