To the editor:

I don’t know why you print letters like that of David Claassen-Wilson (June 6, Public Forum). His arguments — that “life, liberty and property are the only rights we have” and that the world can be split into either collectivists or individualists — are completely ridiculous.

Our country was the first of its kind to suggest that human beings had “inalienable rights” and, at the same time, decided that there were rules which needed to be put into place to protect the common good. This was a combination of protecting the rights of the individual and the community. It is this dual protection which makes our country an amazing place; the rights of the individual being placed in the fore in most cases (many of which are defined by the currently beleaguered Bill of Rights) and, when necessary, the rights of the community overriding the individual.

I’m certain that Claassen-Wilson wouldn’t argue that the so-called “inalienable” right of liberty should apply equally to, say, a law-abiding citizen and a serial rapist. Why then, shouldn’t there be exceptions to other “inalienable” rights if one of the rights he lists seems, well, quite alienable?

Anytime someone takes two extreme points of view and says therein lies the heart of all political debate, that person should be ignored. Saying Americans only have the choice between “individualism” and “collectivism” is like saying that we only have a choice between ice and steam.

Terry Welch,

Lawrence