Politics
Correspondence: July 1, 1985
BAG THE BELTS To the editors: TRB’s analysis favoring mandatory seat belt laws (or automatic seat belts) over air bags (“Serfdom and Seat Belts,” June 3) is based on the premise that seat belts are as effective as air bags. They are not. READ MORE >>
Why to Comply
SALT II was a modest achievement, to say the least. The two signatories, while generally abiding by its provisions, each have accused the other of conducting the largest military buildup in the history of mankind over the last five years. The Soviet accusation is much less true. But in any case, the treaty has not limited either side at all. Since the SALT II negotiations were completed in 1979 the United States has added about 2,000 nuclear warheads to its arsenal; the Soviets have added about 4,00. Yet only in 1985 does the United States bump up against a SALT II limit. READ MORE >>
Notebook
DOWN THE MEMORY HOLE: Columnist James J. Kilpatrick recently denounced critics of William Bradford Reynolds, President Reagan’s nominee to be associate attorney general. These critics, he said, “do not truly believe in equal rights or in an end to discrimination. Theirs is the Orwellian doctrine that some are more equal than others. In their curious vision, it is wrong to discriminate against blacks, but it is not wrong to discriminate against whites.” What’s truly Orwellian is for James J. Kilpatrick to pose as a defender of equal rights. READ MORE >>
Lame Duck Soup
He looks like a lame duck, and he quacks like a lame duck, so is he a lame duck? This is the same question that excites all of Washington (meaning about three dozen people). What is the explanation for President Reagan’s failure to go from strength to strength following his overwhelming reelection last November? Suddenly he is losing legislative battles, coming under attack from unexpected quarters, stumbling, backing down. READ MORE >>
How We Lost
"Theory. . . demands that at the outset of a war its character and scope should be determined on the basis of political probabilities," wrote Carl von Clausewitz a century and a half ago, ". . . and [makes] imperative the need not to take the first step without considering the last." Caught up in new and sophisticated academic theories of limited war in the nuclear age, those who took America to war in Vietnam in the mid-sixties were not even aware of this "ancient" (and therefore by the antihistorical attitudes of the times, irrelevant) practical advice. READ MORE >>
Open the Door
Nuclear Idealism, Nuclear Realism
Postgrad Culture
On a local talk-show recently, a New York actress, Elizabeth Ashley, said of Chicago: "This is a real town." Chicago gets many friendly pats on the head like this. A fnend ut mine, a Churagoan transplanted from the East like me, growls: 'Don t you hate il when they come out here and say. Oh, what a little srtTci this city is'?" READ MORE >>
Rookie of the Year
Home Truths
About two weeks ago President Reagan was in Texas, and while here he said we ought to consider abolishing the deductibility of home interest from our taxes. . . . That I believe is the worst single idea around in tax law. . . . That is the only deduction that is in the tax law at all that does any good at all for the average American. READ MORE >>
