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Jim McPhilliamy: Speak with victims

I read with frustration Bob Herbert’s commentary on “Leading to the low ground.” It indeed made me feel low.

My frustration is in where this thinking comes from. Has not Mr. Herbert ever had to challenge the schoolyard bully? Has he not seen people who held the “moral and ethical high ground” and yet ended as submissive victims? (Auschwitz, Buchenwald and Dachau come to mind.)

His article would lead one to believe that those in Guantanamo were incarcerated for loitering or some other non-violent event. His choice of words, “the administration’s descent into barbarism” reflects a lack of understanding of the word.



I had a friend who was in the Batan death march and spent five years in a Japanese prison camp. Perhaps Mr. Herbert should talk with someone who had that kind of experience or some of our Jewish friends who survived the death camps to get a better understanding of the word barbarism.

The rumbling sound Mr. Herbert refers to may not be our founding fathers spinning in their graves. They understood the need to fight tyranny. The rumbling sound he heard may be a host of defenders of freedom who have sacrificed so much to insure Mr. Herbert the right to downgrade our governments attempts to protect us from unwarranted violence.




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