Inner-City Troubles Won't Respond to Nostalgia

To the Editor:

It seems as if Robert H. Bork is still battling that straw man, political
correctness ("And Now, the Sin Police," OpEd, Oct. 17).

Are we to believe that regulating alcohol advertising in certain
neighborhoods is simply the work of litigious dogooders who should be
exhorting people to go to church instead?

It is not prohibition that is at issue, but changing the face of
neighborhoods for the better. The gist of Mr. Bork's article seems to be
that problems in poor neighborhoods all stem from a lack of community
values. This smacks of a nostalgia for a moral America that never was.

Constant bombardment by media images of what life is supposed to be like
probably affects people more than their few hours of church attendance each
week. We can't save people from themselves, so let's get real.

There are a lot more people in this country than when Beaver Cleaver was in
grammar school. There is a greater gap between rich and poor. There are a
host of reasons for crime and violence in the United States, but having
everyone sing in the church choir isn't going to change anything.

ANNE HARVEY
Philadelphia, Oct. 18, 1997

Preaching to Faithless

To the Editor:

How heartening to read Robert H. Bork come out with a solid argument for
drug legalization (OpEd, Oct. 17)! As he puts its, "Taking away what
people want because it is bad for them lets loose a principle that is very
hard to contain." Indeed, this is precisely what we are attempting to do in
the nefarious "war on drugs" take away what people want.

Mr. Bork would instead have us turn to religion as inculcator of morality,
selfcontrol and personal responsibility. This is an effective method for
believers, but will not work for the faithless. You cannot force people to
believe in God, and by definition, churches preach to the converted.

The "revitalization" of innercity churches will not necessarily increase
the number of believers or adherents to doctrine. A secular principle along
the lines of the Golden Rule ("Do unto others") would be a better way of
reaching and teaching those who will never accept religious tenets.

DEBORAH HORNSTRA
Valhalla, N.Y., Oct. 17, 1997

Who's a Virtucrat?

To the Editor:

Robert H. Bork argues against banning tobacco and alcohol in the name of
virtuocracy "the bureaucratization of personal morality" (OpEd, Oct. 17).

But in his books "The Tempting of America" and "Slouching Towards
Gomorrah," Mr. Bork has supported laws criminalizing marijuana use and
sodomy laws that prohibit private consensual homosexual activity.

As a selfdescribed smoker and social drinker, perhaps Mr. Bork believes
that tobacco and alcohol deserve protections that he would not accord to
marijuana or gay sexuality.

But if Mr. Bork is right when he says that we should not treat adults as
recalcitrant children, isn't he himself one of the virtucrats he decries?

RICHARD GRAYSON
Fort Lauderdale, Fla., Oct. 17, 1997

History's Slippery Slope

To the Editor:

Robert H. Bork (OpEd, Oct. 17) is right that the "virtucratic" denial to
the marketplace of that which "people want" (alcohol and tobacco are his
concerns) is to step upon a slope that "is indeed quite slick." We have
only to recall a few of the things that followed the passage of the
Harrison Narcotic Act in 1914 to see his point.

That law made it illegal to buy, sell or possess drugs like opium and
cocaine. Among the other things that ensued were the expansion of the
illegal drug trade into a multibilliondollar industry; the passage of the
18th Amendment, which made alcohol similarly illegal and which, before it
was repealed, helped to create the stillexisting Mafia and the growing
number of "virtucrats," who seem to oppose everything that gives us a
little pleasure. History surely gives Mr. Bork the right to ask, "What will
be next?"

PARKER CODDINGTON
Sudbury, Mass., Oct. 17, 1997

Profiteer Restraint

To the Editor:

What a paradoxical juxtaposition! On your Oct. 17 OpEd page, Robert H.
Bork pleads for poor drunks and muggers to exercise selfrestraint so that
we won't have to resort to state intervention to restrain the predatory
liquor trade.

Immediately adjacent in your letters column, Larry Gage of the National
Association of Public Hospitals reports on how Congress was pressured by
drugcompany lobbyists into preventing implementation of an AIDS drug coop
purchasing program. That program would have cut the cost of those drugs to
public hospitals and smaller clinics, thereby facilitating access to AIDS
drugs by the poor. Would Mr. Bork also urge a little selfrestraint on the
pharmaceutical industry's profittaking?

HAROLD W. SCHEFFLER
New Haven, Oct. 17, 1997