Readers chime in on Bell rebuttal

Joe Bell should violate his cardinal rules more often (The Bell

Curve, “Revisionist history that needs revisiting,” Thursday). His

response to Tom Williams’ letter is a timely reminder of the power of

reason over rant. The same theme was visited by Norah Vincent in

Thursday’s Los Angeles Times.

Under the headline “The yelling drowns out the ideas,” Vincent

writes: “We are polarized in the extreme and desperate for certainty,

even if it’s only the kind of turgid, substanceless conviction that

comes of shouting louder and quipping meaner than the other guy.”

Williams’ March 6 letter is a case in point, but only the most

recent example (Readers Respond, “Conservatives in Orange County

should be proud”). In December 1999, he exploded over an earlier Bell

Curve, which the Pilot printed as a “Rebuttal” (“Joe Bell should

stick to local issues,” Dec. 16, 1999). The paper didn’t take a

position on what Williams said, but clearly defended his right to say

it. Voltaire would have approved, whereas Williams apparently denies

that right where “liberal” columnists are concerned.

Williams began his 1999 rebuttal by faulting Bell for toppling

Geraldo Rivera as the “all-time, world champion Bill Clinton

‘behind-kisser.’” Then he offered this advice: Bell should limit

himself to (among other pursuits) “kissing Clinton’s behind.” A

curious contradiction, that. Williams must have been too preoccupied

with his fulminations to notice.

A final snippet: Williams advised Bell “to stick to something he

knows about.” Likewise. Likewise.

DICK LEWIS

Balboa Peninsula

While our founding fathers were against a personal income tax,

they allowed slavery to flourish for 100 years. That doesn’t make

them “nut cases,” but I don’t think it’s something writer Williams

wants included when he identifies with the founding fathers and

claims pride as one of the “conservative Republican Orange

Countians.”

Perhaps another civil war in 2014 will end the personal income tax

(2014 will be the hundred-year mark for the personal income tax

instigated by “liberal” President Wilson, according to Williams).

In the meantime, we’ve had several vociferously “conservative”

presidents -- Herbert Hoover, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George

H.W. Bush and George W. Bush -- and none of them have tried to end

the personal income tax.

Slavery was outlawed. Why not the personal income tax? Where is

Williams’ anger at these men? If he is so against the personal income

tax, why does he proudly remain a “conservative Republican” when his

party, by his standards, is continuing to betray the founding

fathers?

Newt Gingrich had a majority in Congress and didn’t repeal it.

This Bush has a majority in Congress and hasn’t even brought it up.

Now that I think about it, let’s get together and call Reps. Chris

Cox and Dana Rohrabacher and give ‘em heck for not reviving James

Utt’s legislation to repeal the personal income tax. They are against

it, aren’t they?

Not incidentally, I consider Abraham Lincoln a liberal president

for taking a stand against slavery, and I consider Joe Bell -- a guy

who flew combat bomber missions in World War II -- a patriotic

American who survived, and will now survive an attack by Williams.

Last, “Grayed” Davis isn’t a liberal. He’s a hack politician who

wasn’t smart enough to reverse the absurd deregulation of electricity

signed into law by Republican Gov. Pete Wilson. There wasn’t a single

vote, Republican or Democrat, against deregulation. For history’s

sake, some of our greatest, prosperous years, when education and

business flourished, were when Pat Brown was governor, electricity

was regulated and the University of California was still free. I

don’t know if Brown flew any bombing missions, but he sure was

liberal.

Liberal. Liberty. Bell. Has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?

MARK DAVIDSON

Costa Mesa

My, how nasty the response of former Newport-Mesa Unified School

District Trustee Tom Williams (“Conservatives in Orange County should

be proud,” March 6) to the musings of columnist Joe Bell on plot

developments of “The West Wing.”

It’s particularly noteworthy that Williams is so thin-skinned

about Bell’s single reference to 1950s Orange County’s national

reputation as a “political nut house.” Williams works himself into a

veritable fury, repeatedly spitting out the term “nut case” as he

likens his personal views on taxation to those of our founding

fathers. Rather than convincing the reader, the sound and fury makes

you feel like ducking for cover.

Change is tough, of course, more so for some than for others.

Anger-management folk might advise Williams to count to 10 before

spewing such “nut-case-sounding” venom around the community.

KAREN EVARTS

Newport Beach