In a recent letter to the editor by Christopher Chavez published in the Oct. 5 issue of the Daily Forty-Niner Chavez demonstrated that liberalism is feeble and it reinforced my contentions in my column published in the Oct. 3 issue. First and foremost, Chavez ignored 75 percent of my arguments. Silence equals consent – thus, he agrees with me on almost everything. He only addressed a few items in a tendentious manner on behalf of liberalism rather than delivering his claims cogently.
Chavez indicated that I generalized liberalism. Of course I did – I was being fair and honest and not singling out anyone. He also termed my piece as “flat-out wrong.” Chavez is mistaken: “flat-out” means “absolutely.” My article contains facts and therefore is not “flat-out wrong.” Furthermore, Chavez directly agreed with some of my points, thereby contradicting himself.
His point that “dishonesty has been around … longer than … liberalism or conservatism” does not invalidate Clinton’s lies or the pernicious strategies of liberals. I made several accurate assertions and aptly assumed average acumen as a quality most of our readers have.
Chavez’s best attempt to refute my position: “links to Sept. 11, WMDs and yellow cake uranium all turned out to be false….” This statement is a red herring and does not counter the topic to which he applied it. Moreover, the intelligence Chavez is referring to was not solely provided by the CIA; other country’s intelligence agencies participated in that report that was widely accepted by members of the United Nations. In essence, Chavez claimed that the world lied to the world.
Chavez asked “but when Clinton lied, who died?” Well, Somalia, Kosovo, the incident at Blackhawk Down, Iraq, and many others. Do your research, the truth is out there.
Concerning NAFTA, Chavez was amiss when he wrote “Democrats and Republicans of today prefer economic liberalization – the deregulation of the economy and trade systems.” “Today” refers to present-day, whereas NAFTA emerged in the ’90s. “Liberalization” and “deregulation” sound nice when spoken, but do not encompass NAFTA’s premise – a gradual reduction in tariffs that would ultimately be dissolved.
Chavez alarmed us all with his account that Republicans blocked anti-terrorist regulations for airlines and expanding the government’s wiretapping authority. This is not true. If it were, Chavez’s diction would denote that legislation in existence was passed a second time, even though it did not pass.
Filter out Chavez’s misconceptions, elucidate his argument for him, and the result is this: Democrats complain about President George W. Bush’s current security measurements despite already having been passed under Clinton. Make sense? I didn’t think so. Liberalism is still broken.
Finally, I never offered a conspiracy theory in my article. I provided indisputable facts and posed a question to the readers. Chavez misconstrued my concept and retorted, “Anything’s possible in the world of politics.” Well then, in accord with his point of view, liberals orchestrate all terrorist attacks and natural disasters exclusively for discrediting Bush.
Mike Pascale Jr. is a senior political science major and a copy editor for the Daily Forty-Niner.
