Criticism doesn’t add up

Bill Manuel’s letter to the editor (April 19) requires critique. Bill reported that the president, in a recent speech, used poor communication. Bill said that Obama’s speech emphasized “fairness” and that the word “fairness” was meaningless since the president failed to specify how to compute it. Yes, compute is the word Bill used.

Bill should be informed that fairness is a quality, not a quantity. Quantities such as speed, density and intelligence can be computed – whereas qualities such as compassion, insight and fairness cannot.

Most children over the age of 4 can identify the quality of fairness even if they cannot yet “compute.” For example, Sally can spot unfairness when her sister gets the biggest slice of the pie. Sally doesn’t need to know that her sister’s piece of the pie is 80 percent in order to make this judgment.

Might I suggest that conservatives like Bill have trouble understanding concepts like fairness (or insight or compassion) because they rarely think in those terms. Take it from 4-year-old Sally, when a few people get most of the pie, something’s unfair.

The president communicated correctly.

Gary Stanton

Coeur d’Alene