SIR, In jumping on the bandwagon of those putting the blame for the Oklahoma City bombing on critics of big government, Malcolm McGregor (AFR, May 1) has gone overboard and indulged in the frequent habit of those on the Left who try to put all such critics into one basket.
A parallel would be if critics of the Left were to caricature the NSW Labor Party Right as Trotskyite revolutionaries.
The fact is that a large and growing portion of the population of most developed countries is coming to believe that the role of government has to be reduced if we are to overcome the economic and social problems of modern societies.
It is in this sense that many see present levels of government as a "threat" to their futures.
The fact that a few lunatics also view even democratic governments as some kind of physical threat cannot be used to reject that reality, or blacken the vast majority of those who are concerned.
McGregor might care to further explain his extraordinary analysis (sic) that the Republican leadership pitched last November's election campaign to "America's lunatic fringe".
Is he suggesting that the majority of American electors who returned the Republicans constitute a lunatic fringe?
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