Dear Editor:
Re: Letters to the Editor: Protesters help terrorism, Burnaby NOW, Sept 24 and Put conspiracy theories away, Burnaby NOW, Sept. 26.
Letter writer Ziggy Eckardt wrote about what might happen if we stop developing Canada's natural resources: "The world is not going to stop using oil. Canada's potential customers will simply keep buying it from their old suppliers in the Middle East." He also pointed out that "Islamic terrorists are for the most part financed by oil-producing Arab states."
It is obvious that subsequent writer Lou Kaiser does not like these statements. But, instead of offering a rational rebuttal, Kaiser uses the age-old tactic of those who have nothing of substance to contribute to any given debate. He simply resorts to name calling and attacking the messenger.
He starts by calling Eckardt's commons sense statements "conspiracy theories." And then he proceeds, while oblivious that it could be more fittingly applied to Kaiser himself, to drop the bombshell: "It seems to be outside his grasp to see that there are other points of view out there besides his own."
Kaiser's lack of tolerance for different opinion goes so far that he accuses "these folks," meaning anyone who disagrees with him, of being financed by American corporations.
He really knows how to dish it out! He devotes fully 153 words to this kind of ad hominem innuendos.
And then, at the end of his letter, perhaps to justify his lack of reasoning, he tacks on 22 words of platitudes about "clean air, clean water" and "future generations" as if to accuse those of us who support responsible resource development of not valuing these motherhood-and-apple-pie concepts.
Kaiser's conduct is reminiscent of the old adage about people who live in glass houses.
I respectfully suggest that he search Google Web and Videos for the phrase "foreign-funded environmentalists."
Eva Derton, Burnaby
