With respect, the Democrats (“Van Hollen, Delaney for Congress,” Editorial, WJW, Oct. 23)) you endorsed are obviously decent, men and leaders who have done some good in their work. But that is not what matters at all in this or any election. What is vital are the values they and their party hold and how those values have shaped America. Those values are destructive to our country and our core American values, values that have brought more goodness, compassion and dignified lives to more people than in all of human history. In rejecting them, we also reject the greatest anti-poverty program ever devised, American values tied to liberty, religion, small constrained government and capitalism.
They that you endorse are committed Democrats but that party abandoned American liberalism in the 1960s. Since then, it has embraced the value system of “leftism,” a system antithetical to American values.
The leftist value system rejects almost all American values. It rejects America as a force for goodness in the world, our Constitution’s moral command for a free people and a small government with clear enumerated powers. It rejects our American emphasis on freedom and replaces it with radical state-coerced egalitarianism. It rejects the biblical notion of good and evil, replacing it with moral relativism, the “narrative” of Israel versus the narrative of the suffering Gazans. It rejects the notion of protection of private property.
And with this leftism, darkness has descended on America and much of the world. We are more divided than ever before, less free, almost bankrupt, out of work, buried in debt and running from fighting evil.
And you at WJW implore us to vote for more of this toxic value system, this soft utopian tyranny of leftism. No thank you. leftism is not my religion. Americanism is.
HOWARD SACHS
Chevy Chase
Howard Sachs to the contrary notwithstanding, Dennis Prager, Mark Levin and Michael Medved are decidedly not, as he claims, great American and Jewish scholars. Rather, they are bloviating radio talk show hosts who echo the hive mind of the Tea Party- THAT Tea party, the one dominated by the Christian far-right. (N.B.: Mr. Medved is a Mel Gibson defender – not just when the movie “the Passion of the Christ” came out, but even AFTER Gibson’s notorious Malibu anti-Semitic meltdown!)
Mr. Sachs insists that “we are a people that liberty and hate the liberty-crushing Leviathan-sized government..,: in other words, as Law expands, liberty contracts. This is the core libertarian position. What readers of the WJW should be aware of, is that the roots of this anti-nomian trope are to be found in the Apostle Paul, not the Torah. Because, for (“leftist?”) Judaism, Law/Torah/mitzvot and liberty are complementary, not antagonistic values. So it is that Passover (the Exodus) is automatically followed by Shavuot (the giving of the Torah).
Whether he knows it or not, de facto if not de jure, Mr. Sachs’ rhetoric establishes his ideological bona-fides as that of a Jew for Jesus.
Dear Stevie W. : Thank you for your comments. Unfortunately I read nothing of substance in what you wrote. Hence I have nothing to say. If you’d care to address any substantive topic in a focused manner and comment, I’d love to read and think about it. I would say that Mr. Levin and Prager are two of the finest thinkers I have encountered in my life. It sounds like you have no experience listening to them or thinking about their ideas. Thank you for your time. I’m sorry there is so little to respond to besides some generalities and name calling. with regards: H Sachs