Afterthought for After Hours Dec. 18, 2004

Afterthought for After Hours Dec. 18, 2004:

On our Dec. 4 show, I did a Column One about a Dutch hospital that is euthanizing newborn babies who don't measure up, according to the hospital.

We received about 1,000 emails, many from the Netherlands and most of them negative.

Here's a sample:

• "The process is called democracy, you as an American must understand the concept." Not exactly, David. The newborns don't have a vote.
• Annette writes that I should come and visit. I have. She also says, "There are not prostitutes behind a window in every city, no weed smoking everywhere…." I didn't say it was "everywhere," but how much is enough? It is tolerated and one of government's primary purposes is to restrain people from doing certain things that are injurious to themselves and harms the greater social fabric. But if there is no truth and no standard, everyone gets to do what is right in his own mind. That leads to anarchy.
• "A European" writes that my comment about Ann Frank being murdered in Amsterdam because she was Jewish was out of bounds. He notes she was killed by Nazis, not the Dutch. That's a good point and I accept it and he is correct.

Many of the letters contained a lot of moral relativism. I would suggest those writers consider the editorials, speeches and writings of the former Dutch journalist and Prime Minister Abraham Kuyper, who came to America 100 years ago next year. Kuyper delivered a series of lectures at Princeton on the relationship between God and the state. He also wrote brilliant editorials for Amsterdam's "The Standard" newspaper.

Much has changed in Holland since then, as it has changed in America and much of it is not for the good -- there or here.

There were some good e-mails as well, but I wanted to address some of the main concerns.

Thanks to our Dutch viewers for watching and for caring enough to write. Keep watching. Maybe you'll see some things you do like.