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Would it be possible for Mike Rosen to directly name people and provide evidence for the views he attributes to them? For example, in his latest column on poverty (1/19/07) Rosen suggests that Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats are going to “exploit the uninformed...masses” by directing their “anger and resentment” at the “usual villains": bankers, insurance companies, “big pharma", the military, free-trade, free markets, and finally the “rich". In exactly which Democrats’ hands does the fate of modern capitalism hang? Let’s see the actual quotes. Where are the transcripts of their speeches?
Or take Rosen’s column on health insurance (1/12/07). We are warned of a “ploy” to throw around “sensational figures” about the number of uninsured. The unnamed plotters are “pretending” that a snapshot of the uninsured is the same as a permanent population. So who are these schemers? Well, if we take Rosen’s argument at face value the conspiracy would have to include the entire social science establishment. Anything from polls to economic data are presented by people of all political stripes without explanations that they are snapshots. If someone presents a poll without breaking it down by how long people have held a particular belief are they “pretending” that that snapshot is a permanent belief?
Rosen speaks of populist “conspiracy theories and simplistic fantasies” about how the world works. It is in Rosen’s fantastical world, however, that we are confronted on every side by a vast conspiracy of “inbred liberals", “progressives” (read “socialists"), Democrats and anyone else he doesn’t like. It seems to me that it is Rosen who is guilty of trying to create the hysteria he attributes to his anonymous foes.
Ben Harnke
Denver

This letter has not been edited.