Reader Comments

Editor: Thanks for your powerful piece regarding the FDA. We have been working on easier access to new drugs for the seriously ill for about four years, and with the help of people like you and the press, we are very hopeful that we will make some real progress this year. We also agree the Tier 1 idea is no longer enough and we are working behind the scenes to educate people on the Hill with regard to what is needed now. We haven't withdrawn or modified our petition because it has been sitting at the FDA without a response for almost two years and we don't want to give them any excuse to restart their clock (which they never look at anyway - but their persistent unresponsiveness is more evidence of their lethal ineptitude.) We have, however, told them what else we think needs to be done in non-formal communications and meetings. As you mentioned, the agency is in a kind of leaderless paralysis at the moment, with a crippled nominee/acting commissioner unable to do much of anything, good or bad. Support for change is building, and you built it some more with your article. Again, thanks. Let me know if we can help you and your loved one or others in some direct way. We try to do that too, especially when it comes to helping people to navigate the FDA's regulations and clinical trials systems, or to get an investigational drug some other way. Steve Walker, Abigail Alliance for Better Access to Developmental Drugs

Editor: Keep up the good work on publishing the truth about this agency [Painful FDA] which is hurting a lot of people by not allowing personal decision making by patients and their doctors on what medications they can take to relieve their suffering. This is true both over the counter and for those requiring a prescription, not to mention driving good companies such as Merck to make hasty and unwise decisions for fear of the trial lawyers. Lee Sulander

Editor: Thanks for the article by Edward Feser. He presents a thorough argument for an equal place at the table for libertarians and challenges me to broaden my philosophical reading. I disagree that "Both of these kinds of teleological argument are in principle consistent with evolution". Darwin's black box has been opened and is full of the irreducibly intricate complexity foretold by Paley. Brent Cochran

Editor: I am admittedly not well informed on the complexities of the Schiavo case and your very thoughtful editorial certainly illuminated its wrenching challenges to law and morality. Your constitutional arguments seem convincing. This leaves the moral argument of what should be our public policy in cases like this. Again, I am hardly an expert, but there is something that does not sit well with me to go to such great lengths over one sad life in a very questionable state at the very least when pragmatism forces us to ignore so many other millions of lives of people who starve to death or die prematurely for lack of clean water, etc. There is nothing immoral in our in lack of action or very limited action toward these people, sad as it is, but there is something terrible disproportionate and out of balance in putting so many resources to the aid of someone in a vegetative state of whatever type, especially given at least the possibility that she would not have wanted that. I also think that the level and nature of political interventions into such personal matters has further divided (unnecessarily) an already badly divided country. Warren Coats

Editor: Calling for the elimination of Cabinet positions and their departments?!!!! I am SHOCKED! I like this.... GOVERNMENT IS TOO BIG. Please add me to your mailing list. I will keep an eye out for Mr. Pence from Indiana. Thanks.

Editor: I love the idea of Pence for President! It is time for Republicans to be conservative again. Mike Pence in 2008! Becky Koenig

Editor: Excellent article by Chris Denney! Hopefully we will see and hear more from Mr. Pence as '08 approaches. Mark Evans

Editor: Your articles sum up all the problems I have with the GOP.I love my President but we have compromised our beliefs one to many times for "political expediency". It is time to right the ship and I agree that Mike Pence is the guy to do it. The ACU would be wise to do all they can to support Pence if he runs. What is the alternative? Some might run on a Reagan platform in 08 but Pence means it, and will implement it. John King

Editor: I am quite intrigued by the possibility of Mike Pence as our next President. We definitely need a nominee who can unite the libertarian and Christian Republicans. I encourage the ACU to take the lead as they did in 72 and 76 to ensure we have a conservative in the race. This is too important to sit on the sidelines. Stan Harrington

Editor: I really like the article on Mike Pence and would like to see more on him! Beth Noblitt

Editor: If everything in the article is true about Rep. Pence, then he MUST be our nominee. Either way it is imperative that we have a conservative nominee in 2008. I will be watching Mr. Pence very closely. He sounds too good to be true. Kyle Monroe

Editor: Yes, I have noticed Mike Pence lately through various articles from Human Events and he looks like a very good man. Would you lease keep me informed of any movement out there for a Pence candidacy in 08. Or please at least keep publishing further news about Mr. Pence. Thank you very much. Sincerely, Daniel C. Riley, Yokohama, Japan

Editor: The sarcasm in JB Williams' "Trust the Courts" is nearly divine. I wonder how many people would understand the sarcasm instead of agreeing wholeheartedly with the entire piece. Betty Roos

Editor: Regarding Edward Daley's article, here is my definition of a moderate - a politician who is sitting on the fence just waiting to see in which direction the political winds will blow him off; and on whichever side he lands on, that's what his/her stance is on that issue. Why else do you think moderates and liberals float trial balloons? It tells them what they should do. Conservatives know what they should do, and often vote conservative. The problem is, the Republicans need to start acting like the Majority Party, or else the American People will see no difference between the two and vote the Democrats back in - feeling that one is just as good as the other, and both of them do nothing! Robert Littlejohn.

Editor: Barry Goldwater said that extremism in the defense of freedom is no vice. I think I got that right as I was only a teenager then. And if defense of the constitution in the face of extreme liberal socialist is extremism so be it. We are being attacked in the media, in the schools and universities, and in the courts. We need some extreme people on our side. This is no battle for moderates, either we win or we cease to continue as a republic and a free people. Socialism wants to destroy this country and turn it into a European style state of the new world order. The words "New World Order" should be a battle cry for anyone who believes that our constitution means what it says. The liberal extremists want to destroy all that that great document stands for. They want to rewrite it and they want to make this country over in their perverted image. I am no moderate nor shall I ever be where freedom is in question. Sincerely, Bud Hensley

Editor: A moderate is one who watches others to judge whether or not to take a position. No core beliefs. A follower not a leader. J. Tingle