Letters to the Editor: Gas prices. Homelessness. This is why Republicans might win the White House. They are always the smartest people in the room.
By Mark PendergrastEmail
The following is reprinted from “The Pendergrast Letter” (The Pendergrast Letter, Inc., www.pendergrastletter.com).
From the Editor:
Thanks for your column in the Aug. 24 “Roe v. Wade” issue. In it, you referred to me as a “liberal” on the issue of abortion. I have thought about that label so many times since then, many times when I’ve been in conversation with Republican activists, and many times when we’ve been in conversation with Democratic activists.
The word “liberal” does not mean the same thing as what it means in politics. The word “liberal” refers to the philosophy of John Locke — the political philosopher who developed the idea that society evolves through the rational process of dialogue among its members.
This process is the essence of “civil” society. Society is not a product of nature, and it is not made of anything outside itself. Rather, it is a product of the human mind.
The question that confronts us today is whether we are going to continue to allow politics to take the place of reason in our society. If we do, we will see more and more people treated the way I was treated by the pro-lifers who came to me for help and sympathy.
In my own case, I had been a lifelong Democrat. By the time I encountered the pro-abortion movement, I was a former Democrat, but I was no longer a Democrat. This is because I knew the people I met — the pro-abortion people — to be not what they had purported to be in their public statements. I knew them to be the kind of people who treat women like second-class citizens. I knew them to be the kind of people who don’t believe in any sort of dialogue regarding abortion and contraception.
The people I met with