Morons writing to newspapers I*

Next to coffee, the thing that never fails to wake me up every morning is reading the newspaper, especially when there are idiots like Philip Francis Sy who write letters to the editor. The guy tries to get away with barbershop logic. He makes statements like this:

China may have cracked down on rioters and secessionists, but look at where it’s going. If the number of gold medals it garnered is any indication, the world’s biggest communist country and others like Vietnam have far surpassed us.

No, you moron, the number of gold medals it garnered is an indication only of the effectiveness of its sports program. And did China really need to crack down on rioters to get the Olympic gold? This is, at best, a poorly constructed sentence. More probably it's a sign of bad thinking.

Oh, and China progressed economically only after rejecting the basic tenets of communism. It retained the totalitarian bent while using its cheap labor to smother western markets. It's as capitalist as hell.

But what really got my goat is this:

So much for human rights, democracy (American style) and all the Philippine Daily Inquirer’s freedom bulls**t. At the end of the day, what’s more important are: putting food on the table, a roof over our heads and clothing on our backs. “Aanhin ang demokrasya kung patay-gutom ang mga tao?” [Of what use is democracy when people are starving?]

I don't get the hate for democracy. Why are people like this idiot complaining about the US or the Inquirer asking China to "stop being creepy?"

More importantly, though, he commits the barbershop mistake of "either/or." The mistaken assumption is that we need to stop respecting human rights and democracy in order to put food on our tables. I don't know where he got the idea that democracy and progress are incompatible.

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* I can feel this turning into a series