Selfishness and Spirituality

* If I wanted to give my child a real life example of a “wolf in sheep’s clothing,” I’d have him read Marlene Adler Marks’ article “Selfishness Cancels Out Spirituality” (Commentary, May 24). It is downright evil to masquerade as a proponent of love, kindness and compassion by supporting the socialism which the article euphemistically calls a “national safety net.”

Many other countries and civilizations have traveled this wayward path inspired, or should I say coerced, by guilt, only to end up poor and devastated. It’s time to go back to basics and question what we currently define as “good” and “compassion.” Experience tells us that charity, enforced by government or religious mandate, is clearly an abomination as it destroys the higher values of freedom and self-determination and leads to the slaughter of its own citizens.

When you see a person or group advocating laws that force some members of society to support others, be aware that you are looking directly into the evil eye of the “wolf in sheep’s clothing.”

MIKE MALGERI

Manhattan Beach

* We are so appreciative of Marks’ column, which deals with the distortion of religious values by the Christian Coalition. It was both eloquent and timely.

To us, the religious right’s disregard of the admonition, “Judge not, that ye be not judged,” is unsettling. Yet another factor that seems to have been ignored is the instruction, “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.” If these were believed and practiced, the divisive rhetoric would end and a more charitable view toward the “least of us” would prevail in their contract.

KEN MALONEY

JULIE FORD-MALONEY

Huntington Beach

* Marks chastises the Christian Coalition for its contract with the American family because “it distorts the values it purports to embrace, the ones many of us hold dear.” She describes these values as “compassion, generosity and tolerance”!

And what unspiritual horrors raise her ire? They are “threatened budget cuts” in government social programs, “school vouchers” and the “religious equality amendment”!

Well, Ms. Marks, conservatives have the compassion to cut government programs like welfare that have made the plight of the poor worse, not better, since the 1960s. We have the generosity to give parents the right to choose where to send their children to school. We have the tolerance to permit a school to post a copy of the Ten Commandments on a classroom wall.

It’s wrong for sanctimonious liberals like Marks to cast the political debate in terms of right and wrong with liberals on the side of the angels. Her self-righteous rhetoric is intolerant of our rights. Exercising our rights does not make us evil.

JOHN BASKETTE

Irvine