Letter from a friend.

This letter was sent to the Wall Street Journal on August 8, 2008 by Alisa Wilson, Ph.D. of Beverly Hills, CA in response to the Wall Street Journal article titled "Where's the Outrage?" that appeared July 31,2008.

Really. I can tell you where the outrage is. The outrage is here, in this middle-aged, well-educated, upper-middle class woman. The outrage is here, but I have no representation, no voice. The outrage is here, but no one is listening for who am I?

I am not a billionaire like George Soros that can fund an entire political movement. I am not a celebrity like Barbra Streisand that can garner the attention of the press to promote political candidates. I am not a film maker like Michael Moore or Al Gore that can deliver misleading movies to the public.

The outrage is here, but unlike those with money or power, I don't know. Why am I outraged? I am outraged that my country, the United States of America, is in a state of moral and ethical decline. There is no right or wrong anymore, just what's fair.

Is it fair that millions of Americans who overreached and borrowed more
than they could afford are now being bailed out by the government and
lending institutions to stave off foreclosure? Why shouldn't these people be
made to pay the consequences for their poor judgment?

When my husband and I purchased our home, we were careful to purchase
only what we could afford. Believe me, there are much larger, much nicer
homes that I would have loved to have purchased. But, taking responsibility for
my behavior and my life, I went with the house that we could afford, not
the house that we could not afford. The notion of personal responsibility
has all but died in our country.

I am outraged, that the country that welcomed my mother as an immigrant
from Hitler's Nazi Germany and required that she and her family learn
English now allows itself to be overrun with illegal immigrants and worse,
caters to those illegal immigrants.

I am outraged that my hard-earned taxes help support those here
illegally. That the Los Angeles Public School District is in such disarray that I
felt it incumbent to send my child to private school, that every time I go
to the ATM, I see "do you want to continue in English or Spanish?, that
every time I call the bank, the phone company , or similar business, I hear
"press 1 for English or press 2 for Spanish". WHY? This is America, our
common language is English and attempts to promote a bi- or multi-lingual
society are sure to fail and to marginalize those who cannot communicate in
English.

I am outraged at our country's weakness in the face of new threats on
American traditions from Muslims. Just this week, Tyson's Food negotiated
with its union to permit Muslims to have Eid-al-Fitr as a holiday instead of
Labor Day. What am I missing? Yes, there is a large Somali Muslim population
working at the Tyson's plant in Tennessee. Tennessee, last I checked, is
still part of the United States . If Muslims want to live and work here
they should be required to live and work by our American not impose their
will on our long history.

In the same week, Random House announced that they had indefinitely
delayed the publication of The Jewel of Medina, by Sherry Jones, a book about
the life of Mohammed's wife, Aisha due to fear of retribution and violence
by Muslims. When did we become a nation ruled by fear of what other
immigrant groups want? It makes me so sad to see large corporations cave rather
than stand proudly on the principles that built this country.

I am outraged because appeasement has never worked as a political policy, yet appeasing Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is exactly what we are trying to do. An excellent article, also published recently in the Wall Street Journal, went through over 20 years of history and why talking with Iran has been and will continue to be ineffective. Yet talk, with a madman no less, we continue to do. Have we so lost our moral compass and its ability to detect evil that we will not go in and destroy Iran's nuclear program? Would we rather wait for another Holocaust for the Jews - one which they would be unlikely to survive? When does it end?

As if the battle for good and evil isn't enough, now come the Environmentalists, who are so afraid of global warming that they want to put a Bag tax on grocery bags in California; to eliminate Mylar balloons; to establish something as insidious as the recycle police in San Francisco. I do my share for the environment: I recycle, I use water wisely, I installed an energy efficient air conditioning unit. But when and where does the lunacy stop? Ahmadinejad
wants to wipe Israel off the map, the California economy is being overrun by illegal immigrants, and the United States of America no longer knows right from wrong, good from evil.. So what does California do? Tax grocery bags.

So, America, although I can tell you where the outrage is, this one
middle-aged, well-educated, upper middle class woman is powerless to do
anything about it. I don't even feel like my vote counts because I am so
outnumbered by those who disagree with me.

Alisa Wilson, Ph.D. Beverly Hills , California