Letters on nonvoters, carbon dioxide, historical Jesus, Palestine, free lunch

Deserve what you get if you don’t vote

It has been said, “You get what you pay for.” However, by not voting we generally never get what we wanted, but most assuredly will end up paying for it.

More than 80 percent of eligible Wichita voters did not vote this past Tuesday, reflecting a general lack of civic responsibility and fortitude to exercise the right to vote. There are valid excuses for not voting, but not many. Mostly it is the result of complacency and just not wanting to be bothered.

In Kansas, our voting record is indicative of our national self-absorbed, non-engaged populace. The 2014 general election results for Kansas were dismal in that only about 887,000 out of 1.7 million eligible voters voted. If we don’t vote, we deserve the outcome, as we have given away our right to complain.

For decades many public schools have strayed from teaching citizenship, civic and personal responsibility, accountability and self-sufficiency, which are all part of the basic founding principles of our nation, and have replaced them with agenda-driven topics developed solely to ensure the population lives like lemmings, following one another over the cliff of more and more government dependency.

Factually incorrect?

“Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance,” wrote George Bernard Shaw. Sedgwick County Commissioner Karl Peterjohn should have heeded Shaw’s warning before claiming that to say carbon dioxide is a pollutant is “factually incorrect” (“So they said,” April 5 Now Consider This).

One wonders if he is aware of the Back to Sleep campaign. Since its inception in 1994, it has helped to reduce by more than 50 percent infant deaths due to sudden infant death syndrome. When babies who are on their tummies exhale, they may not be able to turn their heads to inhale oxygen, thus only breathing their own carbon dioxide.

Imagine a world in which unregulated carbon emissions have depleted the oxygen we breathe, and all that remains is our own CO2. Would Peterjohn still speak of “factually incorrect”?

Historical Jesus

The letter writer who stated that the movie “Killing Jesus” is a false gospel (April 4 Letters to the Editor) either misunderstood the intentions behind Bill O’Reilly’s book as well as the movie, or wasn’t listening clearly during O’Reilly’s broadcasts.

If O’Reilly’s intentions were to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ as it is depicted in the Bible, the letter writer would be correct in his opinions, and what was seen in the movie could have been considered a “false gospel.” But O’Reilly has repeatedly stated that this was not a theological approach to the death of Jesus, but rather a historical approach. He almost always followed up this statement by saying that if you want the theological viewpoint, that is what the Bible is for. That is why O’Reilly “intentionally did not include the supernatural events of Jesus’ life,” as the writer stated.

As a conservative believer of the Bible and a minister, I believe O’Reilly did an excellent job of portraying that historical view of the events depicted. One can still believe in the historical Jesus, without taking anything away from the theological view of Jesus, and His reason for being sent to Earth.

Won’t allow ‘peace’

One cannot spend even a few hours at the Israeli Dead Sea without noticing all the wealthy Palestinian Arabs “taking the waters” at Israeli resorts. If Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has his way, these affluent Palestinian business owners might lose everything.

Why? If the international community creates a brand-new and original 22nd Arab country called Palestine, Abbas has promised that it will be “Jew free.”

If the new Arab state is off-limits to Jews, would it not be fair that the state of Israel become off-limits to Arabs? If Jewish financial interests leave Judea and Samaria, the Arab economy in those areas will collapse. If Arabs are forced out of Israel, in some sort of population trade, the prosperous and moneyed Palestinian Arabs will lose their mansions, their businesses, their banks and their seats in the Israeli parliament, and their wives won’t be able to afford to go to the Dead Sea spas any more.

Despite the rants and antics of the liberal left, there is a simple reason why there will be no “peace” in the Israel-Palestinian conflict. Wealthy Palestinians are very comfortable in and with Israel, and won’t allow it.

Lunch made day

My friend and I recently went to Red Robin for one of its delicious hamburgers and its sweet potato fries. After enjoying our lunch, we asked our nice waiter for our bill. He informed us that our bill already had been paid by the family that was seated near us.

We want to thank them very much for our lunch. That really made our day.

This story was originally published April 10, 2015 at 7:04 PM with the headline "Letters on nonvoters, carbon dioxide, historical Jesus, Palestine, free lunch."