I recently sent the following letter to the New York Times:

To the Editor:

If states heed your recent editorial (“Borrowers Bled Dry,” July 13) calling for them to “drive out payday lenders,” it would harm the very people you claim to be protecting. It would also unfairly rob individuals of the right to manage their own affairs.

The issue here is one of choice. While many people are choosing to avail themselves of the loans provided by payday lenders, you think you know better and seek to deny them this right. The prevalence of these lenders, which you point to as a means to scare the reader, only serves to speak to the value they provide the community.

You accuse these service providers of engaging in “legalized loan sharking,” yet following your prescription would ensure that low-income borrowers seeking short loans will have no one to turn to but the real loan sharks.

Sincerely,

Brian Garst

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I recently sent the following letter to the New York Times:

To the Editor:

Intelligent people like Thomas Friedman shouldn’t encourage their government to behave recklessly (“Just Do It,” Op-ed, July 1st). Despite finding ample reason to criticize the “cap and trade” legislation, he calls for it to be passed anyway. His reasoning is disturbing. We must pass this bad bill because, by golly, the world needs to see that we’re serious.

Don’t we have enough examples of what happens when Congress rushes through major legislation? The Patriot Act had to be revisited and fixed years later, the massive stimulus has not done any stimulating, and no one in Congress knows what’s going on with the TARP funds.

Chicken Littles always demand that government act now and do something – anything. But our legislature, via the deliberative and detached Senate crafted by our Founders, was designed to work much slower, and for good reason. “Just do it” is a fine slogan for a shoe company, but it has no place in politics.

Sincerely,

Brian Garst

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I recently sent the following letter to the New York Times:

To the Editor:

Your recent editorial (“The Fast-Draw-but-Don’t-Drink Law,” June 25th) regarding the decision by the Tennessee legislature to allow bar owners the right to decide for themselves whether patrons should be allowed to bring guns onto their property was heavy on hyperbole and light on facts.

The editorial approvingly quoted Gov. Bredesen’s claim that the bill is “an invitation to a disaster,” then lamented that “there is no requirement for owners to post warnings of the dangers inside at the doorways of gun-friendly places.” It also highlighted the fact that over 30 states have similar laws. With all these states creating so many opportunities for disaster, it’s interesting that your editorial writers weren’t able to muster up any specific incidents to bolster their case. Either your editorial stuff is incredibly negligent in its research, or reality simply isn’t cooperating with your anti-gun agenda.

Sincerely,

Brian Garst

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I recently sent the following letter to Time.

To the Editor,

Your recent article on homeless children (“Report Says 1 in 50 U.S. Kids Are Homeless,” March 10, 2009) was agenda journalism at its worst. It unquestionably passed off deliberately misleading information without any critical analysis.  Your article made only a single, passing reference to the unusual and fraudulent definition of homeless used by The National Center on Family Homelessness.

When people think of being homeless, they think of having no where to live.  They do not normally think of living in a trailer park or sharing a home with extended family as being “homeless.”  But the claim is even more deceptive than that, as it treats someone who does these things only one time out of the entire year as “homeless” for that year.

I am currently living with extended family while I transition my career.  No one in their right mind would consider me homeless, but The National Center on Family Homelessness does.  When agenda organizations send out press releases, the press needs to do more than just regurgitate their fraudulent claims.

Sincerely,

Brian Garst

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I recently sent the following letter to the Boston Globe.

To the Editor:

Your recent editorial blaming Mexico’s drug violence on our gun laws (“A lethal export to Mexico,” March 3) missed the mark. It is not insightful to say that 90% of guns picked up in Mexico are from the U.S. Of course they are; we are the closest supplier. But that does nothing to show that restricting sales in the U.S. would make them unavailable to Mexican criminals, as your editorial suggests. In fact, the evidence shows that view is simply false.

Mexican drug cartels are currently fighting police with machine guns, grenades and even RPG’s. None of these items are legal to purchase in the U.S. There is simply no connection between gun laws and the ability of criminals to arm themselves.

Our drug prohibition has created a black market which the must unsavory characters are willing to fight over. But there is nothing inherent to drugs that makes its trade violent. If the U.S. outlawed meat, there would be meat-related violence in Mexico as criminals vied to smuggle meat to U.S. consumers willing to pay black market prices. If we really want to help Mexico, the best thing we can do is expand our freedoms, not restrict them.

Sincerely,

Brian Garst

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I recently sent the following letter to the New York Times:

To the Editor:

Timothy Egan accurately titled his recent gutter column (“Typing Without a Clue,” Dec. 7). Although meant as a reference to Joe the Plumber, it more aptly describes Egan’s elitist screed.

Egan childishly hurls ad hominems at Joe, calling him “no good as a citizen” for owing a small amount in taxes. I challenge Egan to find anyone who can understand, and follow, our entire 70,000 page tax code. Is he prepared to hold Charlie Rangel’s far more serious transgressions to the same standard, or is his ire reserved for uppity peasants? He also makes the sophomoric argument that Joe is “no good as a plumber” because Tim the Snob isn’t satisfied with his government certification. By this standard – or any other for that matter – Egan is no good as a columnist.

Sincerely,

Brian Garst

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I recently sent the following letter to the New York Times:

To the Editor:

You recently took to your editorial pages to fire yet one more shot at President Bush (“The Deluder in Chief,” editorial, Dec. 7).  Your assertion that the President “knew or should have known” that intelligence was faulty is not supported by the facts.  Not only did every major intelligence service share our conclusions, but they were widely accepted by prominent democrats.  Dr. Susan Rice, appointed by President-elect Obama to be U.N. ambassador and now falsely remembered as an early critic of the war, said in 2003 that, “I don’t think many informed people doubted that [Saddam has WMD's].”

There is a strong argument that the Iraq war has made us less secure, or that what benefits may come are not worth the high costs.  But your editorial goes further, and insists on perpetrating the “Bush lied, people died” mantra of the radical left.  This is a sophomoric argument, and the self-proclaimed “paper of record” should not so easily distort and twist that record.

Sincerely,

Brian Garst

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I recently sent the following letter to the New York Times:

To the Editor:

As “NASA’s Black Hole Budgets” (editorial, Nov. 24) noted, NASA has a “culture that has lost control of spending.” As a former employee, Alan Stern has seen this problem first hand. Unfortunately, the solution he offers is little more than a call to just try harder. Politicians can’t be counted on to “turn from the self-serving protection of local NASA jobs.” Moreover, the problems he describes in NASA are not unique to the space agency; they are the results of systemic flaws in the bureaucratic system.

We should be treating the illness rather than the symptoms. This requires a fundamental rethinking of how we approach space exploration. A good start would be to rely less on government bureaucracies and more on private endeavors, which can be promoted through tax breaks and prize offerings. But so long as bureaucrats are encouraged to feed on the public trough, we shouldn’t be surprised when they pig out.

Sincerely,

Brian Garst

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I recently sent the following letter to the New York Times:

To the Editor:

“A Resounding Vote for Open Space,” (editorial, Nov. 18) notes that voters in several states approved large spending proposals for preserving open land.  The editorial wrongly concludes that Congress should follow suit and “grant permanent wilderness protection to two million acres of public land.”

The federal government already owns 650 million acres of land – nearly 30% of the total U.S. territory.  It doesn’t need more. That voters chose to approve open land initiatives at the state level doesn’t amount to “an explicit rebuke to President Bush,” but instead shows the popularity of local control. Approving state money through referendums ensures that those who live near preservation lands – and thus receive most of the benefits – are the ones to bear the costs.

The government should do the opposite of what the editorial suggests: sell as much federal land as it can and help close the federal budget’s record shortfalls.

Sincerely,

Brian Garst

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I recently sent the following letter to the LA Times:

Dear Editor,

The subheading of a recent editorial (“Kick the automakers’ tires first,” Nov. 11) declared that, “before getting any of the public’s money, the Big Three should have to prove they’re worth it.”

We already have a mechanism by which companies can prove they are worth the public’s money: the free market. In the free market, the public decides which companies are “worth it” by choosing which goods to purchase. Those businesses that thrive are worth it; those that don’t are not. The public has clearly decided that the Big Three fall into the latter group. The government should respect our judgment.

Sincerely,

Brian Garst

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