Letters to the Editor

The importance of open debate

Politics professor Patrick Deneen's remarkably condescending recommendation in his Oct. 3 letter that I read Tocqueville beyond the few passages I was able to cite in my Oct. 1 commentary on "Political Correctness" completely misses the central theme of my piece.

That theme was not militarism or individualism or pacifism — the foci of professor Deneen's letter — but the constraints that this country's traditional penchant for political correctness impose on debates over any major controversial issue, including health policy. Thus, I did not chide Messrs. Nat Hoopes '03 and Pete Hegseth '03 for their advocacy of military strikes abroad but merely for their untoward labeling and dismissal of someone who held contrary views as a "coward." I urge professor Deneen to reread my commentary, this time with care.

I did in closing cast aspersions at the many sabre-rattling ersatz 'patriots' whose idea of patriotism is to buy and wave a U.S. flag but who would never dream of donning the nation's uniform actually to fight for their country. In this connection, I cite Tocqueville once more, as he remarked: "I have heard of patriotism in America and I have met many patriots among the American people, but never among their leaders."

Although that passage clearly is at variance with this country's valiant WWII generation, it does describe to a 'T' the bulk of the Baby Boom generation, whose leaders were so skillful at avoiding the draft in their youth. One thinks here, first, of President Bill Clinton, who famously avoided the draft during the Vietnam years. One should think also of former Secretary of Defense and current Vice President Dick Cheney, who also (albeit less famously) avoided the draft through a series of deferments because, as he put it, he "had other priorities at that time." One should also think here of the overwhelming majority of members of Congress who were of draft age during the Vietnam War.

It turns out that Princeton's Mr. Hegseth '03 is a member of ROTC, which makes him a genuine patriot in Tocqueville's sense of that term and which sets him apart from the many ersatz 'patriots' I criticized in my piece. I fully respect Mr. Hegseth's views on military policy, although still not his and Mr. Hoopes' untoward dismissal of a contrary view. Uwe Reinhardt Professor of Economics and Public Affairs