Those who are intolerant of dissent imperil democracy

On Election Day, I was out holding a "Vote Kerry" sign. After four birdies in the first hour, and one 50-something driver sputtering with rage, I heard a comment that gave me pause: "You should be ashamed of yourselves!"

My accuser believes I should feel disgraced in the eyes of the community. What community? Certainly not Allegheny County or Pennsylvania or the half of the country that voted for John Kerry. Not the Founding Fathers, who believed the public had a right to rally for any candidate of their choice.

My accuser must be thinking of the "mythic" consensus. Research shows that, contrary to reality, many Americans think that most of the public agrees with them on public issues.

Behind the mythic consensus may lie a deeper and more troubling issue. Many Americans understand the political system as guided by a single will. The public's or God's will guides the government through a strong president. In this way of thinking, any dissent threatens society itself because it undermines the mythic, unconflicted will that is viewed as constituting the body politic.

Citizens who will brook no dissent imperil democracy. Elites have historically held the nation on a democratic path. Today, however, some elites pursue their own interest by stoking the public's most anti-democratic tendencies. This election saw politicians repeatedly insinuate that criticism of the president is unpatriotic. These elites and the public's tendencies are cause for grave concern.

PETER MUHLBERGER
Point Breeze

Editor's note: The writer is a visiting professor of political science at Carnegie Mellon University.

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Stay engaged

Those of us grieving the loss of hope for change in leadership can't spare much time sucking our thumbs in the fetal position. The things we value await our attention.

The beauty of this presidential campaign was the action and passion of the citizenry, especially young people, students and first-time political activists. They hoped to make a difference, and they did. They made America look and act like a democracy. Now we must stay on our feet, for a functioning democracy demands our persistent engagement. We must keep talking to our neighbors about important issues. We must stay in meeting rooms, stay in the streets and stay in the face of those forces that bank on our disillusionment!

To those feeling lost and beaten, if you haven't already, identify one cause for which you are willing to keep fighting. Find like-minded people, and together, keep working and fighting for that cause. When things seem really bad, remember, without you they might be worse -- because frankly, we are it, gang!

Thanks to everyone who worked to make Pennsylvania a "Blue State."

C.S. DOUGHERTY
Mt. Lebanon

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God is in control

"I will lift up my eyes unto the hills from whence cometh my help" or I will lift up my eyes unto Washington from whence cometh Bush or Kerry?

Perhaps those who felt dejected, downcast or deserted after the outcome of the presidential election may want to consider where their focus was. Neither George W. Bush nor John Kerry would be able to deliver everything they promised to the American people.

Maybe we have strayed so far away from God that we forget that He is still in control and is the only one who can deliver all that He has promised. Each of us live daily by the grace and mercy of God even though many of us may not want to admit or acknowledge it.

If we want God to bless America, then we need to remember the slogan on the penny, "In God We Trust."

BETTY A. RICHEY
Manchester

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Difficult choice

To the 55 million people who voted for John Kerry:

We now have a choice -- we can leave the country to the bigots and the right-wing zealots; to the people who express their morals through discrimination and division and through hate; to the people who think $5.15 an hour is a living wage; to the people who believe that God has chosen them and them alone for a fast-approaching "rapture" and apocalypse; to the people who believe the environment must be sacrificed for profits for the few; and to the people who want the government to quash our individual freedoms. Or we can choose the hard path -- the long path of years of organizing; of mobilizing the best of America's instincts: justice and opportunity for all, freedom of expression, secular government and compassion.

It is not an easy choice. We can walk away and join a world community that is far more secular and compassionate -- more family friendly. Or we can work, wait and agonize for years in a political battle that may have no end.

I have not yet chosen which path to take.

JOSH NEWLIN
Shaler

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Guidelines flaw

Regarding the Oct. 28 story "Doctors Who Get More Rest Make Fewer Goofs": As the wife of a first-year surgery resident (who would write this letter himself if he had a free moment), I was not at all surprised to learn of research demonstrating serious compromises in patient care provided by physicians who get too little sleep. The article refers to national guidelines adopted two years ago that limit resident hours to 80 per week, with shifts of no longer than 24 hours.

Unfortunately, no mechanism exists to enforce these guidelines, and residency programs (especially surgery programs) continue to require that their residents work far more hours, and for longer shifts, than the guidelines recommend. The clear solution is for hospitals to hire more medical staff, but until the new guidelines have some teeth behind them, this is not likely to happen.

CLARE MUNDELL
Highland Park

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Miraculous medicine

I did a double take when I read the last few paragraphs of Steve Twedt's review of the book "Critical Condition" ("Two Award-Winning Journalists Prescribe Universal Health Care," Oct. 31). Mr. Twedt states, "Now that we've built a reputation for curing some of the most complex and exotic conditions, putting the genie back in the bottle becomes problematic." If what he's referring to is retarding the science of medicine as a direct result of providing health coverage for all, you're darn right it's problematic!

He forgets that not long ago polio was an "exotic condition" that crippled or killed millions. This horrific disease was not conquered by an army of bureaucrats. Today we take for granted countless vaccines, medicines and procedures never dreamed of just 50 years ago.

Does anyone really believe these miraculous technologies would exist under a vaunted "single-payer system"? Ask the people in Canada who have to wait 20 weeks for angioplasty or 30 weeks for a hip replacement.

Better yet, ask the millions of people who never got polio or avoided a heart attack through regular use of statin drugs. Oh, yeah ... nobody speaks for them.

CHARLIE SMITH
Mars

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Representing nuclear energy as pollution-free is wrong

To teach students that nuclear energy is pollution-free, as reported in the Oct. 29 article "Langley to Be the First School to Use Nuclear Power Curriculum," is yet another gross misrepresentation by the Bush administration in its effort to revive a dying nuclear industry.

It is not only the huge amount of highly radioactive wastes that will remain dangerous for thousands of years. It is also the daily releases of fission products into the air and water that have been rising since the reactors have been pushed to operate at a sharply increasing percent of capacity as high as 95 percent in recent years to maximize profits, with less and less time for adequate inspection, maintenance and repair.

As reported in the December 2003 issue of "Science of the Total Environment," this has led to a renewed rise of strontium-90 in some 2,000 baby teeth of children born since the late 1980s, despite the end of large-scale atmospheric nuclear weapons testing by the United States, the Soviet Union and the United Kingdom, in 1963, with the highest levels in the areas downwind from nuclear plants. Strontium-90 is produced only by nuclear fission and is known to have produced leukemia, cancer and damage to the immune system, together with many other fission products that concentrate in key organs of the body.

ERNEST J. STERNGLASS
Professor Emeritus of Radiological Physics
Department of Radiology
University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine
Oakland