Reader Feedback

If I had started midway through the third paragraph of Karl Zinsmeister’s “Europe Learns the Wrong Lessons” (October-December), I would have assumed that he was talking about the USA. “Unaccountable bureaucracies and elites commandeer the most important decisions, the same people hang onto power endlessly…. Policies that would not survive the test of popular opinion are simply instituted by administrative fiat,” etc. The only thing missing from Zinsmeister’s list is governance by unelected judges. I don’t think we’re in any position to criticize Europe.

 

John Culver

Westchester, California

 

 

I usually give away my copies of TAE after reading them, but October-December is too valuable. The graphs alone made the magazine worth keeping, and the articles were quite thought provoking. I’m keeping my original, ordering extra copies to hand out, and recommending that those folks consider subscribing. Thanks for an exceptional issue!

 

Alvin Arrowood

Littleton, Colorado

 

 

After reading the October-December issue, I feel as if I owe Europeans—and the French and Germans especially—an apology. For the past few years, I’ve felt like telling them to “go to hell.” But now that I’ve read TAE’s latest, I’ve concluded they don’t need my encouragement; they’ve gone there all by themselves.

 

Jimmy McKinnon

via e-mail

 

 

Your “Red America, Blue Europe” issue was very well done. Like Victor Davis Hanson, however, I find my interest in Europe fading. After half a century as a Europhile, I have basically written them off. I no longer visit, and no longer take their societies seriously. If there’s still a hope for our Western world, it lies right here at home.

 

Steven Gruber

Syosset, New York

 

 

As a liberal academic, I agree with  Robert Dunn’s argument in THE ECONOMIST (October-December). So it’s too bad he adopted such a nasty tone. In our “meritocratic” society, it is precisely educational inequality—from kindergarten through college—that keeps the cycle of social inequality humming along. That same inequality keeps the inequality of political power going strong. Just look at the last Presidential election, where both candidates were Yale graduates. Prominent law firms get their new members from these privileged schools; corporations seek their CEOs there. 

 

It may well be that Dunn intended his piece as satire; it’s so hard to tell in these days of hyperbole. 

 

Kathi Fisher Watts

Southern Methodist University

Dallas, Texas

 

Editor’s Note: Professor Dunn’s essay was indeed a satire. Some advocates of wealth redistribution, however, took it as a great idea.

 

 

After reading “Gitmo Jive” by Gordon Cucullu (September), I felt compelled to write. In October 2004, I launched “Packages of Gratitude,” a program that sends care packages to our troops in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay. After the bad press our Gitmo soldiers endured last summer, I started sending them “fun packages” full of things like cookies, candy, and a message of support from home. 

 

Now that I’ve read “Gitmo Jive,” I’ll start sending that article along as well. I only wish that the establishment media would take a lesson from The American Enterprise and share more stories about what’s really going on! 

 

Mary Ann Cordova

Anaheim Hills, California

 

 

As to Jefferson’s supposed atheism (BOOKTALK, September), we should consider his entire body of religious thought. For example, in his January 9, 1816 letter about what we now call the Jefferson Bible, he wrote: “It is a document in proof that I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus, very different from the Plato-nists, who call me infidel and themselves Christians and preachers of the gospel, while they draw all their characteristic dogmas from what its author never said nor saw.”

 

Jefferson may well have been a Christian in his own way, so we should refrain from judging and labeling him.

 

Clyde Marrow

Macon, Georgia