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.
‘Negating the Naysayers’
Come on, Mr. Kemp, make up your mind. Are you a capitalist or a socialist? In “Negating the Naysayers,”Jack Kemp talks out of both sides of his mouth [Opinion, December 6, 2005]. While extolling the virtues of the free market and free enterprise, he completely undermines his case by injecting big government wealth-transfer schemes. For instance, he promotes arbitrary and protectionist “Enterprise Zones,” which unfairly favor one region over others.
He advocates government-funded solutions (in “partnership” with the private sector) to aid the poor and to rebuild New Orleans. If he so believes in the free market to solve things, why must the government be in the partnership at all? Free markets and free enterprise are just that, free. They do not entail taking money from one group of people to pay for another group based on the decisions of a few bureaucrats with a penchant for central planning.
Mr. Kemp cannot simultaneously appease free marketers and socialists because their two philosophies are mutually exclusive.
ALEXANDRA E. STOCKER
Chief Executive Officer
Sanderson & Stocker Inc.
www.sandersonstocker.com
Ithaca, N.Y.
‘Spielberg’s “Munich” Criticized’
The New York Sun quoted Steven Spielberg saying to Time magazine that “a response to a response doesn’t really solve anything. It just creates a perpetual-motion machine” [“Spielberg’s ‘Munich’ Is Criticized,” Ira Stoll, Foreign, December 12, 2005].
If the Allies had used that logic during World War II, then all the Jews saved by Oskar Schindler, whose heroics were documented so well by Mr. Spielberg, would have ultimately been killed.
GAMALIEL ISAAC
Highland Park, N.J.
‘It’s Not Whether You “Win”‘
In Anne Applebaum’s attempt to whittle down our determination for success in Iraq, she reminds us that every war does not “produce a glorious march into Berlin” [“It’s Not Whether You ‘Win’ or ‘Lose,'” Opinion, December 8, 2005].
Since her subsequent reasoning is historical, it seems only fair to point out that there was no glorious march into Berlin at the conclusion of World War II. It was stormed and demolished in three weeks of savage house-to-house fighting that cost the Russian army over 300,000 casualties (100,000 dead) in a total cataclysm of death and barbarity that was apocryphal.
It might make a useful column for her to consider the long-term results of wars that were concluded largely due to public exhaustion or withdrawal of popular support. Some broader thinking about the consequences of the manner of ending World War I, the Korean War, and Vietnam could provide a rich vein.
M. DONALD COLEMAN
Mamaroneck, N.Y.
‘Great and Small’
Absolute kudos to Paul Greenberg for his wonderful piece showing how Howard Dean’s defeatism is so at odds with our traditions [“Great and Small,” Opinion, December 13, 2005].
Our leaders must keep the morale of the people as high as possible during a war – whether it is hot, cold or anti-terror. Unfortunately, Howard Dean, although a danger to our morale, is not the worst one our leaders must contend with.
The most important dangers to our morale are the on-going, deadly roadside bombs that are killing our soldiers without any apparent gains from their loss of life.
The American public will accept loss of American soldiers’ lives in Fallujah-type operations in which some clear gain over the enemy results. But the day-by-day cherry picking (ranging from one to four) of our soldiers’ lives, after almost three years of operations, should move President Bush to hold his generals to account on this issue.
As Ulysses S. Grant noted, the cardinal sin of a general is to go on losing his men without making any significant gains against the enemy. Abraham Lincoln was faced with a similar problem during the Civil War and he managed to find Grant.
Mr. Bush should make every effort to stop the roadside bombs if he wants to secure the ongoing support of the people. Just the fact that the public knows he is trying to do something about them will help morale.
DAVID M. O’NEILL
Manhattan
Mr. O’Neill is an adjunct professor of economics at Baruch College of the City University of New York.
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