The Shredder shreds, but the insights are not very piercing. I refer to the latest piece in the “REAL PATRIOT department” (“False advertising,” Jan. 28), and specifically the idea we have a “God Given Right To Use Public Resources Without Paying For Them.” As a matter of fact, we do. Among these public resources are air and time. Among these are rain and shine. Should we pay for these too? If so, why? If not, then why pay for the use of land? It is just another God Given Finite Resource.

Is the Shredder aware of the Magna Carta? Does the Shredder know that the Magna Carta enshrined the ability of the public to use the King’s forest? Does the Shredder know that Robin Hood, a noble by birth, became an outlaw by hunting in the King’s forest? Does the Shredder know that Robin Hood’s enemy was King John—the same king hamstrung by the Magna Carta? What does the Shredder know, anyway? Is the Shredder on the side of Robin Hood and Sherwood Forest and the Magna Carta and the Constitution—or on the side of King John and the Sheriff of Nottingham and Humpty Dumpty and all the king’s men?

Regarding Neil Sigurd Wampler, how do we know he is not an infiltrator or an agent provocateur? According to John E. Wampler, the name derives from the German for “stone wall.” To stonewall is to delay or block, which is precisely what the well-placed Wampler is doing. I hope one bad apple does not spoil the bunch.

-- Marcus Karr - San Luis Obispo