Letters on Charleston shooting, gun control, heights of evil, Brownback’s bad ideas, moral bankruptcy

What’s missing is common good

The shooting at a historically black church in Charleston, S.C, is a recurring news cycle. The consensus of diversely chosen panels is that to regain our unity, we just need to value our differences – at which point shoulders slump and discussion stops with knowing glances exchanged.

The paradox that promoting ever-broadening differences between groups necessarily produces unity is puzzling. Weren’t the differences too contradictory – white supremacy versus African-American identity?

The resolution is a missing component: our common good.

We’re taught this in sports, military service, history and our churches. Value differences that contribute to the common good. Sport coaches teach us to play for the team. Military service requires us to value the difference we can make for the good of the service. In history, we learn that Abraham Lincoln opposed slavery because of common rights found in the Declaration of Independence: “All men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.” In church, we learn the Golden Rule: “In everything, therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you.”

Remembering these things, we can regain unity while valuing our differences. Wouldn’t the late Rev. Clementa Pinckney say, “Amen”?

What we can do

Since the shooting in Charleston, S.C., last week, I have heard many anguished voices of despair saying: It was madness. The killer was an awful human being. Who would do such an act of violence? What can we do to move on?

I have a few ideas: Make the Confederate flag illegal in any context. Ban all gun and knife shows. Put a 50 percent surcharge on any gun purchased and a 75 percent surcharge on any ammunition purchased. Require any person buying a gun to complete a notarized background check and go through a 10-day waiting period. Ban all assault rifles. Pursue and bring to justice the many official and unofficial white supremacist groups across this country with the same energy and financial commitment as we have used in the useless wars of the past dozen years in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I end with a paraphrase from Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C.: The people devoted to ill will make much better use of their time than the folks devoted to good will. Our society is leaning toward the savagery which, at one time, was thought to be a generation away.

Heights of evil

The entire quagmire of death, carnage and calculated destruction throughout the Middle East today can be summed up in an ancient Latin maxim that translates: “to such heights of evil are men driven by religion.” This combined with man creating God in his own image.

Bad ideas

Paul Krugman, in a recent column in the New York Times, wrote: “Seriously bad ideas, I’d argue, have a life of their own. And they rule our world.”

His examples were ideas that have caused Great Britain’s financial problems, but if I hadn’t read the entire column, I would have thought he was talking about the ideas that Republicans in Kansas have been spewing for the past several years – such as that cutting taxes on businesses will increase jobs and that a law was needed against people on welfare taking cruises.

Not only has cutting taxes on businesses not produced the promised jobs, but the policy has put Kansas in dire financial difficulties. And it’s beyond me how Sen. Michael O’Donnell, R-Wichita, came up with the idea that the amount of money anyone receives on welfare would be enough to finance an ocean cruise in addition to providing a meager living.

Gov. Sam Brownback’s and the Legislature’s fix for our budget crisis was to increase taxes on the middle and lower classes. A far more realistic tactic would be to rescind Brownback’s tax cuts so that we could pay our bills and continue important services.

Rather than going after the comparatively paltry fraud engaged in by folks on welfare, follow the big money. These guys own yachts and private planes, have multiple houses, and wear Rolex watches. Eliminating corporate welfare would save far more money than O’Donnell’s law against welfare recipients taking cruises.

Moral wrong

“Dishonored Jesus” (June 17 Letters to the Editor) got to the heart of the wrong done to this state by our governor and Legislature. Kansans are a resilient people and, we can hope, will somehow be able to weather the new financial and political burdens put on them. Unfortunately, for those who have perpetrated such betrayal, their moral compass will probably continue to spin out of control. (I know some legislators who hated what occurred.)

The governor and those in the Legislature who continue to plunder those in need in favor of the growing aristocracy in this state will never believe they’ve done any moral wrong, because their eyes are fixed on all those earthly designs that Jesus so adamantly preached against. In essence, the ones who should care the most, because it’s their doing, will most likely care the least.

The moral bankruptcy in Topeka makes the state’s budget deficit pale in comparison.

This story was originally published June 22, 2015 at 7:03 PM with the headline "Letters on Charleston shooting, gun control, heights of evil, Brownback’s bad ideas, moral bankruptcy."