Correspondence
Correspondence FUNDAMENTALS CHARLES W. COLSON pays a fitting tribute to the late Carl F.H. Henry (The Standard Reader, Dec. 22, 2003), who was indeed a giant of a man, scholar, and Christian. But...
...That is pretty much what The Weekly Standard has supported for years...
...And it promotes liberal democracy and free markets—crucial elements of a long-term security strategy...
...That makes our new policy of appeasement an even more dangerous repudiation of American values...
...JIM GILKEY Winchester, KY STAND AND DELIVER WILLIAM KRISTOL and Robert Kagan's "Stand By Taiwan" editorial was on target (Dec...
...Are they really any brighter, more politically astute, or more culturally discerning...
...Most of the other candidates thought they should be making half-coherent arguments about the economy, "unilateralism," or some other issue that focus groups told them was dear to the hearts of liberals...
...There has always been a clash between the secularists and the islamists in Pakistan, with the secularists maintaining dominance for the last 50 years...
...In fact, peer-reviewed empirical studies from leading academics have shown no statistically significant correlation between verdicts or settlement awards and, for instance, product defects or mistakes in medical practices...
...is like making a distinction 'between a moderate Nazi and a radical Nazi.'" DANIEL PIPES Philadelphia, PA...
...If the rest of the Democratic party wants to climb out on the same limb with Dean, only to get obliterated in November, let them...
...The sooner conservatives— both within the church and without— understand that, the better...
...Early elections, as Ayatollah Sistani has argued, may be helpful in easing some of the tensions between the United States and its "fifty-first" state...
...The real issue for today's Democratic base is its emotional and incoherent frustration at the success of George Bush and the Republican party in the last couple of years...
...22, 2003), writes of his confusion as to why hard-core Democratic voters, despite their differences with where Howard Dean stands on most issues, are wildly supportive of the former Vermont governor...
...But Colson's reading of 20th-century American Protestantism leaves much to be desired...
...Henry was himself also disillusioned, lamenting the role that Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson played in what Henry called the "hijacking of the evangelical jumbo-jet...
...That's the only way they will ever learn...
...The Bush foreign policy unabashedly projects American power to protect vital interests...
...Does Colson really think that today's evangelicals represent an improvement over the fundamentalists that he caricatures...
...There is a parallel sharia Islamic legal system in Pakistan, but, again, secular law based on British common law is dominant...
...Adding a few words makes my meaning clear: "Calling Abou El Fadl a moderate Islamist as opposed to a radical Islamist [emphasis mine...
...Moreover, even if fear of lawsuits has led to some health and safety improvements, it has also led to real negative effects (such as reduced innovation, lower vaccine availability, and defensive medicine) that are difficult to measure and not included in our conservative estimates in Trial Lawyers, Inc...
...15, 2003) claims that Howard Dean's probable capture of the Democratic presidential nomination is an event "to be feared...
...The Taiwanese may or may not vote for independence...
...The goal of responsible tort reform is indeed to capture positive effects from the status quo while eliminating its costly waste...
...But Colson neglects to mention that many who had been inspired by Henry had become disillusioned with evangelicalism by the time Newsweek declared 1976 the "Year of the Evangelical...
...But for the American government to deny such rights to the Taiwanese is an insult to the Declaration and our country's basic principles...
...Hart documents in his new book, Deconstructing Evangelicalism: Conservative Protestantism in the Age of Billy Graham, this well-intended project of the past century was less than a success, notwithstanding the noble efforts of Dr...
...Does he think that their acclaimed megachurches—complete with MTV-style liturgy—or their elevation of personalities over tradition offer an orthodox or conservative alternative to the mainline denominations...
...Now, having used his early opposition to the Iraq war as his ticket to an otherwise improbable presidential nomination, Howard Dean has crawled out on a limb, and has no easy way of getting back to the mainstream...
...He expressed this and other regrets in a 1980 essay in the liberal Christian Century...
...In other countries, a tort's loser—whether it be the plaintiff or the defendant—pays all fees...
...Nevertheless, Tucker uncritically accepts arguments defending the status quo without examining powerful contrary evidence...
...BILL STRONG Elk Grove, CA DEAD STOP FRED BARNES'S EDITORIAL "Stop Dean" (Dec...
...THOMAS W SMOOT Alpharetta, GA WILLIAM TUCKER'S "In Defense (sort of) of Trial Lawyers" was, on the whole, a thoughtful piece exposing many of the excesses wrought by America's wacky civil justice system...
...The irony is that the movement Henry helped found was nothing like what he had envisioned...
...As Colson details, Henry labored to establish an intelligent counter to the triumph of liberalism in the mainstream Protestant denominations...
...President Bush fittingly warned Communist China not to initiate force against Taiwan...
...Mainland China is one of the lifelines of "Axis of Evil" member North Korea...
...JIM COPLAND Director, Center for Legal Policy Manhattan Institute New York, NY BASE HIT DAVID TELL, in "Gephardt's Last Stand" (Dec...
...To function properly, our legal system does indeed depend on a healthy, functioning law of tort...
...The United States must promote a constitution that secures a secular government, which recognizes the importance of islam and its teachings, but which also guarantees a separation between mosque and state...
...REUEL MARC GERECHT has provided an excellent article on the delicate problem faced by the Coalition Provisional Authority and the Bush administration in dealing with the iraqi Shia majority ("A Difficult Marriage," Dec...
...Hardly a tragedy for a democracy...
...Our Declaration of independence announced that all men are created equal, and are endowed with the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, among others...
...The Taiwanese have the same inalienable rights as Americans—and, for that matter, as all men do...
...The real issue is the Iraqi constitution and how well it guards against a theocracy...
...Ironically, if France then had taken the advice of most of today's regional analysts, it would have allied with Great Britain, not the United States, and refused to support American independence...
...On its good days, Pakistan is an excellent example of how this can work...
...But one reference to me—"Calling Abou El Fadl a moderate, [Daniel Pipes] says, is like making a distinction 'between a moderate Nazi and a radical Nazi'"—is ambiguous...
...ALICE AND ROBERT GETMAN New York, NY PAKISTANI PRELUDE...
...But, if we are promoting democracy in iraq along the one-person, one-vote model, isn't Shia dominance inevitable...
...That people and companies (insurance companies among them) must pay to defend even frivolous actions is very damaging...
...only Howard Dean was whipping left-wingers into a frenzy of anti-Bush hysteria a year ago...
...Health and safety in America have undoubtedly improved over time, but Tucker's anecdotes are unpersuasive in linking these improvements to our tort law system...
...In place of having the judiciary evaluate the possible frivolity of an action (and it has been shown over and over that litigants will shop for a lenient judge), if litigants had to pay all fees if their case were found not to hold water, then frivolity in such actions would, I think, vanish...
...Yet he and the American "experts" on China are indeed kowtowing to the Communist dictatorship by renouncing American support of Taiwanese citizens' right to declare independence...
...Elections would certainly establish the dominant position of the Shiites, which may cause heartburn on the part of some bureaucrats in the State Department...
...If this is the religious renaissance Colson presumes it to be, why do a good number of them leave evangelicalism for Roman Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy...
...Why...
...Howard Dean was the only candidate who, early in the race, echoed this angry, frothing-at-the-mouth frustration, spewing gallons of bile about anything remotely connected to Bush...
...15, 2003) did point out a few ways to curb the tremendous and growing burden on our standard of living that is tort litigation, but it seems probable to me that tort reform in our country will only start when there is a change in who pays the lawyers...
...A Dean nomination would simply confirm the obvious: The Democratic party has abandoned its roots and has been captured by the cultural left...
...On a July 4th long ago, America was founded based on those rights, and declared its independence from the British empire...
...That's why the Democratic base is ready to back him, whatever the cost...
...If we are not careful, the same thing could happen in Iraq...
...That should be the way it is done in the united States as well...
...Admittedly, in Pakistan, the one real base of power has always been the military, and they have stepped in many times to correct excessive corruption and other problems...
...Howard Dean, on the other hand, deduced shrewdly that the real driving force behind the left today was anger...
...ROBERT W PATTERSON Leesburg, VA BARELY LEGAL WILLIAM TUCKER'S "In Defense (sort of) of Trial Lawyers" (Dec...
...Most tellingly, Tucker asserts that "damages paid in many legal settlements serve a distinct purpose in buying improvements in health and safety that would not be possible through any other channels...
...As historian D.G...
...On the other hand, when you think about it, it isn't at all clear that Howard Dean actually has a foreign policy—or, at least, a consistent one...
...JOSEPH F. BENNING Summit, NJ RADICAL CHIC KATHERINE MANGU-WARD skillfully exposes Khaled Abou El Fadl's thinking in "The Muddle of the Moderate Muslim" (Dec...
...But, contra Tell, I believe there is an answer to the mystery...
Vol. 9 • January 2004 • No. 17
