A Bleeding Heart Liberal

On The Fourth

To the Editor:

I spent the Fourth of July in Otis, Mass., with 20 good friends and, blessedly, my two grandsons, daughter and son-in-law. During the weekend we joined together for meals and, on Friday night, we passed around the Declaration of Independence to be read aloud and finished by singing the Star Spangled banner. (Like most Americans, the best we could do was a valiant effort.)

Most of us were second generation Americans and, just sitting there by the fire, I realized, as I do over and over, how lucky I am that my grandparents braved the new world — without money, without knowledge of the language, without sufficient education, to get me and my children (and my grandchildren) to this wonderful point in our lives.

Perhaps because we read The New York Times, we all were grateful that we are not among the four percent of Americans who cannot pay their mortgage and that we don’t spend a significant percentage of our income on gas waiting for “new technologies” (which even FOX news says are ten years away). Perhaps, because we read The New York Times, we knew that the $500 billion spent on an unnecessary war can go pretty far in educating people, curing diseases, and lowering taxes for the middle class.

Finally, and perhaps most of all, we were grateful that none of us had lost anyone in the war. I cannot imagine the terror, the grief, the hollow feeling inside, that the parents of a fallen soldier feels. And, to the gentleman who, incredulously, in the last issue of The Bee (Letter Hive, “Nuggets of Optimism,” July 11), passed off these deaths with the phrase “casualties are incredibly, historically low for these wars,” I say this: I read The New York Times everyday, and everyday I read the names of the fallen, their ages and their hometowns and I think of the grandchildren who will never be born, the birthdays that will never be celebrated, the hands that will never be held and I grieve for these parents. If this gentleman does not wish to be seen buying the Times, I will gladly send him the list of the fallen each day and he can write their parents and tell them how historically low the casualty count is.

So, here I am, one of those bleeding heart liberals, but I would rather shed too many tears for the less fortunate among us and still be optimistic that this great country, as it always has, will use its brains, its innovative nature, and its empathy, to make things better. I would rather be a bleeding heart liberal than think, as this gentleman seems to think, that if problems don’t happen to him, they aren’t really that serious.

Laura E. Lerman

55 Main Street, Newtown                                                 July 15, 2008