Correspondence
American Despotism The subject of David Brooks's "The Right's Anti-American Temptation" (Nov. 11) is profoundly disturbing. Yet as one who read the First Things symposium before I read Brooks's...
...Clinton," Nov...
...Genuine patriotism often means dissent from the current status quo...
...I thank God that they are there and always doing their duty...
...11) was both interesting and informative...
...How many female candidates are helped by childlessness and spinster-hood...
...For me, this is analogous to Martin Luther King, Jr.'s appeal to Americans to be true to America...
...They are the real anti-Americans, not Father Neuhaus and his conferees...
...A slight clarification: Under the 1903 treaty, the United States was not sovereign over the Canal Zone, but was authorized to conduct itself as if it were sovereign...
...No-fault divorce is a controversial topic among feminists...
...America does have heroes today, and some of those heroes are in the FBI...
...The FBI did not destroy Richard Jewell's life as the editorial stated...
...We must reinvent ourselves from time to time...
...I recommend that the editors visit Quantico to get a better sense of those whom they call "witch doctors...
...I bet they won't suggest making divorce impossible, bringing back large alimony awards, or reviving customs that barred divorced men from holding public office or climbing the corporate ladder...
...The Securities Litigation Reform Act, the only piece of the tort-reform legislation that became law, did so only because the Congress overrode President Clinton's veto...
...Hardly a fair image for a man of science like Hern, who knows when a "long curved Mayo scissors may be necessary to decapitate and dismember the fetus...
...Biologically, a parasite is an organism intimately connected to another organism...
...David a Nass Garden Grove, IA Correspondence Be Nice to Tammy...
...Perhaps Graglia should interview Bob Dole, Phil Gramm, Charles Murray, Ronald Reagan, George Will, and Newt Gingrich (all on their second marriages) to find out how they think we can encourage young women to put all their eggs in one basket, just like in the old days...
...Those holding office in this nation derive their legitimacy from the Constitution...
...Perhaps it would be correct to describe the situation as one in which the United States exercised de facto sovereignty without the grant of de jure sovereignty...
...In fact, society still idealizes home-making, as popular women's magazines replete with articles about child-rearing, decorating, and cooking attest...
...Unfortunately for the anti-feminist crusaders, many of the men who have enjoyed the fruits of easier divorce are Republican and conservative...
...According to a 1969 survey, admissions officers at 19 (out of 25) northeastern medical schools admitted that they "accepted men in preference to women unless the women were demonstrably superior...
...some would join Graglia in opposing it, believing that it has hurt homemakers...
...I suggest that readers of the First Things symposium proceed immediately to rereading King's Letter from the Birmingham Jail, a comparison, I suspect, that Richard John Neuhaus would appreciate...
...Wendy Kaminer Cambridge, MA The real enemy of traditional female roles is not women, but men...
...In my experience, people are pragmatic rather than ideological about these decisions...
...Whitney H. Galbraith Colorado Springs, CO Sovereignty and the Canal Thomas M. DeFrank's article "Reagan Was Right: The Panama Canal, Twenty Years Later" (Nov...
...Remarkably, through it all, Bakker remains good-natured and gracious...
...The editor of First Things deserves to be commended...
...Hern and Mr...
...homemaker polemic is not salient for most people's lives...
...Why was Matt Labash's Casual about Tammy Faye Bakker published (Nov...
...11) would describe the relationship between a pregnant woman and her unborn child as "one of host and parasite...
...Such comparisons strike terror in the hearts of "loose constructionists" because they know that modern jurisprudence is a house of cards and does not rest on the bedrock of stare decisis...
...By reading the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and the Federalist Papers, one can compare the contents with the current interpretations from the courts and the law schools...
...John Bolt Grand Rapids, MI The recent controversial symposium in First Things does not question the "legitimacy" of all of American government...
...But those in office are in active rebellion against the Constitution and the people of this country...
...He has patriotically provoked discussion of incipient judicial power-grabbing, of our hallowed system of checks and balances, and the supremacy of popular sovereignty...
...I must disagree, however, with his reluctance to face the primary issue raised in that symposium: the putative illegitimacy of the present "regime...
...It points to a serious and undeniable imbalance in the current operation of the separation of powers— as a result of judicial encroachment on the legislative function...
...We may even reach a point, should conditions deteriorate to an unacceptable degree, at which it becomes advisable to "rescue" the canal...
...Are we to become willing participants in our own enslavement...
...The length of our lifespans and the uncertainty of our economy require that all of us, male and female, display much flexibility...
...George Kocan Warrenville, IL Why is it "anti-American" to believe that government during the past thirty years has done just about everything it can to destroy the values that America has represented for over two hundred years...
...An important distinction must be made between America as it is and America the ideal...
...Labash crows with delight at his own cleverness as he writes that his request for an interview is, in truth, only a trick to "impale" her...
...Bill Clinton deserves no credit...
...Moreover, Judge Bork's proposed remedy for this problem—amending the Constitution so that a majority in Congress can override any Supreme Court opinion—is hardly unique to him...
...The far better description is "hit man...
...It is no surprise that Hern objects to being called an abortionist...
...Yet as one who read the First Things symposium before I read Brooks's report, I find the headline and his conclusion about the nature of a certain conservative disenchantment off target...
...We should have known better, and we apologize to our readers and to the author...
...The criticism of the FBI was, at best, in error...
...They would probably disagree with Graglia's assumption that their own preference for domesticity kept them at home or in lower-paying female occupations...
...Sally Eaton Concord, MA No Credit for Bubba In his article "Too Much Too Soon" (Nov.18), Matthew Rees states that "A sliver of the tort-reform bill passed and was signed into law by Clinton...
...Hern is, after all, a professional...
...The very term connotes the back-alley hackers of our past, grasping coat-hangers in their unwashed hands...
...When the ideal is used to judge contemporary America, the result is not anti-American but pro-American...
...Disproportionate numbers of women were turned away from presumptively male professions because they were as good as their brothers, but not better...
...Amy L. Wax Charlottesville, VA Mrs...
...Graglia's suggestion that women were always free to choose careers over homemaking has an equally tenuous relationship to reality...
...The feminist vs...
...Until 1972, colleges, universities, and professional schools openly maintained exclusionary quotas for women, which amounted to generous affirmative-action programs for men...
...But there is little dispute that the feminist notion of marriage as a partnership has greatly increased women's legal share in their marital estates, to the benefit of many first wives...
...To suggest that the FBI "took one look and . . . said: killer" is preposterous, for it is the job of the FBI to sift through all the evidence...
...Patrick Henry Flynn Peabody, MA David Brooks's article was both provocative and insightful...
...Hern thus unwittingly admits that the fetus is a separate living being, not some mere appendage of the mother's body, as abortion-rights absolutists would have us believe...
...Kennedy and Biden had already served notice in Congress that they had enough co-sponsors of legislation to reaffirm Roe v. Wade and a "woman's right to choose"—no matter how the court decided Casey...
...When government all but outlaws religious expression, officially sanctions infanticide, legitimizes homosexuality, and promotes illegitimacy, is it any wonder that we think government has become illegitimate...
...The unholy alliance that pushed no-fault divorce was surely confused, but men have taken full advantage of easy divorce to exploit and abandon wives (including homemakers) in favor of younger and sleeker women...
...The United States should have significant concerns about events occurring in the Panama Canal Zone and about the future of the canal...
...This is incorrect...
...The issue here is not simply "loving one's ideal more than one's country," with its consequence of "withdrawing from public life...
...Robert Cox Nashville, TN A Choice of Words How ironic that abortionist Warren Hern ("Dr...
...LaVern C. Hutchins Glendale, AZ In Defense of the FBI Iwas appalled to read the editorial "Richard Jewell and President Clinton" (Nov...
...Don Sutherland Washington, DC The Editors respond: The mistake was edited into Rees's article...
...D. A. Ridgely Arlington, VA Happy Homemakers When F. Carolyn Graglia, in "The Breaking of the 'Women's Pact'" (Nov.11), declared that feminists hate homemaking and have "convinced society" to disdain it as well, she omitted a statement of facts, perhaps because it would weigh heavily against her...
...Graglia overstates the influence of feminists...
...What follows is a story of how he insults and mocks her...
...When in 1992 a decision was pending in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which could cause (in Justice Souter's words) "both profound and unnecessary damage to the Court's legitimacy," Sens...
...It merely performed its task with excellence and dismissed Jewell as a suspect...
...How many male candidates are hurt by being portrayed with wives and children at their sides...
...Political campaigns created an icon out of traditional family life...
...I'm glad that she encountered no discrimination in pursuing her legal career in the '50s, but she shouldn't universalize her experience...
Vol. 2 • November 1996 • No. 11
