[RE: Letters, “Crap No One Needs,” Aug. 24-30] Mr. Schrader, as you’ve relentlessly pointed out in the Albuquerque press for the last 20-plus years, you don’t pay taxes and encourage the rest of us to live as you do if we protest the war machine. You obviously don’t have the luxury of caring for dependents, for one thing. I applaud you for not supporting the war, but I defy you to prove that you do not ever benefit from the many other tax programs the rest of us fund, including the one used to put a sidewalk under your (bare) protesting feet.
Born In The U.s.a.
[RE: Letters, “Crap No One Needs,” Aug. 24-30] Don Schrader, congratulations on being worthless to society! You should be proud.Yes, the war in Iraq is a bad thing. I will not argue about that. That is only a small portion of where tax money goes, however. Consider health care, education and various other programs the government offers. And while this particular war is not necessary, they sometimes unfortunately are. You may choose to live as a communist or survivalist or anarchist or worthless leech … or whatever the hell you want to call yourself, but many of the rest of us are quite happy as capitalists living in a democratic republic, and are willing to fight to defend this ideal. If we don’t fight to defend our ideals, others will fight us to push theirs.You also chose to make some snide comments about our soldiers. I guess this is to be expected of a sniveling coward such as yourself. You choose to let others do your dirty work while you sit and whine. Speaking as someone who’s seen the Air Force, I can assure you that soldiers are humans, same as everyone else. Soldiers have the same fears as anyone else and, yes, they also have consciences. They made the choice, however, to defend what they believe in with their lives, whatever other motivations they may have had. But there’s good news for you yet, Don! In the U.S.A., thanks much to the efforts of our brave and wonderful soldiers, you have the right to be the worthless and sniveling little whiner that you are! And being an American myself, I have the right to point that out to you! Isn’t that just swell?
Land Of Egos
Déjà vu … back to the 1992 Legislative Session. I read the Q&A about New Mexico’s nonexistent bottle bill law in Christie Chisholm’s great "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" article [Feature, Aug. 17-23] and had to laugh.We were lobbying the Legislature for a bottle bill 15 years ago—to no avail. A rather rude state senator wagged his finger in my direction and said, "We don’t need anyone from California telling us how to run our business!" because I testified about how great the California bottle bill law was working, having just moved from that state to the Land of Enchantment. My impression 15 years later? The Land of Egos needs to grow up and we need to elect responsible legislators who are not afraid of new ideas.
Officer Y Pino
Any traction Mr. Ortiz y Pino’s piece on APD, Chief Ray Schulz, Racial Profiling, and "overly gung-ho troops" [“A Great Stride,” Aug. 24-30] had, spun out when he included "local heroes" like the Unser Brothers.Even though the shine on the Unser Bros.’ local hero status is diminished by their tire smoke of recent antics, their inclusion in the story, presumably, to further demonstrate the predilection of local cops to go ballistic was unseeming.As the piece mentions, not only were the local cops in question during the Unser’s faux pas not of Schultz’ storm-trooper variety (Bernalillo County Sheriffs’ Department and not APD), but the behavior of the Unsers warranted whatever treatment they received at the hands of the police that day.When law enforcement officers give a citizen an order to go this way or that, or stop, or not stop, the citizen has the duty to obey. The Unsers did not obey that day, either because they’re just good ol’ boys or felt they didn’t have to because of their "local hero" status, or for whatever reason.I believe the Unsers have apologized for their behavior that day, which was appropriate.What was not appropriate, no matter the author’s opinion of "the police," was to use an example of justified and correct police behavior to try to put the officers in the light of an overly gung ho, rogue police outfit.Ortiz y Pino’s opinion seems either to be just the musings of someone who, perhaps, has just received a parking ticket, or of someone with only a clouded, poorly-reasoned, anti-police sentiment. I know: Next time you’re in trouble, instead of calling 242-COPS, call Ortiz y Pino.
So Very Socialist
I hate to interfere with John Dendahl’s effort to drive his likely vote down from 30 to 20 percent, but he’s now reconfirmed that his priority is to label as many people and things as possible "socialist."Two of my sisters and many of my friends are teachers and are not socialists—despite teachers’ pitiful salaries and having to work under a Stalinist system of regulations. In fact, they exemplify the personal values that I suspect Dendahl would support.I don’t doubt Dendahl’s claim that he has heard some complaints along this line, since he’s the "go-to" guy for complaints about The Great Socialist Conspiracy—after spreading this nonsensical view in the first place. If he can’t factor this skewed data out of the equation then he’s not as smart he seems. The idea of having an ideologically driven, out-of-touch governor would be amusing if the effects weren’t so serious, as we see with our president. And what would be Dendahl’s response to this socialist-teacher problem? War with Mexico? No, how about another country that starts with "M"—like Montenegro!
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