CORRESPONDENCE
Correspondence WHAT VICTORY? After reading William Kristol and Robert Kagan's editorial, I realized that the transformation of The Weekly Standard's editorial staff from conservative to liberal is...
...that Thiemann is the victim of some vast left-wing conspiracy of politically correct academics holding that heterosexual males indulging in cyber-peep are misogynists...
...On the other hand, I have spoken about feminist hostility to male heterosexual nature for years, and since she did not discuss pornography, but rather sexual harassment, I felt that I was in no way appropriating an idea...
...It's a pity, of course, that the Russians are misbehaving again—perhaps they missed the victory issue...
...Perhaps Kristol and Kagan would care to explain this upcoming deployment to the mothers and fathers who will have their sons and daughters involved in the peacekeeping operation...
...Ukraine has a tiny anti-Semitic UNA party...
...Nonetheless, are these not the fruits of one who would violate the sacred vow of marriage (as the use of pornography surely does, I might add...
...It is wrong to attribute to Ukraine anti-Semitic activity occurring in Russia...
...but typically that protection does not extend to work, nor does it make things like pornography acceptable...
...Leaving aside the slipperiness of this approach, Prager proceeds to bloviate that the school has violated Thiemann's "privacy" right to load pornography onto his office computer...
...Yet he would qualify as a het-ero-basher by his own definition...
...It also sounded like the writers thought that the war, such as it was, is over, which it is not, and that the objectives of the war have been achieved, which they have not...
...According to him, the viewing, enjoyment, and collecting of pornography is normal male heterosexual activity—and a perfectly harmless one at that...
...Prager could have used a shave by Occam's razor...
...But it has...
...What new liberal would disagree...
...Treaties cannot morph themselves into something else...
...Just what are they looking at them as, intellectual challenges...
...Sorry, but the feminists are correct on this one...
...follow them more consistently...
...Is it victory to negotiate terms with an indicted war criminal...
...This is a bad and disturbing precedent...
...Of course, they are entitled to their opinion, but how dare they insult our intelligence by declaring a "triumph for American power and principle...
...Is it victory when we are going to have to station 7,000 or more troops in Kosovo for an indefinitely long time to keep the peace...
...Ostensibly he believes that "private" morality has no bearing on public life, as did the Court when it recklessly undermined both the Constitution and the deliberate majority of the American people...
...He then spends several hundred words attacking the reasons for this action, not as stated by the school, but as (supposedly) set forth by "[T]hose who defend Harvard's position...
...But it would have been decent to at least acknowledge the deep intellectual debt owed to Daphne Patai, whose recent book, Het^^ophobia: Sexual Harassment and the Future of Feminism, provides the entire analytical basis for Prager's article...
...I thought the victors dictated the terms of surrender...
...It is true that Jews are leaving Ukraine for Israel...
...Would Prager encourage women to pursue a career in porn...
...But if the principles of the left are wrong (as most surely they are), then would that more liberals were hypocrites...
...VICTOR R. POOL WEST HILLS, CA William Kristol and Robert Kagan's "Victory" editorial is an insult to the rank and file American people...
...Senate...
...JAMES L. WILCOX SHERMAN OAKS, CA Dennis Prager aptly uses the concept of "heterophobia" to explain the forced resignation of the dean of Harvard's Divinity School...
...If Prager's article were satirical it might be excusable, for he shows nicely the hypocrisy of the left on a range of counts...
...We needn't assume more complex (or, as here, cosmic) reasons to explain a thing when a simple one will do...
...Alas, rather than criticize the misguided principles of the left, Prager would seem to have liberals (and conservatives...
...Pornography endangers human beings by transforming them from persons (subjects with intelligence and free will) into objects for the satisfaction of self-centered desire...
...Finally, doesn't Harvard, as a private institution, have a right to uphold a moral code among its faculty...
...JAMES H. ZEIGLER LEMON GROVE, CA DEAN OF PORNOGRAPHY I am disturbed that THE WEEKLY STANDARD would print an article such as Dennis Prager's, which belongs in some far more liberal publication than one which purports to "raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair" ("Divinity and Pornography," June 14...
...The "plain fact" is that most men who enjoy looking at scantily clad women usually feel a bit dirty when they do it, especially when their wives or mothers find out...
...Nor is this phenomenon of shame culturally determined...
...Still, the stupidity of Dean Thiemann's act does not make pornography benign...
...Ukraine and Russia are two different nations...
...Would Prager force Harvard by law to keep Dean Thiemann on the faculty against its wishes...
...When you're on company time, you should be doing the company's work, not tickling your fancies by looking at computer images of naked ladies...
...First, Prager's insouciant dismissal of pornography as harmless "boys will be boys" play is misguided...
...After reading William Kristol and Robert Kagan's editorial, I realized that the transformation of The Weekly Standard's editorial staff from conservative to liberal is now complete ("Victory," June 14...
...So now it is our principle to engage in military action where we have not been invited, when we take it upon ourselves to intervene in the affairs of a sovereign nation...
...WILLIAM WEISS FLUSHING, OH I thought William Kristol and Robert Kagan's victory in Kosovo proclamation was a trifle premature, coming as it did before a cease-fire, but now our boy president assures us that he has indeed won a great victory there...
...ROBERT ROBINSON QUEENSBURY, NY The "Victory" editorial by William Kristol and Robert Kagan misses the big item...
...Is it victory when our bombing assisted Milosevic in emptying Kosovo of hundreds of thousands of Albanians, which was his goal in the first place...
...and that all this represents some assault on the nature of the human heterosexual male...
...It is important to note that Ukraine is becoming a haven and transit point for departing Jews from all over the former Soviet Union...
...He quickly finds himself on shaky ground in his defense of pornography...
...Nevertheless, in retrospect I wish I had cited Daphne Patai and her important book, and I apologize to her for not doing so...
...Second, Prager claims that this case involves a "deprivation of privacy...
...Downloading, collecting, and viewing pornography at work may be more stupid than immoral...
...They also failed to mention that because of our inept political and military leadership, Milosevic has been able to accomplish his goal of the ethnic cleansing of Kosovo, at a terrible cost in human suffering...
...Fortunately, Dean Thiemann had the honor to resign, doing himself, Harvard, and the nation a great service...
...Try this: Thiemann's office computer is used by him when he is supposed to be working there, doing his deanly duties...
...ROMAN BOMBAK EDMONTON, CANADA...
...Constitutionally, only Congress can declare war...
...Prager knows the debt well, since he interviewed Patai for an hour-long radio show on April 5. ROBERT M. COSTRELL AMHERST, MA DENNIS PRAGER RESPONDS: The fact is that this issue troubled me when I wiro^e the article...
...NATHAN SCHLUETER IRVING, TX Dennis Prager is on target in his defense of privacy, and there he should have stayed...
...America, too, has its KKK, its Louis Farrakhan, and its David Duke...
...Does he know that word does not exist in the Constitution, that it is a figment of the Supreme Court's imagination...
...Third, Prager perpetuates the error that the Clinton impeachment was about sex...
...it is no mistake that immediately upon eating the forbidden fruit, Adam and Eve realize they are naked and cover themselves, with apparent approval by God...
...Indeed, his article is a ringing endorsement of new liberalism on a number of points...
...Constitutionally, the Senate has to ratify treaties...
...He further states that the men who consume it do not look upon those women as sexual objects...
...the trial was about perjury and obstruction of justice...
...JOAN ADAMS NEW YORK, NY In "Divinity and Pornography," Dennis Prager, along with Alan Der-showitz (strange bedfellows indeed), assails the Harvard Divinity School for extracting the resignation of Ronald Thiemann as dean...
...In any case, Dean Thiemann certainly had no "right" to his position...
...It is not a time of celebration, as your editors seem to think...
...Please consider answering the following questions, so we will all have a better understanding of what should be considered a "victory": Is it victory to leave Milosevic in power...
...Doubtful...
...Privacy should ensure that one can engage in all the socially acceptable (legal) behavior one wants (why were those technicians perusing Thiemann's files...
...Really...
...Anti-Semitism does not have the support of the Ukrainian government, churches, or populace...
...Thus it is not surprising that criminologists have discovered a high correlation between pornography and certain kinds of violent crime...
...UKRAINIAN EXODUS Arnold Beichman's article was hurtful and misleading ("Ukraine: Back to the Future," June 7...
...It sounded like something one would read in the liberal mainstream press...
...No (for the umpteenth time...
...The loser in this war is, again, the American Constitution...
...And then he equates society's distaste for pornography with an attack on heterosexual men—a non sequitur...
...In accepting the liberal definition of liberty, Prager removes himself from the camp of George Washington (quoted above), who stated in his Farewell Address that "religion and morality are indispensable supports" to public prosperity...
...When 19 NATO nations have difficulty controlling what goes on in an area about the size of Los Angeles County, we have big problems...
...No, Prager does not seem to be bothered by public intrusions into private property, and he is assiduous to defend the right of individuals to engage in disgraceful and immoral behavior...
...On the one hand, Daphne Patai wrote a marvelous book, Heterophobia, to which I devoted an entire hour on my radio show...
...specifically, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization cannot change its mission from a defensive alliance to an aggressive armed force intervening in a separate country's civil war without a treaty amendment ratified by the U.S...
...They are doing so because of the bleak Ukrainian economy, not because of persecution...
...Would he welcome porn shops in his neighborhood...
Vol. 4 • June 1999 • No. 39
