Letters to the Editor

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

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NEW YORK SUN CONTRIBUTOR

‘Blaine in Florida’


It is difficult to know whether reader Paul Blair is a shill for the National Education Association or the American Civil Liberties Union or, perhaps, both, as Mr. Blair argues against the constitutionality of school vouchers as violative of the Establishment Clause, but fails to make any mention of the Supreme Court’s 2002 decision in Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, in which the high court held Cleveland’s school voucher program to be constitutional when direct governmental aid to religious schools is wholly as a result of private citizen directed choice [“Blaine in Florida,” Letters, August 23, 2004].


Contrary to Mr. Blair’s contention, the school voucher program in Florida, and those sought to be implemented around the nation, are not “providing school vouchers to religious schools” – the vouchers are “provided” to parents, who freely decide whether to use those vouchers available to them to send their children to a nonpublic school, which may, or may not, be a religious school, of any religion, again, at the parents’ choosing, not that of any government.


The public funds directed to private schools – whether religious or non-religious – are monies that would otherwise be spent educating students in the public system, the only “losers” being the public educational system and teachers’ unions that too often fail minority students.


It is no more coercive – and no less “tyrannical” – to force taxpayers to fund a dysfunctional school system which condemns the poor to the misery of lost opportunity, than it is to force Mr. Blair, in his mind only, to finance a religious institution he might not have voluntarily chosen to support.


Mr. Blair is right when he advises that “[p]eople should be free to use their own money to educate their children in whatever beliefs they deem appropriate.”


Mr. Blair opines that, maybe, tax credits could be granted as alternatives to school voucher programs.


Mysteriously, the poor seemingly have difficulty in following Mr. Blair’s advice: School vouchers allow poorer parents the chance to choose better educational alternatives for their children.


School vouchers are equitable and Mr. Blair seeks to debate a constitutional issue conclusively – and correctly – settled, at the federal level, by the Supreme Court.


EDWIN D. SCHINDLER
Huntington, N.Y.



Iran Working on A-Bomb


What is the White House doing about Iran’s production of nuclear weapons? Insisting on a diplomatic solution through negotiations. But it is precisely this wrongheaded approach that failed to prevent the current crisis – and will allow Iran to become a nuclear power soon [“Iran Is Suddenly Resuming Work Toward A-Bomb,” Anton La Guardia, Page 1, July 27, 2004].


Negotiations are moral and practical only between individuals who are open to reason, who respect each other’s rights, and whose purpose is to exchange values for mutual benefit, without coercion. But the Iranian leadership is wildly irrational; has no respect for individual rights, and seeks – by threatening nuclear attacks against America – to further advance the spread of Islamic totalitarianism.


The proper approach to eliminate this threat is not to negotiate with Iran’s mullahs but to eliminate them.


DAVID HOLCBERG
Irvine, Calif.
Mr. Holcberg is a writer for The Ayn Rand Institute

NY Sun
NEW YORK SUN CONTRIBUTOR

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.


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