Cheers, Beer Nerd!
I just wanted to proclaim my appreciation of Mike Riedel and the Beer Nerd column. My father, mother and various brothers all eagerly await it as a weekly delight—pulling it out, pinning it up and discussing with an eager eye toward sampling these new beverages so kindly placed on our culinary horizons.
JACOB WILKS
Draper
American Ignorance
Today, America conducts democracy by opinion polling. What do the people think about Ukraine? Let's be guided by that.
But what if the people are not thinking straight? What if they are burdened by emotional distress, debilitating physical ailments, unhappy employment?
What if they did not pay attention in school and did not get a college education? What if they did get a degree, but after college they have not cracked a serious book about public policy in years?
What if they blindly parrot what self-interested political party leaders beg them to believe? What if the average citizen polled on a given day has never read an actual book of American history, or any other history?
How good is our bright, shiny, breaking-news poll then? It becomes a measure of our ignorance, not our wisdom. Democracy requires knowledge and participation, not polls.
KIMBALL SHINKOSKEY
Woods Cross
"'Diplomacy' Is the Problem," Feb. 24 Soap Box
After reading Thomas Knapp's op-ed in City Weekly, I see that he and Tucker Carlson both have a very skewed view of the situation in Eastern Europe.
Does it matter that the vast majority of Belarussians and Ukrainians want nothing to do with an autocratic Russia? Does it matter that Putin is directly responsible for undermining democracy in both those countries and others? Does it matter that Putin is so afraid of the truth that he has been willing to countenance numerous deaths of journalists reporting on his regime over the years?
Does it matter that he locks up his political competitors like dogs purely for their opposition? Does it matter that he has recklessly endangered the lives of foreign nationals in order to poison dissidents living abroad? Does it matter that he has invented a fake history of Ukrainian-Russian relations to justify plunging Europe into barbarism simply to exercise control over a neighboring sovereign country?
I think Knapp's blind spots can largely be explained by his blind adherence to an Ayn Randian philosophy that has little to do with reality. Libertarianism sounds great on the surface. Dig a little deeper, though, and you see that it's really all about justifying excess at the expense of others. This is exactly what plutocrats like Putin base their ugly behavior on. The only thing that matters to him is himself and his co-conspirators. The little people need to just stay out of the way and, if they intervene in any way, they shouldn't expect any more than a bullet between the eyes.
It's true that America has a lot to answer for with its many misadventures abroad over the years. But it is Putin that's on the wrong side of history this time around.
DAVID HARRIS
Salt Lake City
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