Letters to the Editor

OPINION:

No apologies for Rev. Wright

The Rev. Joseph Evans has written an apologia for his pastoral colleague, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., which is as appalling as the prejudiced prattle that characterized Mr. Wright’s pulpit for years (“Cultural complexities,” Op-Ed, Friday).

He informs those of us who condemn anti-American, anti-white and anti-Semitic vitriol that we are ignorant of black cultural norms, as if this ignorance — to which I plead guilty — is an acceptable explanation or excuse for vile bigotry.

Nowhere in the justification he offers for his colleague’s bitter rants does he examine the damage done to congregational children or to the social fabric many of us have been trying to repair.

Nowhere in his excuse does Mr. Evans assess the particulars of Mr. Wright’s diatribes. Could it be that Mr. Evans knows that he can’t defend the indefensible?

Mr. Evans may accept sermonic bigotry as the norm. In fact, he may extol it even as he backs and fills to explain it, but to ignorant folk like me, a bigot is a bigot is a bigot, irrespective of skin color.

PAUL BLOUSTEIN

Cincinnati

Doing our part on taxes

I always look forward to Richard Rahn’s commentaries as I have found his work to be informative, factual and well-written. His column “Tax tyrannies” (Commentary, Thursday) was typically informative and thought-provoking.

What Mr. Rahn didn’t mention and what just about everyone is missing is that in spite of the strongest economy in the history of mankind, our economic future is being frittered away by our elected representatives.

Mr. Rahn speaks of the inequities in our progressive tax system and how our corporate tax rates make us less competitive in the world, which are all policies decided upon by our elected officials. Very true, but the real culprit is our frivolous spending.

The reason I object to higher tax rates is that our government will simply spend the extra money without regard to the economically bleak future they are creating for us with their misfeasance. The Social Security and Medicare systems, for example, are heading toward disaster.

But our political system, which seems to be based on buying votes from special interests and radical fringe groups on both sides, makes it easy to avoid pushing for policies that will fix these serious threats.

Recently, talk again began about increasing the payroll tax for Social Security to save the system. Because none of the money from that payroll tax is put aside and saved, but instead borrowed and spent on our day-to-day government expenses, it is a joke, although not a funny one.

To consider increasing that most progressive of all payroll taxes, when in fact all it does is provide more money for our elected representatives to just spend, and put off once again, the need to face the realities of the crisis almost upon us, just isn’t funny.

Let’s change the conversation: End earmarks, self-aggrandizing vote buying; reduce government spending; seek the balance point (spoken of by Mr. Rahn) in our corporate and personal tax policies.

Our elected representatives should stop worrying about getting re-elected, become more statesmanlike and just do what is right for this great country.

For years, the majority of our representatives have not done that and we have let them get away with it. It’s time they start, and it’s time we all understand that this will affect us all and be ready to do our part.

CHRISTOPHER S. MOODY

Gaithersburg

John McCain, militarist

Like most of the American electorate, I’ve never met John McCain and know little of him other than what I’ve gleaned from the news media (“McCain packages himself as family man,” Fishwrap, yesterday).

Although I probably am better informed politically than most, I am not particularly conversant with all of his various policy positions. As he has proceeded to the Republican nomination for president, I’ve given some thought to the elementary pros and cons of his candidacy. I’ve concluded that he has a strong visceral appeal for me due to his strong personal values and the strength he derives from those values. At the same time, however, I am somewhat concerned by the apparent centrality of his military ideals.

For want of a better word, Mr. McCain is universally admired for his “manliness,” a word not commonly used in political discourse. We usually don’t comment that a politician (whether male or female) is manly or not, but I find it hard to talk about Mr. McCain without resorting to the term.

Of course, much of it has to do with the story of his Vietnam captivity. What a defining event — not weeks or months but more than five years of physical hardship, privation and torture. And when offered freedom by his captor, he spit in his captor’s eye and refused to leave without his comrades. To call these actions courageous does not fully capture the feelings Mr. McCain’s story evokes in me. They were virtuous in the most profound sense.

To call a man virtuous in the context of modern-day politics is almost an insult. However, in its Latin roots, “virtue” was nothing more than a quality that a Roman man, a “vir,” was expected to display. The singular combination of physical and moral courage displayed by Mr. McCain during his captivity was entirely virtuous in this sense. It was a manifestation of what it means to truly be a man.

Mr. McCain”s manliness appears to derive from his personal soldierly values — duty, honor, country. He is the son and grandson of top Navy admirals. His mother is an elegant grande dame who, no doubt, further nurtured in young John the primacy of military notions of honor and propriety.

He apparently engaged in more than his fair share of shenanigans while a student at the Naval Academy. His mother still publicly refers to him from time to time as a “scamp.” However, his deep-seated sense of military honor operated to sustain him later in life when his manhood was put to an extreme test.

There is a type of militarism instilled in Mr. McCain. Militarism, and all that it encompasses, can be both a blessing and a bane. While it ensures that one will “stay the course,” it can also carry with it a limited view of the world.

Militarists do not often focus on the weakness of man or give due consideration to subjects like law, equity, economics and diplomacy. Gen. Douglas MacArthur was a brilliant and courageous soldier, but he also suffered some obvious shortcomings in his perspective. Gen. George S. Patton, too, lacked a sufficiently broad vision.

Clearly, a military man’s view of the world need not be limited. Both Gens. Dwight D. Eisenhower and George C. Marshall understood the necessary interplay between the full range of military and civilian concerns. However, neither were militarists. Mr. McCain, on the other hand, appears to be.

I hope my concerns are misplaced or that Mr. McCain will seek to expand his view of the world beyond that of the militarist. Certainly, he has shown some promise in bipartisan senatorial initiatives. However, I would like to see more indication of a broader range of interest on his part, and less in the way of single-minded militarism.

At this time, America’s internal threats appear to be perhaps more daunting than her external enemies. Runaway spending, harmonizing the interests of citizens and immigrants, ensuring the continuation of capitalism while protecting against the ravages of robber barons — all of these matters and more require substantial attention by our next president.

In this political year, I hope Mr. McCain succeeds. I don”t really care so much about his ideology or the particular slant of his programs. Lord knows, we have no dearth of politicians offering us programs of every stripe.

I”m just tired of the operators and trimmers. I am in need of a new hero — not in the debased sense in which we call some callow athlete a “hero,” but in the true sense of someone who at least once in his life displayed a level of physical and moral courage that can only be marveled at.

So what if I don’t agree with his positions on all issues? At this point in my life, I really want someone I can respect and admire.

KENNETH LAZARUS

Adjunct professor, Georgetown University Law Center

Associate counsel to President Ford, 1974-77

Washington