Letters to the editor

Twilight of the crypto-geeks
BY ELLEN ULLMAN
(04/13/00)

I didn't attend the conference but the same change has come over me. I was a staunch techno-libertarian in college but as I grew up and began appreciating the complexities of the social connective structures which affect me I became increasingly more liberal, to the point that I am almost a yellow dog democrat.

I am, however, not as shocked at that change as Ellen Ullman, since I don't see political philosophy as one-dimensional, with libertarians somewhere to the right of republicans, but as multi-dimensional, with techno-libertarians and social liberals actually fairly close together.

-- R. Michael Litchfield

Whatever their other faults, libertarians don't set content biases, unlike left-wing statists. The question of the composition of the audience is one that can be raised in many settings, from marijuana legalizers to the rap music business. There are many good arguments for government regulation, such as ensuring equal access as was done with dial-up access, but those championing them should try to leave behind their irrelevant, unholy trinity of racial, ethnic and sexual obsessions from the discussion.

-- Richard Solomon

The conclusion that any admission that technology is inadequate to the task of guaranteeing rights is a shift from being a libertarian to being a social democrat seems unjustified. Libertarianism existed long before there was any hope of trying to guarantee rights through the use of technology. In fact, one of its tenets is that one of government's rightful functions is to protect us from the use of force or fraud by another.

As for realizing that corporations can be evil, and that libertarianism equals support for corporatism, I think this is a healthy change in libertarianism. Corporations have long been in the blind spot of libertarians. They are government supported entities that have none of the controls that might normally be applied to such entities, such as the requirement to act in accordance with the Constitution. Even the idea of a labor union is not contrary to the spirit of libertarianism. Government enforcement of collective bargaining laws is.

As for libraries, I would gladly pay out of my own pocket to help support libraries if such payment were not already forcibly extracted from me.

-- Eric Hopper

Little girls on the big prairie
BY MELANIE REHAK
(04/13/00)

How easy it was to recognize my childhood self in Melanie Rehak's essay! I, too, pretended I was Laura Ingalls Wilder, which was pretty easy, considering I lived in Minnesota. I never did the pig's tail thing, but I did make candy by pouring syrup on new snow.

But it was Rehak's mention of her love for Petrova Fossil in "Ballet Shoes" that really grabbed me. I reread that book dozens of times in my pre-teen years, wishing I lived in an old house with hundreds of nooks and crannies to explore, and got to take dance and drama lessons (I conveniently ignored the fact that Pauline, Petrova and Posie were orphans).

But the books that influenced me most were "The Chronicles of Narnia." For years (I'm talking until my late teens), when confronted with an armoire in a private home or a hotel, I had to muster vast stores of resistance to keep myself from tapping the back panel, just to make sure I wasn't missing my chance to go to Narnia. (And I haven't even mentioned my compulsive rereading of the "Wrinkle in Time" series!)

That so many children identified so strongly with Laura, Petrova, et al. shows how powerful literature can be. Kudos to Rehak for excavating some of my fondest memories.

-- Lisa Beaudry

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