Letters - Letter to the Editor

Reason, May, 2003

Joseph Boyle

Lowell, MA

I read with great interest Sam Staley's article on eminent domain. I am fighting a convention center project in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The state didn't give local officials the right of eminent domain, so what did they do? They found a friendly economic development group to threaten condemnation and shut down a profitable 100-year-old-plus business.

The city economic development authority called the police when I showed up to videotape their meeting. (The Pennsylvania Sunshine Act explicitly permits such filming.) When the police refused to arrest me--I called two lawyers and threatened a civil rights suit--they canceled their meeting rather than have me videotape it.

Ron Harper Jr.

Stevens, PA

Bomb Throwers

In his review of Nuclear Weapons: A Debate Renewed ("Learning to Love the Bomb," February), Steve Chapman refers to author Scott D. Sagan's remarks on the "unreliability" of nuclear weapons personnel. He cites the fact that U.S. armed forces screen Out 5 percent of their nuclear weapons personnel annually on this account and points out that Islamic nations have no such screening procedure. The implication is that such nations may be vulnerable to personnel releasing nuclear weapons on their own initiative.

But it's a misconception that the "unreliability" discussed by Sagan regards concern over personnel releasing nuclear weapons unauthorized. In point of fact, nuclear control regimes in place prevent this sort of behavior by requiring explicit physical confirmation from national authorities. The prospect of "unreliability" that prompts U.S. screening actually pertains to the potential failure of personnel to execute nuclear release orders; it is necessary to ensure that our personnel are mentally and morally capable of discharging their duty when ordered.

This, of course, says nothing about the nature and extent of the nuclear control regimes prevailing in Pakistan or any other Islamic nation. But the fact that percent of U.S. nuclear personnel are annually judged as being unlikely to release nuclear weapons when ordered gives us no insight into whether Islamic nuclear personnel would be prone to release weapons without orders.

Michael J. Dunn

Auburn, WA

Great Stone Faces

Charles Paul Freund ("Big Schlock Candy Mountain," February) did not mention Mount Rushmore's most significant symbolic feature. If you visit in the morning, when the sun shines on Washington's face, you can see a tear glisten on his cheek, as he gazes toward the city that bears his name.

John DeJager

Milford, OH

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