Letters to the Editor 6/26

GOP has no clue why it lost influence

Rick Van Alfen's letter June 19 provided welcome relief from the religious rightist ideology of many Appeal columnists and letter-writers. As a six-decade conservative Republican I'm appalled at the radical rantings of Michael Reagan, Chuck Muth, Ty Cobb, Bill O'Reilly and others. It's clear the GOP has no clue why it lost Nevada's Legislature and Congress to a democrat majority.

Never having enjoyed the rigors and terrors of war themselves, never having been a prisoner of war, they revel in a primal vision for the GOP of world domination, glorying in other folks' sons and daughters doing the heroic stuff of sacrificing body and blood to a new crusade to annihilate another culture because of its religion. And they are content to do it all on borrowed money, just like ancient Rome.

They forget it was American survivors of World War I brutality who demanded the Geneva conventions outlawing torture, to protect their descendants from enduring what they did when they were captured fighting the war to end all wars.

Right wingers still cling to the mindless mantra of free trade, notwithstanding that Karl Marx praised it. Free trade and destruction of anti-trust and other sensible regulation of banks and insurers directly caused the building bubble and collapse, ever-widening budget and trade deficits, and collapse of the dollar. Consequent dependence on imports for many basics of life expose us to sky-rocketing costs of imports.

Yet radical right political pundits still can't comprehend why voters deserted them.

JACK VAN DIEN

Minden

Look in the mirror before casting stones

The selective indignation of Sen. John Ensign by Chuck Muth is puzzling to the extent that in this society that is led by the mentality of Hollywood, only now does a featured writer (Muth) choose to exhibit indignation.

Extra-marital sex is a standard occurrence in Washington, but that is the least of their sins. Rather than rising like the Phoenix from the ashes of our constitution, the Euro-crat party in charge of Congress, plus the Marxist trend of the ill-chosen president, represent a far greater and enduring damage to this nation than isolating the indiscretions of one senator.

Should all such marital vow-breakers suddenly leave, we would face the prospect of two nearly vacant houses of Congress.

The indiscretion of Sen. Ensign was morally wrong, but at least he was man enough to admit it. "Let the one among you without sin, cast the first stone."

VERNON M. LATSHAW

Gardnerville