Author: E. Garrett West

Every family tells its stories. We Garretts — my name comes from my paternal grandmother — like to tell how an enterprising Virginian squatting on grandma’s land took advantage of the fertile soil to plant a lucrative cash crop: marijuana. There’s also the one about the local drunk who would take potshots at the house....

Last week, Emily Runge responded (“West’s political solution goes in the wrong direction,” Nov. 6) to my original article (“The unappealing politics of universal rhetoric,” Oct. 30), which had claimed that the intractability of political discourse stems from “rights-talk.” She insightfully highlighted several of my unclear original claims, and I’d like to clarify these by...

Mr. Gaiser, I disagree with the argument of your recent article “Choose Good Principles, not Good Men.” Your fundamental belief — unless I’ve misread you — is that man need only believe in the right principles and all will be well. I would argue that we need good principles, yes, but these principles need great men to have any value.