Gary Taustine
New York, NY
That New York Times ‘Odor’
Re “The Times Detects a ‘Strong Odor’ in Williamsburg Controversy” (editorial, June 10):
The New York Times has shown a complete lack of sympathy to the plight of Jews and Jewish causes dating back to its abysmal coverage of Holocaust-era atrocities in Europe, when it relegated news reports of those atrocities to its back pages. The esteemed newspaper apparently did not deem the daily slaughter of Jews relevant enough for front-page headlines.
It was therefore not surprising to read of the contrasting treatment by the Times of two separate cases of women being given separate swimming hours in a public pool for religious reasons – one case in Toronto involving Muslim women, which was accorded a sympathetic news story, and one case in Williamsburg involving Jewish women, which elicited a snarling editorial.
The stench created by the shameful use of language reminiscent of the worst anti-Semitic stereotypes used in Nazi Germany to demean Jews – the Times decried the “strong odor of religious intrusion” in the Williamsburg case – continues to linger and offend.
Even for The New York Times, which seems to have a problem with Jews, this was a new low.
Ettie Kryksman
(Via E-Mail)
Trump And Conservatism
In his op-ed article last week (“Trump Vs. Reagan: What Is a Conservative?”), Dr. Paul Kengor argues that Donald Trump is not a conservative. I find his argument perplexing.
Trump wants to lower taxes, cut government regulation, build up the military, preserve traditional marriage, bring education back to the states, vigorously protect the 2nd amendment, balance the budget, protect the unborn, scrap Obamacare, crack down on illegal immigration, restore respect for law enforcement, appoint Supreme Court justices in the mold of Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, and crush radical Islam.
Exactly which item on this list does not constitute a conservative policy?
Dr. Kengor argues that Trump isn’t a conservative by referring to abstract definitions of conservatism offered by Russell Kirk and Ronald Reagan. I doubt anyone in the Tea Party has any idea how Kirk defined conservatism and the definition Kengor cites from Reagan is amorphous enough that it can mean just about anything.
The truth is that no one really knows what conservatism means. Conservatives today, in many respects, hold the same ideas liberals did 75 years ago. In fact, Milton Friedman – a conservative icon – refused to be called a conservative. He claimed to be a liberal. Friedrich Hayek – author of The Road to Serfdom and another conservative icon – likewise argued that he was a liberal. He even wrote an essay titled “Why I Am Not a Conservative.”
Dr. Kengor makes a big deal of the fact that when asked to define conservatism, Trump gave a somewhat muddled response. But I have been a conservative my entire life and I, too, cannot define it. Neither can most conservatives. And again, that’s because many conservatives today have more in common with the liberal Thomas Jefferson than they do with the founding father of conservatism, Edmund Burke.
Right-wing heroes Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Newt Gingrich, Rudy Giuliani, Ann Coulter, Laura Ingraham, Monica Crowley, Michael Savage, Mark Steyn, and David Horowitz all support Trump. Perhaps Dr. Kengor should ask himself why. Maybe it’s because they care more about promoting the policies of conservatism than they do about defining it on an abstract level.
David Rosen
(Via E-Mail)