Go Armond, Go Matt; Cops Are Mean, and So Are Rapists; Yockel's Reverend; The Tabb Backlash; Cockburn on Warming; Young on the Estate Tax

Armond White's review ("Film," 3/14) of A Summer's Tale is one of the very best reviews, or pieces of film criticism for that matter, that I have read in a very long time. I have been reading White for a few months, and as a devoted reader of Andrew Sarris, I think White is the second-best film critic in the city.

Philip Tsai, Queens

Gem-Cutting

Matt Zoller Seitz wrote an absolute gem of a review of the film Memento in the 3/14 New York Press. Concise, accurate and even arranged in a sequence similar to that of the film?completely true to the movie's spirit.

Too bad some knucklehead editor or paste-up flunky had to spread it out over two pages, disrupting its rhythm. This has been bugging me for months?why the need to start two articles on a page before finishing one? I know, you want me to look at the ads on two pages instead of one. But in addition to an attempt at manipulation, it's an implication of mistrust. Relax, guys, I'll turn the page in a minute, but I'll do so with a renewed feeling of accomplishment if I could just finish an article first. It's not difficult, guys. Just shift some columns around, make the whole paper a little more reader-friendly. It's so annoying to flip around, looking for those last few paragraphs.

John Holderried, Brooklyn

Dope Squad

In C.J. Sullivan's 3/14 "Bronx Stroll," there is a brief but nasty passage in which now-retired Det. Frankie McDonald, when questioned by a reporter on the slowing down of a Metro-North train in a vain search for a missing child, brusquely identified the passengers on the train as "assholes from Westchester." Earlier in the article, McDonald is described as a "big, warm man."

Hmmmm. In my book, the type of person who refers to strangers as "assholes" is neither big nor warm. It is safe to say the New York Police Dept. is a much better place without nasty, verbally abusive characters like McDonald on staff.

Phil Hall, Manhattan

Power Point

Re: Ben Domenech's "Big Blowout on Campus" ("First Person," 3/14): I commend you, Ben, for coming to the aid of your friend Whitney after she was brutally raped at a fraternity house. I disagree with your statement, however, that "She probably won't remember any of tonight, and that's probably a good thing."

You're wrong there. She needs to remember what happened. Your duty as a friend to Whitney is to talk with her about the rape, and to encourage her to get professional counseling. Whitney needs to be tested immediately for sexually transmitted diseases, HIV and pregnancy. The two of you must report the crime to the police (and I don't mean the campus police). I encourage you to testify in court and to see that the rapist(s) are prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

Empower yourself, Ben. By doing so, you will be helping to prevent the rapist(s) from attacking again.

Juliana Luecking, Brooklyn

He Lives an Impoverished and Lonely Life

MUGGER: As always, your column says what many of us think. A real treasure. I was wondering, since you live in Noo Yawk, where a scarcity of conservative thought exists, if you and the missus might be on the south end of the social totem pole due to your "right-wing views"? Does your lucid analysis of current events hamper your invitations at all? Just wondering.

John Snyder, Frederick, MD

You Thinked Wrong

MUGGER: Weren't you a stellar critic of trickle-down Reaganomics when you were at the Baltimore City Paper? I gather you moved up a few tax brackets, but I didn't think you'd adopt the Republican mindset so totally.

Name Withheld, via Internet

Surfing Bird

The columns in New York Press are like long jokes with no punchlines, told by half-drunk guys.

Sparrow, Phoenicia, NY

Written on Water

It's a good thing Daria Vaisman didn't actually have to write anything ("New York City," 3/14). She seemed to be a bit in over her head as it was.

Michael Johnson, Washington, DC

Rev Your Engines

Great piece, Michael Yockel's "The Romanian Reverend vs. the Beast of the Apocalypse" ("e-Obituary," 3/14, reprinted this week on p. 90). I was moved and enjoyed it thoroughly.

George Mertz, via Internet

Cost Revs

Michael Yockel: Thank you very much for your article chronicling the life of the Rev. Richard Wurmbrand. He was a true hero of the faith, and I have supported his Voice of the Martyrs ministry for some time. We here in America have no idea how precious the religious freedom guaranteed to us by the First Amendment is. It makes me sick to my stomach when I see all the efforts to remove Christianity and religious values from our schools, courtrooms and government, while believers around the world suffer and die for their beliefs. The enemies of God in this country are working overtime to take those rights away from us. If we are not careful, we will become like Romania, Indonesia, China, Sudan and so many other countries where it can cost you your life to believe. I pray that, when the persecution erupts here, I will have the faith to stand against it like Wurmbrand did.

Well done, Rev. Wurmbrand, enter into your rest. And to the church in America: wake up!

Ron Devon, via Internet

A Hard, Cold Quatrain

I guess this Christen Clifford ("First Person," 3/7) is outrageous.

I guess.

She sure seems to be trying hard to be.

Maybe a little too hard.

Jeff Gilchrist, San Francisco

Said About Ed

Andrey Slivka, in his eagerness ("Billboard," 3/14) to defend the much-ballyhooed Edward Said, engages in some contorted reasoning. He's right to state that "ancestral home" is a broad term, as much a point of cultural reference as anything else. Had the media's favorite Hamas apologist claimed Israel as his spiritual homeland or suchlike, the analysis would have been spot-on.

It's therefore a shame that Slivka hasn't bothered paying attention to the good professor's actual claim, which runs as follows: "I was born in Jerusalem and had spent most of my formative years there" (London Review of Books, 5/7/98). In other words, Said has insisted until recently that mandatory Palestine was his actual childhood residence, not a "beacon" or "emotional focal point." Hardly symbolic. More like a plain lie.

As for the house in Jerusalem, Said has never referred to it in anything but the most concrete terms. In Search of Palestine, his typically self-pitying and anti-Israeli 1998 documentary, features the learned Cairene standing in front of that same house and claiming it as his own. This claim is rather unsymbolic, as it has formed the basis of his phony demands that Israel further fatten his wallet. Needless to say, Said never lived in the place. He has claimed it as his father's, when it was in fact his uncle's. Any financial remuneration, however unwarranted and undeserved, would have to be forked out to his cousins, not him. Claiming that the State of Israel owes you hard cash for some very genuine real estate isn't a "symbolic" act. It's an untruthful and devious one.

I don't know if Slivka actually shares this faux-Palestinian's enthusiasm for obfuscation, or his willingness to shrug off actions such as lying and hurling rocks at Israelis as merely "symbolic," but he certainly seems eager to bend the truth.

Benaiah Moses, via Internet

Andrey Slivka replies: What? My little piece wasn't about Said, but about the imprecision of a New York Post columnist's language, which remains at issue whether Said was telling the truth or not. I don't care either way for Said, who was the well-dressed, caustic, occasionally profane professor who terrified my Joseph Conrad seminar back when I was a junior in college, and who gave me a bad grade, besides?a B-minus as I recall. Leave me alone.

 

Spike in His Throat

I wasted 10 minutes of my break time at work reading Alan Cabal's vapid review of Spike's roadside restaurant in New Jersey ("Food," 3/14). Wow, Alan, you ate shrimp at this place. Big deal. Everyone knows you can get great shrimp at Red Lobster, too. For all I know, that's where the proprietor got it from. If it "had been caught that morning," as you wrote, then I take that to mean that it was dredged from the waters off the New Jersey shore. If this were true, you'd likely have wound up with food poisoning and a piece of a needle?remember medical waste??stuck in your throat. So you seem to have discovered the Jersey Shore just now, as you shun the Hamptons?

Come on Alan, you can do better than this.

Drew Behr, Cliffside Park, NJ

Aloha, Pete!

MUGGER: Hawaii is eons away from Manhattan and the "action," but with your column available on the Net we are able to participate in the day-to-day fun through your very keen observations. Many thanks for your honest, and very clear approach to the happenings.

Pete Siracusa, Maui

Razing a Rabble

I don't know why, but I really enjoy reading the outraged letters-to-the-editor by humorless people. It must mean I'm a sadistic creep. So thank you, George Tabb. I didn't think much of your "Why Chicks Can't Rock" article ("Music," 3/7), but I did experience a thrill of anticipation for the pathetic letters it would inevitably generate, like a clockwork mechanism powered by a seesaw of retarded people. I guess I thought that it was evident from the tone of the piece that Mr. Tabb didn't entirely mean what he wrote, and that he and your editorial staff in general, being perhaps even more sadistically perverted than myself, simply derive pleasure from causing innocent people to become pointlessly incensed.

On the other hand, maybe he meant what he said. That would be pretty weird, but in either case, you have once again cranked out an entertaining spectacle of mankind at its lowest.

Chris Wood, Manhattan

Bass on Balls

George Tabb: I met you once, saw Furious George once, and I know you don't mean what you wrote. It's just more of your wannabe punk 'tude, trying to be contrary, trying to be shocking. Dude, you're a nice guy!

Anyway, that explains you, but I've got my own sexist attitude. As a Gibson-playing (Peavey-driven plus distortion) front for my band Paris By Night, I've always held that because men have penises they can't/don't usually bang on their guitars. Since men know best the fragility of their manhood (the organ, I mean), when they come to its extension, the guitar, they seem to strum ever so gracefully. I, on the other hand, bang the hell out of it?no psychological equations here. Here's hoping we all keep breaking low E strings.

Jeanine Acquart, San Antonio, TX

Pussies Just Wanna Have Fun

As I read "Why Chicks Can't Rock" I kept thinking to myself, "Man, I can't wait until next week's 'Mail.'" George Tabb knew exactly what he was doing, and boy did he deliver. Every nitwit chick and her mother wrote in to express her "indignation." George just proves how easy it is to press the buttons of these p.c. types. Some letter-writers even knew what he was doing, stating something like, "You obviously only write articles like this to inflame and incite stupidity," yet they still couldn't help themselves from picking up their pens to write inflamed and stupid letters!

That George Tabb sure knows how to have fun. Keep up the good work, brother.

James Calautti, Kearny, NJ

Backlash

I just read the responses to George Tabb's article "Why Chicks Can't Rock," and I couldn't believe that anyone actually took him seriously. Have we become so politically correct that everyone has lost their sense of humor? It was a great article. Keep up the good work, George.

Ira Schatten, Manhattan

Rimjob

George Tabb didn't spend nearly enough time explaining why chicks can't play the drums. There are zero good female drummers in the world. Not one. There are a few good chick guitar players. Why do you think there are so many girl bands with male drummers? I'm not talkin' that Sheila E on the timbales bullshit. They just physically can't pound the shit out of anything. They make a mark on a drum head and immediately reach into their makeup bags and try to cover it up. And all good drummers are not morons. Most, though.

Mark Duffy, Manhattan

Windy and Warm

That was a great 3/14 "Wild Justice" column by Alexander Cockburn. A pleasurable read, well-written and presented (as always). He is also completely right.

It is probably also the second article from him with which I completely agree. Oh well, a broken clock can be right, and all that.

Wallace Watford, Fruitland Park, FL

Winter's Tale

Alexander Cockburn's skeptical 3/14 analysis of global warming contains some, well, hot air. First, he commits the common error of confusing weather with climate. Weather is short-term, measured in days or weeks, while climate is viewed over decades and centuries. One cold winter is a tiny blip on a century-long trend.

Using the Climate Change report, Cockburn concludes that "modelers are admitting there could be a one in three chance they are wrong" about anthropogenic warming. Using the report's definition of "unlikely" (10-33 percent chance), one could also interpret the report as giving a nine in 10 probability that man-induced warming is real. A 90 percent chance is pretty damn good, whether you are a gambler or a statistician. Cockburn naturally chooses the low end of the probability range (67 percent) to bolster his argument.

The author's insistence that the global warming theory must be proven before we act sounds like the irrational ravings of a creationist who opposes evolution. While scientific hypotheses may be falsified, theories are not always proven to a level of 100 percent certainty. Heard of a nutty thing called "preventive medicine"? If we rely upon Cockburn's flawed reasoning, we would do nothing about global warming and carbon dioxide emissions until a statistically significant percentage of New York City is under water.

John Cantilli, Cranford, NJ

Jim Bean

I've been reading "Slackjaw" for years, and his 3/7 "Muttering Retreats" was the first of Jim Knipfel's columns to make me doubt his ethics. All in all, a pretty good track record, but I still feel compelled to voice my dismay at Knipfel's lapse in judgment.

Knipfel's behavior in "Muttering Retreats" comprises a fairly standard male dodge, particularly prevalent among guys who don't date a lot. (That's me!) Desperate to feel attractive, the man in a dating slump will cling to whatever meager scraps of attention from the opposite sex are thrown at him. Knipfel, out of "politeness," refused to rebuff an obviously troubled, lovesick young woman, thereby keeping her (presumably quite painful) state of unrequited wanting in suspension. What's so "impolite" about saying, "I like you, but I'm not attracted to you," which, under the circumstances, would have been perfectly true? Nothing, of course, but Knipfel drew it out, neither capitalizing on the sexual opportunity (which could have eliminated at least part of the girl's painful desire) nor being honest (which would have been the truly polite thing to do). This was obviously to palliate Knipfel's own lingering desire to be wanted. Part of him exulted at her abjection, and he allowed that part to reign, sublimating it under the wan heading of "politeness."

It's not Knipfel's actions per se that compel me to write, however. No one looks to college students for tips on courtly behavior. What unnerves me is that, some 10-odd years later, Knipfel is still dodging. He can analyze the situation with ironic aplomb, finding hilarious nuance in the most picayune events, yet he still can't bring himself to empathize with the girl whom he (let's face it) put through a particularly hellish kind of psychological torture. Knipfel's certainly not alone. In love, who hasn't been inconsiderate, venal, selfish?in a word, human? What we look to our best writers for (and Knipfel is, in my opinion, one of the best out there) is some clear-eyed moral perspective on human error. It's no coincidence that Knipfel invokes cartoons twice in his text (which is placed, I should add, beneath a grotesque caricature of the "frizzy red-haired girl"). "Muttering Retreats" makes a cartoon out of sexual mores. It's a blot on Knipfel's usual, unflinching portraiture.

Richie Collins, Manhattan

MUGGER, Li'l Slugger

MUGGER: Though I'm quite a fan of yours and have lots of thoughts about your column, I can sum them up best by saying that it's still not too late for you to grow up. You've certainly got leadership potential! And, your work can be very, very good?exceptional, even!

Joseph J. Halbach Sr., Nassau Bay, TX

Russ Smith replies: Honesty is its own reward. That's the first time I've ever been called a "Peter Pan" boomer. Stop the presses.

Here to Help

Many thanks to Toby Young for his 3/14 "Taki's Top Drawer" piece on the Real IRA.

Although at first I did not expect too much from a man who could devote an entire column to his pornographic video collection ("Taki's Top Drawer," 6/21/00), I am happy to know that the British Army is there to protect the Catholics, even if it does puzzle me that the vast majority killed by them since 1969 have also been Catholics.

His fear of civil war is, I think, unfounded. It certainly did not worry them in 1947 when India went to the dogs, nor a year later when they pulled out of Palestine. But perhaps the Irish rate a higher degree of concern than Hindus, Muslims, Arabs and Jews.

If so, then I think we are not grateful. But possibly 800 years of oppression, the almost total extinction of our language, the attempted extinction of our religion, Bloody Sunday and a century and a half of mass emigration could dull gratitude in any nationality. Even if it did come with the gift of English civilization. The same civilization that gave us the gifts of the concentration camp, the shrapnel shell and the opium trade, which led directly to the mass drug problem of today.

Perhaps Toby Young should stick to subjects he knows more about, such as pornography.

Sean O' Toole, Manhattan

But Why Dicker?

In response to Toby Young's "The Real IRA": Why is it that when Irish Americans disagree with British policy in Ireland, British pundits insist they don't understand the situation? I realize it's hard to accept that your empire has dwindled to six Irish counties, but this does not make your government's policy unassailable. While the RIRA's actions are deplorable and indeed supported by a statistically irrelevant minority of Irish people, Mr. Young's side-swipes at Irish Americans are as cliched as those he attempts to skewer.

Certainly, the majority in the northern state are Protestants. Duh. But Mr. Young fails to note that the state was strategically crafted to ensure majority rule, with a host of repressive legislation thrown in to keep the Catholic minority from getting uppity. Had it occurred to Mr. Young that Irish-Americans might be anti-British because they descended from those routed from their country because of British government misrule? Regarding Mr. Young's assertion that British troops are there to protect Catholics?hmm? Were they protecting Catholics as they watched Protestant mobs burn nationalist areas in '69? Were they protecting Catholics by indiscriminately interning them? Were they protecting them when they killed 14 unarmed civilians on Bloody Sunday in 1972? With its shoot-to-kill policy and plastic bullets for the kiddies?

While hardline republicanism is both ideologically and morally reproachable, Mr. Young has taken the easy way out by painting Irish Americans as little more than militant leprechauns.

John Dicker, Brooklyn

Merit Extra Lites

How gallant and brave of Toby Young to appear ("Taki's Top Drawer," 2/28), all of a sudden, out of the black forest, charging like a white knight to defend and rescue the poor helpless American zillionaires, whose basic rights seem compromised by the present estate or "death" tax. He is even more appalled by a band of renegade billionaires, led by Warren Buffett and William Gates Sr. (traitors to the cause?), who in several newspaper ads have expressed their opposition to the elimination of said tax.

What first comes to mind is why Mr. Young would bother to take this issue seriously. Does he really think that the estate tax is an operative social tool of income redistribution that actually encroaches upon the wealth rights of the zillionaires? If that is the case, then he has not done his homework well. Otherwise he would have found the following facts:

1. Very few estates are subject to the tax. In 1998 only 45,300 estates were estimated to be hit, accounting for just 2 percent of all deaths.

2. The estate tax was calculated at $23 billion in 1998, i.e. 1.4 percent of federal revenue that year.

3. Projections that year say that fewer than 50,000 estates will be taxable a decade from now.

4. Quite simply, the tax does not work well. It has so many loopholes that economists call it a voluntary tax, since an average lawyer can get most people out of it.

Given this reality, how to explain Mr. Young's tirades? Well, it simply provides him with an opportunity to preach to us with the usual litany of the rather discredited and trite libertarian dogmas. For instance, his first weapon of attack consists of bringing to the fore the former priest of libertarian philosophy, Robert Nozick, and to quote from his Anarchy, State and Utopia book. Mr. Young canonically states that it "...puts forward a powerful libertarian case against taxation of any kind." What Mr. Young ignores (and it is a heavy bag of ignorance he carries) is that after a powerful barrage of solid criticisms from some of the best minds in philosophy and social science, Mr. Nozick, and this is a tribute to his intelligence and intellectual courage, has substantially retracted from his previous theories, and that in a book, published 15 years later, entitled The Examined Life, he actually makes the case for a just scheme of taxation and he expresses that he is no longer a libertarian.

Next, in a case of absurd logic, Young tries to discredit Warren Buffett's comparison of a wealth aristocracy with the selection of an Olympic team based on the eldest sons of its previous members. Young declares: "They [the athletes] do not deserve their natural abilities more than the children of successful parents." Why this? "Because such advantages are distributed in a way that's completely arbitrary from a moral point of view." Now, one must ask, since when is the activity of chemicals inside the human genome, i.e., the interaction of nucleic acids and proteins, a subject of moral judgment? This twisted reasoning is truly shocking.

Finally, Young expresses his dislike for American meritocratic values. This one is easier to understand, since after a job was offered him by meritocrat Graydon Carter at Vanity Fair, Young actually failed to keep up with the demands of the magazine's meritocracy and was fired. Then, after failing to obtain gainful employment in similar venues, after striking out with every woman in Manhattan and after developing a reputation as a party crasher, he was forced to return to London. There, in more familiar grounds, he can take on similar valiant causes, such as defending the English aristocracy. One hopes he eventually finds more socially redeeming causes to fight for. Perhaps not, since as with Ayn Rand, behind every libertarian there lies a weak and self-indulgent soul in search of moral acceptance.

C. David Senior, Manhattan

Toking Revolution

MUGGER: I totally digged your 3/7 essay. I believe that all Americans really want to do is read the paper and fornicate. Furthermore, I believe that marijuana is a revolutionary drug, and I mean that in the rebellion sense. Marijuana will never be legalized due to the fact that it would completely destroy our economy. Paper companies would crumble due to the nonpolluting abundance of hemp paper. Tobacco companies would lose half of their business due to marijuana cigarettes.

Along with these two companies, you could practically link up the downfall of our whole corporate society. Not only would the drug stop corporations, it would decrease our crime rate and violent offenders. Look at the stats. When was the last time you heard about a guy who was so stoned that he beat his best friend's ass with a pool cue? Now ask the same question and substitute marijuana for alcohol. See my point?

Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.

Nick Rodriguez, Oxnard, CA

War Games

MUGGER: I love your columns!

I have just one small comment on your 3/14 column. I disagree that Bush couldn't get away with strengthening the tax cut package so early in his term. I'm convinced, rather, that it's the best time for him to take decisive action. Later, the opposition will have hardened, and Democratic strategies for defeating such legislation will have congealed. I say, let him use this supposed honeymoon period wisely by making the cuts retroactive, reducing capital gains taxes even further (than the GOP Congress did recently), and insisting on his spending increase cap. With the economy in recession?something never recognized until after the fact?it's crucial to make these cuts retroactive, in order that we feel their effect before next year. Otherwise, our recession will worsen rather than abate.

And oh, by the way, Bush and the GOP will suffer in next year's elections. Unfortunately, Pete Domenici, et al., don't seem to get this connection. Already, they are pushing to weaken the package by agreeing to Democratic restrictions and limitations such as "triggers" for increased taxes when the economy is adjudged in recession, an easing of the proposed spending cap and an extending of retroactivity to only lower-income earners. As if that would have the intended effect of tax cuts and bolster the economy.

But, really, the point I want to make is that, politically, this is the time for Bush to go the whole nine yards. He should start out on the right foot by insisting that the American people get to keep more of the money they already have earned this year. He should use his bully pulpit as well as travel to the states of vulnerable Democratic senators, as he is doing. He can strengthen the spines of fellow Republicans by aggressively selling his tax cut directly to us. He can preempt efforts to weaken his package in this way, and speed the Senate on its duty. Until the positive economic effects of his initial legislative efforts are felt, it will be more and more difficult for him to pass other legislation.

David A. Horton, Columbia, MD

Russ Smith replies: Mr. Horton may be correct, since the economic and political climate changes daily. Once John McCain's ludicrous distraction of campaign finance reform is scuttled, it's quite possible Bush (who'll have lined up half a dozen Democratic senators to vote with the GOP) will get more aggressive with his tax-cut agenda. Let's hope so.

 

America the Beautiful

MUGGER: Yeah, let's do something about those FICA taxes. Give me mine and let me put it where I want and I'll sign a release from the Nanny. She won't have to worry about me at all. Just leave me the hell alone. Dick Gephardt and Tom Daschle should go to Vermont or wherever and marry each other and live happily ever after.

What a couple of turds. Poster boys for what's wrong with America. A generation ago you could have reached across the table and bitch-slapped 'em like they deserve without the fear of a lawsuit. Oh, for the good ol' days.

I'd be happy with my little tax cut. I'd buy me the new air conditioner that I've been putting off for the last four years.

Tom Kirkpatrick, Crane, TX

Out of Town

MUGGER: In your 3/14 column, you stated that Gore won the popular vote. I have seen this repeated repeatedly, and wondered if you could find something out for me. I am originally from New York and spent 20 years in the Army. I voted in every election while on active duty. Last fall I heard that New York doesn't count absentee votes unless the outcome of the election hinges on those votes. (If that's true, then probably none of my absentee votes were ever counted.) I also heard that many states don't count absentee votes for the same reason. My question is: Were the New York absentee votes counted in last year's presidential election? If they weren't, then claims that Gore won the popular vote are bogus.

Since you're a journalist in New York, I thought you might be able to find this out.

Mark Siegel, Clifton, VA

Russ Smith replies: This is a valid point. In the spirit of conciliation, I'm taking Gore's ostensible popular-vote victory at face value. But if all 50 states were subjected to the scrutiny of Florida, who knows what the real results would've been.

 

Forced to Economize

I sometimes enjoy Lionel Tiger's "Human Follies" column. Just as often, though, I skip it after the first intellectually dense and opaque paragraph.

Several weeks ago (2/21), being an economist, I forced myself through the whole thing, though putting up with Tiger's assertions of our economic travails quickly got tiresome. In his pompous, highbrow style, Tiger manages to prove he is as economically ignorant as your average American, repeating nothing but mainstream falsities (though, admittedly, he does it much more authoritatively than others).

To begin my criticism, I'll point to the end of Tiger's column, when he states: "All the nonsense-talk about 'a soft landing' misses the point that what is needed is a discernible stirring of the consumption gland." Tiger parrots the blatherings of the neo-Keynesians and monetarists who run our economy, but the fact is, consumption levels are irrelevant. Given the opportunity, people would consume without end; what limits them is their capacity to produce. Think about it. People can only consume what they can purchase through the fruits of their labor, their production capacity. This is known as "Say's Law," and it's reflective of reality, despite what modern-day economists might want to say. So if one wishes to encourage consumption, the proper emphasis would not be on the consumption-side (which is infinite) but on the supply side (which is limited by government intervention, among other things). Thus, supply-side economics holds the answers to growth and economic malaise. The misguided economic theories that got us here in the first place do not.

Tiger gleefully presents many of these misguided theories in staccato style, a barrage of misrepresentations one after the other. These falsities are the linchpin of the state's power over us, so I think it's important they be shot down. Tiger claims that "the market soared precisely when there was a capital gains tax!" Present your data, Mr. Tiger, because that is false. A high capital gains tax stifled businesses throughout the 70s and early 80s. When Congress lowered the cap-gains in 1997, the economy surged. To imply that a cap-gains tax has no effect on the profitmaking incentives that drive the market is ridiculous.

Tiger further claims that "it's also kind of rational to say that if people have to pay a lot of taxes, they will work harder to have enough money left over after the government takes their share." Again, wrong. This is known as the "income effect," and even if it wasn't mathematically disproven last year by French economist Pascal Salin, it also doesn't hold up to common sense. People only work because they have to. They'd prefer to spend their time in leisure (admittedly, sometimes work is leisure, but that doesn't invalidate the argument, which deals with the whole market, not just parts of it). If you raise taxes, you're effectively lowering the value of work time compared to leisure time. On the margin, fewer people will work, since leisure time is now more valuable. Tiger repeats a lie propagated by those in government, who love to have semi-reasonable arguments for taxing us more, but it doesn't hold up when compared to reality.

Tiger is astonished by the stance of 120 of our wealthiest citizens who are opposed to repealing the death tax. I can only conclude it's because he hasn't thought the matter through. If he had, he'd realize that super-rich Americans can handle the tax (ensuring the Rockefeller name lives on, for example). It's the marginally "rich" American who cannot. The super-elites like it that way?it makes for less competition for their sons and daughters. But anyone who thinks normal Americans should be able to work up to the wealth levels of a Soros or a Buffett (even if over a generation or two) should applaud the death of the death tax.

The rest of Tiger's column is either full of similar liberal economic falsities, or useless examples like personal anecdotes and apples/oranges comparisons.

Tiger reveals himself as a big-spending liberal. He makes feeble arguments against tax-cutting and calls for "a discernible stirring of the consumption gland," by which he no doubt means a massive amount of government spending (such Keynesian ideas are just excuses for more government power). I mean, when he calls for a "reliable, fair and manageable world," can it mean anything other than a nice, big nanny government running things and making everything safe for everybody?

Wake up, Tiger, command-and-control economies don't work (and don't tell me all the historical failures had some fatal flaw, and that you'll somehow get it right this time). The market isn't pretty, especially with government nosing in and mucking it all up, but it's a helluva lot better than the alternative. If you were as penetrating a thinker as you like to present yourself, I wouldn't have to explain that to you.

William Mullen, Brooklyn

Lionel Tiger replies: I appreciate Mr. Mullen's detailed reply, but hope he will protect himself from the black helicopters hovering over us at the beck and call of "command-and-control" economies. If Mr. Mullen thinks, as he states, I'm "a big-spending liberal," he should let me buy him lunch at Gray's Papaya, but he should eat first. We get nowhere calling each other blatherers and neo-Keynesians and monetarists (such as Alan Greenspan). The looming fact is the economy did well for 10 years, during which there was a capital gains tax even if its level varied and even if I said so in "a pompous, highbrow style" (he should only see how my Reagan pompadour falls charmingly over my brow). Mullen announces that "people only work because they have to," which would be more convincing had he informed readers that he was paid $3500 to write his letter. Otherwise, why would he do it?

But I worry about the effect of cellphone radiation on his cortex when he says that I yearn for a "discernbile stirring of the consumption gland" at the same time as he says I must mean a "massive amount of government spending." Either I meant one or the other. And I meant the former?private, not public, consumption. That should have been obvious. Over two-thirds of all economic activity flows through the family, so private consumption is the key?something the Japanese have not understood at their peril.

I'm delighted that Mr. Mullen "sometimes enjoys" my column. From now on, I'll only write every second one.