It's Saturday and time for my favorite letters to the editor of the Wall Street Journal this week. I've also included a special "Notable & Quotable" this week.
College Rejection: Time to Grow Up
I read with interest the article showcasing the attempts of colleges to achieve the lofty goal of notifying unaccepted applicants of their rejection without hurting the feelings of a generation that has never encountered rejection or failure ("Rejection: Some Colleges Do It Better Than Others," Work & Family, April 29).
This is the maturation of the generation where everyone was chosen for the team, all were allowed to play regardless of level of skill, and all received some award or trophy. Now they are squinting as they enter the blinding reality of the real world where only the qualified get hired, only the best get promoted and where there really are winners and losers.
The colleges go to great lengths to avoid hurting an applicant's feelings by "denying the student's application, and not rejecting the student" when in reality it is the student and not the application who wasn't as qualified as those who were accepted. They lost, a better student earned the spot, and they are upset because they didn't get a blue ribbon for trying. The generation protected from failure and rejection is now coming of age and they expect special treatment from the world. I'm buying stock in pharmaceutical firms that make mood-disorder medications.
Stanley Riggs Sarasota, Fla.
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Long Judicial Tenure, Not Life Appointments
I propose another suggestion in response to your May 1 letters "Face It: Judges Are Political, Elect Them Openly." All federal judges, from the lower-ranking district courts to the U.S. Supreme Court, should be appointed to a fixed term of office by the president and confirmed by the Senate. The term should be relatively long (say, 14 years), and incumbent judges should be eligible for reappointment. Congress and state legislatures should approve a constitutional amendment to end lifetime tenure of judges on our courts.
There needs to be accountability in our courts. So many court decisions have political ramifications. My proposal is based on the process used to select appointees to New York State's highest court: the Court of Appeals. The lack of lifetime tenure in New York has produced some excellent judges and court decisions.
Paul Feiner Greenburgh, N.Y.
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Intangible Capital Built on Individual Rights, Property
Barry Bennett's letter regarding intangible capital "Intangible Capital Is Most Important" (May 7) makes a strong moral case for a flat tax. If "wealth is created primarily by the vast societal infrastructure that we take for granted" then all who benefit from that infrastructure have a moral obligation to contribute to the governmental institutions that support it. He is right to point out that a steeply progressive tax structure is debatable from a public policy standpoint. But one can hardly argue the "morality" of a vast number of Americans contributing nothing and taking increasingly more from the producers in our society.
Laura Sozio Charlotte N.C.
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Notable & Quotable
Mickey Kaus writing at Slate.com:
The rationale for the [auto] bailout was that a bankruptcy would kill car sales, so the government had to step in and negotiate all the bankruptcy-style concessions without actually having a bankruptcy. But Obama was unwilling to get the U.A.W. to make the bankruptcy-style concessions that would be necessary to have a viable Chrysler. And Chrysler wound up in bankruptcy anyway. Prediction: It will either fail or suck up continuing annual taxpayer subsidies in the billions. In the process it will keep flooding the market with cars and make it harder to save GM and Ford. It didn't have to be that way. . . .
And there is something creepy in the way many analysts simply accept that, of course, banks receiving TARP funds must now do Obama's bidding on unrelated matters like the Chrysler bankruptcy. This is a long way from JFK using his presidential power to face down a steel price hike -- a long way toward an unpleasant economic model that creates at least the potential for political thuggery, that preserves capitalism's inequalities without its freedoms and efficiencies.
