Is Pride Gone?
Editor: The upcoming holiday season will be difficult for many families, not just in Maryland but all around the country.
Thousands of people are out of work; state, city, county and local budgets are being slashed; education is serving a sentence for a crime it didn't commit; drugs, murder, violence and corruption of morals have become a way of life for some and a spectator sport for others.
We are a nation of couch potatoes, back seat drivers and armchair quarterbacks. I even saw a bumper sticker, "Proud To Be Lethargic.'
We live in the greatest country in the world, but we have little regard for the common good. Race vs. race, male vs. female, young vs. old, heterosexual vs. gay, environment vs. industry . . . the list goes on and on. Time is wasted watching politicians hold court over a dog and pony show. We refuse to vote and then feel misrepresented.
The citizens of this great state have to make a difference in their own lives. The federal government isn't going to bail us out, it's broke. We need to generate the drive from within to turn these hard times around.
' Take pride in yourself.
Kelly Finney.
Rosedale.
We Must Share
Editor: We who are fortunate enough to be employed -- however uneasy we may be about our own financial futures -- feel the need to help those who are less fortunate. What can we do to help? We can ease our consciences by writing an extra check to the Maryland Food Committee, to our favorite charities, and, for that matter, to Maryland Public Television, or the other agencies which are suffering because of the cutback in funds. The newspaper tells us of the generous people who are feeding the poor. Thank heavens for them. But a more drastic remedy is called for.
Those of us who lived through the great Depression remember our parents' efforts to maintain their dignity while they struggled to feed and clothe us. They contained their anxiety and panic over a period of years so that their children could go on with their lives including their education. This came naturally to them for their parents had done the same for them. And the parents before that. For it was the nature of the pioneer spirit to live frugally so that the children could have a freer better life. And that goal could only be attained by education.
It is time for us olders to stop thinking only of ourselves. To give up our denial of the crisis that is gripping the nation. To realize that we must share what we have to ensure the future of all the children, as did those who came before us.
It seems to me that the only possible realistic solution is to raise income taxes on both the state and federal level. The affluent should no longer be protected. It is only fair that those who have more should contribute more. We may feel the pinch, a tinge of fear for our future, but we are part of a community and we must share with each other.
Barbara Young.
Baltimore.
Campaign Cost
Editor: I recently received in the mail an expensive three-color newsletter from Rep. Beverly Byron. The cover spoke about some of the recent abuses by Congress and addressed the issue of congressional reform, which Ms. Byron claims to support.
The inside was filled with pro-Byron information about stances she has taken and votes she has made. What particularly galled me was that this piece of campaign literature was printed and mailed at taxpayers' expense.
Under the guise of official business, Ms. Byron has presumably sent a similar newsletter to every constituent in the 6th Congressional District.
It is pure hypocrisy to state in this newsletter, "I have been on record for a long time opposing the public financing of congressional campaigns, and I remain opposed to it," when the public has financed this piece of campaign literature.
Judy Haxton.
Laurel.
Talk to Them
Editor: Many parents are upset about the condom commercials on network television. They feel that their children should not see these commercials.
However, by taking this position, parents are actually saying they do not want to discuss sex with their children. They should realize that teen-agers will find information about sex elsewhere if it is not provided by the parents. Unfortunately, the information they get on the side is usually wrong, so teens get little knowledge of proper birth control and morals. Parents should be happy when their children ask them questions, instead of somebody else who may be wrong.
Anita J. Arendt.
Fallston.
Good for Duke
Editor: For two reasons I am glad, if not exactly thankful, that David Duke is to campaign for the presidency, and I would suggest that all of us should also not be unhappy with or fearful of his candidacy. He may, if we can accept it, actually represent a positive good for us and for the country.
In the first place, he poses a challenge to us to resist him in ways that accord with the best traditions of the democratic system and to avoid -- at all costs -- resorting to the kinds of vicious methods that he, in a similar position, would undoubtedly invoke.
If he represents a virulent hatred and intolerance, he challenges us to resist him without displaying similar tendencies and feelings. If we can do that, we will have demonstrated the strength of our beliefs in free speech and of the legitimacy of divergent opinion.
Secondly, David Duke gives us an opportunity to re-examine our beliefs, to strengthen our knowledge of why he is so palpably and fundamentally in error. A belief held without any real knowledge of why it is held, even if it is true, is but one prejudice the more, and is catastrophically weak and unable to survive any significant challenge.
Here, then, is the chance for us not so much to defeat David Duke -- he is not all that dangerous -- but rather as Americans to build up, invigorate and reaffirm our basic convictions.
The real danger lies less in David Duke than in the possibility that we may defeat ourselves either by employing his methods in order to get rid of him or by being unable or unwilling to make strong, positive and enlightened cause for those principles that lie at the heart and soul of the greatness of this nation.
It is a unique opportunity for all of us, and if we cannot rise to it, we will have ourselves to blame much more than David Duke.
Donald Elliott.
Garrison.
2nd Amendment
Editor: It is inconceivable that the authors of the Bill of Rights would outline 10 basic civil liberties of which nine are individual freedoms and one, the Second Amendment protecting the right to keep and bear arms, a collective freedom.
There is every indication today as there was 200 years ago that the Bill of Rights, including the Second Amendment, protects individual freedoms. Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist recently wrote that the phrase "the people," protected by the Second Amendment, as well as the First, Fourth and Ninth Amendments, refers to all citizens. The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee concluded that "the history, concept and wording of the Second Amendment . . . indicates that what is protected is an individual right of a private citizen to own and carry firearms in a peaceful manner." And Founding Father John Adams wrote "arms in the hands of citizens may be used at individual discretion . . . in private self-defense."
Your isolated ideas about our right to self-preservation are out of step with the rest of the country. If The Sun believes the Second Amendment is ready for mothballs, then take columnist George F. Will's advice and square your political preferences with the right to arms by facing the need to deconstitutionalize the amendment by repealing it. After all, in a constitutional democracy, it should be the will of the majority that should decide our policies, not the editorial whim of a single newspaper.
To do that, The Sun will need to secure a two-thirds majority in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives to propose the amendment and then get three-quarters of the states to ratify it.
I'll gamble that the overwhelming majority of Americans would still like to outfit themselves in the complete Bill of Rights and not your edited version -- especially since 43 out of 50 states have adopted a state constitutional provision to protect its citizens' right to keep and bear arms, seven of them in the 1980s alone. Because of those protections, there have been at least 20 occasions in court that a restrictive or prohibitive arms law was ruled unconstitutional because it impermissibly infringed the individual right to keep and bear arms.
Bill McIntyre.
Washington.
The writer is affiliated with the Communications Office of the National Rifle Association.