'Majority Rules'
After recovering from the shock of Genie Wiedel's mean-spirited letter, Dec. 3 (the mother of a Jewish child in Ms. Wiedel's child's class wanted to do away with references to Christmas in the classroom), I thought a bit more about the logical consequences of her final statement, "the majority rules."
I like the idea. Let's see:
I'm pro-choice. Surveys have shown over and over again that most Americans want to keep abortions legal, even if they personally would not have one. Operation Rescue, take a hike! Defenders of Life, get one! You're not needed. Majority rules!
I'm anti-smoking. About 25-to-30 percent of Americans smoke; a minority, any way you look at it. So, I don't want to hear smokers whine and complain about their rights. They have none. Majority Rules!
I'm pro-gun control. I would guess that a majority of Americans think it reasonable to restrict sales of guns to people under a certain age or who have been convicted of crimes. America doesn't lead the world in handgun deaths for no reason (how many drive-by knifings are there, anyway?). OK, NRA, get lost. Majority rules!
Wow. There are so many possibilities. Even if I supported an issue that was in the majority by 50.1 percent, everything would have to go my way.
I submit, however, that in a democracy the majority never really rules. If it did, the above three issues would be moot; we know all too well about anti-choice violence, smokers rights protests, and the stranglehold the NRA has on politicians.
Looking at the world, Christians are in the minority, out-numbered by Hindus, Muslims and Buddhists. Try a little empathy for a differing point of view. The majority of us are able to do just that.
Lori Mitchell
Baltimore
Group Homes
I think Sara Engram was asking the welfare debaters (Dec. 11) to look beyond the stereotypes at the facts of children's and parents' needs and deal with them intelligently as human beings, rather than as symbols of their own individual frustrations.
Like all one-shot solutions to complex problems, the orphanages concept is justified by confusing all people on welfare with the stereotype of the mindless and immoral teen-age parent milking the welfare system to live the presumed easy life on the dole.
People are on welfare for many reasons. Most get off within a reasonable time period through their own efforts at taking care of the problems that created the need in the first place -- whether those problems be economic like loss of jobs, or social like breakup of marriages, etc.
At the same time there are many inadequate parents for whom group homes could be of benefit, not only for the children but also for the parents, including, often, the unmarried father.
But it takes a world of talent and compassion to run such group homes properly. And they would be expensive.
Justification for the increased current expense could only be in terms of future results.
Martin Berdit
Columbia
Vote Fraud
Hundreds of volunteers are scrutinizing thousands of records to ensure that the will of the voters has not been nullified by criminal, parasitic, career politicians during the recent contest for governor of Maryland.
These politicians, who have resurrected the dead and reinhabited dilapidated, boarded-up buildings to steal victory and undermine the foundation of this state and nation, will be exposed.
Ellen Sauerbrey has been called a sore loser and a whiner, and the silence of her investigation agitates many.
This silence must be deafening to those perpetrators of election fraud, who realize that their handiwork is about to be laid bare.
Ellen Sauerbrey, through temporary defeat, has been given the opportunity to serve her state as she could never have in victory.
Her determination and bravery in facing her opposition and their deliberate roadblocks to justice, while she attempts to return credence to our election system, should be applauded by all who are themselves honest.
Michael T. Dwyer Sr.
Thurmont
Unclear Labels
I am dismayed at David Awbrey's Dec. 16 Opinion * Commentary article's conclusion that the far left and the far right have met in the Newt Gingrich revolution.
It simply isn't so. Such wild conjecture stems from distorted definitions of the terms liberal and conservative.
One should be labeled politically not according to the means espoused but by one's goals. (Both surgeons and murderers make incisions, but we identify them by the results they achieve.)
The goals of liberals are to extend more rights, more liberty and more opportunity to more people, while conservatives would slow this process.
It is possible to be a "tax and spend" conservative advocating entitlements for the rich -- and it is feasible that a "trickle-down" liberal could believe that the poor could actually benefit from the trickle.
Taxing, spending, government intrusion and class favoritism are merely means to an end.
Liberals do not have a monopoly on officious government. We need definitions on which we can all agree if we are going to talk to each other with understanding.
Tom Holder
Westminster
False Memories
On Dec. 9 the front page offered the sensationalist appeal, "One family's tragedy spawns national group" by Jonathan Bor.
Pamela Freyd, founder and director of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation, would have us believe that tragedy occurred when her adult daughter disclosed memories of paternal incest, memories which were recovered in therapy and resulted in a break in the family relations. According to Dr. Freyd the memories are tragically false.
But what of the other tragedies revealed in the article? The allegedly abusive father had a serious alcohol problem, was himself sexually abused as a child and at the very least failed to abide by appropriate parental boundaries.
And the adult daughter? At the very least she endured childhood with an emotionally vulnerable father and a mother blindly determined to defend her own version of family life.
After all, Dr. Freyd cannot know what took place between her husband and her daughter.
The truth is that tragedy for these people began long before the daughter made any accusation, and none of us, not Dr. Freyd or Dr. Paul McHugh, know whether the accusations are true or not.
What we do know is that child sexual abuse occurs with alarming frequency in all kinds of families, and professing innocence is hardly an impressive indication of such.
The FMS Foundation is a group with power, influence and a mixture of motives for sending the message that people should maintain silence and not trust memories of abuse.
It relies heavily on the invalid argument that because some memories may not be trustworthy, all memories of abuse are false, and the faulty premise that someone who claims to be innocent actually is.
The legal system does not appeal to everyone with legitimate claims. We all know what can happen when a woman accuses a stranger of rape.
Not everyone would wish to expose the agony of incest under such conditions. Sometimes an adult chooses to sever the harmful family relationships.
Dr. McHugh identifies therapy which promotes "false accusations" as the abomination of this century, and certainly overly intrusive and zealous practices warrant our attention.
However, by far the greater "misdirection" has been that for most of this century, and those preceding it, boys and girls, men and women, were not free to disclose or end the sexual abuse they suffered, and therapists, like the rest of the world, largely pretended it did not exist.
As we acknowledge instances of memory vulnerability and raise the standard of treatment, let us not become side-tracked from the greater problem with which we are confronted.
The pain and injustice of child abuse requires our attention and care now, for it is most certainly a global tragedy.
Nancy Shapiro
Baltimore