Letters from Readers – May 18th 2010

Published May 21, 2010 4:00am ET



It’s the same debate, just a different century

Re: “No one has a ‘duty to die,’” May 12

Thomas Sowell is absolutely right, but there’s another point we forget at our peril. Notions about who’s worthy to live might have had no place in Sowell’s family during the 1930s, but they were just as fashionable then as now. Chic eugenicists, racists, birth-control “pioneer” Margaret Sanger, and a Supreme Court justice or two considered it progressive — even humane — to decide for the unwashed masses.

In 1933, a supposedly civilized nation elected the greatest champion of these ideas, Adolf Hitler, who brought them to their logical conclusion in the madness of the Holocaust.

We make a fatal error if we think that this was some aberration peculiar to Germany, or that it couldn’t happen again. These same ideas are being championed more insidiously by the White House.  

To me, President Obama’s selective attitude toward human life is the real danger — not his birth, his meteoric rise, his knack for inflaming throngs of mindless followers, his brand of socialism, or his attempts to unite us by expecting everybody to agree with him.

Stephen Kosciesza

Silver Spring

Pro athletes should learn some basic grammar

Re: “Round 2: LaVar vs. Clinton”, May 7

While Clinton Portis may have his issues with LaVar Arrington, would it hurt him to express them articulately? I was thoroughly appalled when I read his comments as told to WJFK 106.7 and quoted in your paper.

I don’t know where Portis stands on the subject of being a role model, but he is one by the very nature of his profession, whether he chooses to be or not. It’s sad that’s this seems the best he can do. And shame on you, Washington Examiner, for printing such garbage.

A.M. Winford

Dumfries, Va.

United States becoming big brother welfare state

President Obama is trading in our free, creative, prosperous nation for a big government handout state. The expansion of the federal government under his watch is appalling. Between bank bailouts, economic stimulus, and Obamacare, our national debt will soon reach $20 trillion.

But our liberal Democrat-dominated Congress just keeps on spending and raising our taxes to foot the bill while Obama’s political machine continues to force its socialist agenda upon us.

We must wake up In November and decide whether our country remains the land of the free or becomes the land of Big Brother-style government.

Al Eisner

Silver Spring