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Damned if you do, damned if you don’t

Dear Editor:In a letter to The Aspen Times (Dec. 31, 2005), a Basalt resident rails and rants against “ultraconservative jerk-off NIMBY billionaires” for preventing Aspen from adopting the four-lane, straight-shot solution to its traffic woes. His letter becomes nastier as it whines on.The absurdity of heaping insult after stereotypical insult upon people the writer doesn’t know is only exceeded by the absurdity of his argument on this particular issue. Most of the wealthy Aspen residents I am acquainted with have indicated a preference for the straight-shot alternative. I suspect that there are many others who feel differently.What is particularly funny (pathetic but still funny) in light of this recent letter, is to recall the last time the town debated the entrance to Aspen issue, when many of the straight-shot proponents blamed the “rich” for thwarting their noble intentions, while at the same time, several S-curves supporters chastised the “evil upper-crusters” for trying to destroy Aspen’s small-town charm.Scapegoats, stereotypes and prejudice are handy tools for righteously absolving ourselves from responsibility. And once we generally attribute thoughts, motives, beliefs and behavior to individuals we don’t even know, how simple and defensible it soon becomes to call for their crucifixion. Doug WeiserOld Snowmass