Conservatives

Thomas F. Schaller makes the usual liberal mischaracterization of conservatives by asking in his op-ed column, "Why do conservatives hate government so much?" ("How government is like insurance," June 29). Of course, this is completely inaccurate since it's excessive government that conservatives hate, not government. He lists all the benevolent things a government can do and stops just short of drawing a picture of a fireman rescuing a little girl's kitten from a tree before pointing to conservatives and asking, "How could they hate that?"

Baltimore County planners want to allow hundreds of houses on waterfront conservation land along the Bird River in Middle River, over the strong objections of environmental regulators. Some county officials say a proposal for up to 400 homes where only three are now allowed would defeat the purpose of multimillion-dollar public investments in natural resource protection and would represent an unprecedented expansion into an area where the county has restricted growth since 1967. Joseph Stamato, owner of Verus Development LLC, the company that wants to develop the site, said "we're protecting the land" by using only about half of the 292 acres of woods and fields.

I am not sure where to start, or end, with this, since I deeply resent Leonard Pitts Jr.'s racist commentary that appears weekly in The Sun. As a center-right member of GOP, I think the answer to many of our problems is for people to get an education ( I am 64 and taking a class to better myself ) and work hard and smart (not dream of entitlements and taking other people's money as President Barack Obama and Mr. Nanny, Gov. Martin O'Malley, do ). But in his recent column ("Why conservatives shouldn't talk about race: Exhibit A," Nov. 6)

El Paraiso is a crowd-pleaser. Whether your friends are hard to impress foodie types, or cautious and careful when exploring a menu, El Paraiso ("the paradise" in Spanish) will make them happy. The restaurant, in a Reisterstown shopping center, serves tasty and familiar Mexican standards alongside authentic — and equally appealing — Salvadoran dishes like yuca con chicharron and beef tongue tacos. The restaurant opened in 2003, but the recipes date back much further. El Paraiso's owners, Mercedes and Maria Rodriguez, emigrated to the U.S. from El Salvador during the Central American country's civil war in the 1980s.

The Sun does everything it can to demonize, denigrate, misrepresent or in many cases conveniently (for The Sun) ignore those of us who proudly proclaim ourselves Conservatives. Your recent editorial ("One nation," Oct. 2) is a good example of this proclivity on the part of The Sun to do a hatchet job on people opposed to The Sun's radical agenda. Among the many "bad mouth" references to the tea party in the Oct. 2 editorial are such words and phrases as: "...the tea party's fat-cat corporate sponsors.

Since the bloodbath in Tucson last Saturday there has been much talk of ratcheting down the rhetoric in what presently passes for political discourse in this country. I'm sorry to say I'm pessimistic that has even the slightest chance of occurring. The reason for my doubtfulness lies in my belief that, since the days of the late Lee Atwater, the political right in this country is a one trick pony. They are simply not equipped to back off the vitriolic rhetoric since it's just part of the way they operate politically.

There's more than a few things wrong with Thomas F. Schaller's column "Policies favoring conservatism built into the system" (Jan. 26). First, Mr. Schaller's claim that President Obama had a winning presidential vote share that exceeded those of Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush is a bit disingenuous. President Obama beat Sen. John McCain by less than 8 percent of the vote, and President Reagan beat President Carter by over 9 percent of the vote. In a nation with an ever-growing population, such metrics must be measured in percentages, not raw numbers, to have any real meaning.

If you didn't see MSNBC'snew weekend morning show "Up w/Chris Hayes" this past Sunday, you missed a fascinating roundtable debate featuring the eponymous host and his guests discussing how the remaining Republican presidential candidates might tap into economic populist angst among working-class conservatives. The panelists agreed that the candidate who can do so has a good chance to separate himself from the field, and they're right. Democrats are more comfortable making economic populist appeals because, in strictly demographic terms, their voters suffer disproportionately from a bad economy: Minorities face much higher unemployment rates, the poor are more reliant on food stamps and other government support, and younger and less-educated workers earn lower wages.

Thank you for taking Mike Huckabee's remarks out of context, labeling them as crazy and ridiculing him for supporting traditional marriages, traditional families and pro-life values ( "Huckabee takes over crazy where Sheen leaves off," March 6). Your techniques and attacks are consistent with the Sun's 20 Feb. article, "Some Catholics support gay marriage" and Julian Bond's letter to the editor of Feb. 22. In the article, Del. Heather Mizeur, a Roman Catholic lesbian, is quoted as saying, "We will counter our opponents' extremism with love.

The article "Conservatives confidence in science declines" (March 30) describes how better educated conservatives' confidence in science and in the reality of climate change has declined precipitously in recent years. This confirms what I have long maintained, that education by itself is no assurance of intelligence or knowledge. I guess we now need a new category - the stupid educated class. Jack Kinstlinger, Baltimore

Congress may soon finalize the 2012 Farm Bill, and that hefty document should concern all of us in Maryland - especially when it comes to clean water. As we all know, the Chesapeake Bay is the nation's largest and most productive estuary. However, the bay is threatened by pollution from its major tributaries, including fertilizer-laden waters from farmlands. Each summer, nutrient runoff leads to algal growth, resulting in oxygen depletion as the algae decays. The loss of dissolved oxygen causes more than a third of the Chesapeake Bay to become a "dead zone.

If it has accomplished nothing else, the tea party insurgency has made Republicans vastly more newsworthy than Democrats. While the party of the left plods along performing the boring old tasks of governing, the party of the right is engaged in high drama worthy of Shakespeare. The latest plot twist comes from Nebraska, where three conservatives have been vying to be the GOP's nominee for the U.S. Senate. The "establishment" candidate, state Attorney General Jon Bruning is, by traditional measures, a conservative.

Due in part to the single-game elimination aspect of the NCAA tournament, it wouldn't seem far-fetched for teams that advance deep into the tourney to become more conservative. A review of the last 13 national champions shows that only one matched or exceeded its season average in scoring with its final performance in the national title game. That was the 2007 Johns Hopkins squad, which averaged 10.4 goals and scored 12 in a one-goal decision over Duke. Several teams were close.

Representatives of land trusts and conservation groups are expected to gather May 15 in Columbia for a statewide conference on the challenges of saving land in Maryland. Howard County Executive Ken Ulman is scheduled to keynote the all-day event, which is hosted by the Maryland Environmental Trust . The conference, which runs from 8:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m., is open to the public, though it'll cost $60 per person to cover all meals and admission to the sessions, including the trust's award ceremony and celebration.

Farmers may be leery of anyone from the federal government promising help, but here's one offer that sounds too good to refuse. The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Service announced this week that it is making up to $315,000 available to "farmers, ranchers and forest landowners" in the Catoctin Creek watershed in western Frederick County. The offer is part of a new water quality initiative by the NRCS directing technical and financial help to 157 watersheds nationwide.

The economic and political tumult in Europe has continued this week with anti-incumbent votes in France and Greece as well as signs of disaffection in Italy, Great Britain and Germany. The electorate is angry, and the election results have raised renewed concerns about whether Europe's most debt-burdened countries will stick with their quest toward fiscal discipline. On this side of the Atlantic, it's tempting to view the uproar in purely parochial terms - out of concern that the U.S. economy will continue to be encumbered by the eurozone crisis.

In the wake of Saturday's attempted assassination of Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, there will be calls to cool the passions and rhetoric of political extremists on both sides of the American ideological spectrum. It's true that the nation's increasingly polarized discourse includes both liberals and conservatives with sharp tongues and even sharper elbows. But when it comes to veiled and not-so-veiled calls for violence, there is a glaring and undeniable asymmetry: It is almost always conservatives who incite, condone and even engage in violence as a "legitimate" means of political expression.

"They do that because they were born that way. " If you say that about homosexuals, you are tolerant and realistic. If you say it about blacks, you are racist (unless you're black yourself). If you say it about women, you may or may not be sexist, depending on who is manning (er, womanning) the feminist battle stations. If you say it about men, you just might be a writer for Esquire. But if you say it about conservatives, you're a scientist. Over the past decade, a new fad has taken hold among academics and liberal journalists: call it the new science of conservative phrenology.

"They do that because they were born that way. " If you say that about homosexuals, you are tolerant and realistic. If you say it about blacks, you are racist (unless you're black yourself). If you say it about women, you may or may not be sexist, depending on who is manning (er, womanning) the feminist battle stations. If you say it about men, you just might be a writer for Esquire. But if you say it about conservatives, you're a scientist. Over the past decade, a new fad has taken hold among academics and liberal journalists: call it the new science of conservative phrenology.

"They do that because they were born that way. " If you say that about homosexuals, you are tolerant and realistic. If you say it about blacks, you are racist (unless you're black yourself). If you say it about women, you may or may not be sexist, depending on who is manning (er, womanning) the feminist battle stations. If you say it about men, you just might be a writer for Esquire. But if you say it about conservatives, you're a scientist. Over the past decade, a new fad has taken hold among academics and liberal journalists: call it the new science of conservative phrenology.