Letters to the Editor

Government has no place in personal lives

Regarding Matt Daniels’ Thursday Op-Ed, “Marriage, society,” it is precisely because of government’s involvement with people’s personal lives, including marriage, that we are experiencing family and social problems.

Marriage is a spiritual union. Government has no business telling me with whom I can or cannot enter into a contract. It also has no business telling me to whom I can or cannot marry.

Mr. Daniels says crime, poverty, school dropouts, etc., are the realm of the federal government. Absolutely false on all counts.

The Constitution is quite clear and specific what the federal government can and cannot do. Let Mr. Daniels cite where in the Constitution the federal government is given the authority to get involved with these issues.

Since the Department of Education came into being, the public school system has become a laughingstock — producing graduates who cannot read or write or do simple arithmetic. Colleges and universities have to offer their students remedial classes to bring them up to snuff. The Department of Energy has done nothing to make us energy independent, but it has been able to give away billions in corporate welfare under the guise of research.

Can Mr. Daniels give one example of a bureaucracy that fulfilled its mission and then was dissolved? We need to go back to the principles this country was founded on — limited government and the peoples’ right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, without government meddling or interference.

WILLIAM J. HAUGER

Fredericksburg, Va.

Partisan panels?

Do I understand this story correctly? In “Republicans see conflict, urge Gorelick to quit panel” (Page 1, Thursday) by James Lakely, both Jamie S. Gorelick and the September 11 commission indicated that Ms. Gorelick should not have to resign even though she wrote a memo that should be part of the investigation.

Contrast this with the fact that because Justice Antonin Scalia went hunting with Dick Cheney, many editorial writers insisted he should recuse himself from a case involving Mr. Cheney. And the Republicans are the partisan party, and there is no liberal media? Boy, am I glad I live in a red state.

RUSSELL K. SMITH

Dublin, Ohio

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How is it possible that a key member of the Clinton Justice Department was selected and approved to sit on the September 11 commission as it investigates the failures of that Justice Department? It’s the proverbial fox guarding the hen house.

Would we have a former executive of Enron investigating Enron during the time he was there? Or better yet, would we have a member of al Qaeda investigating Osama bin Laden? Only if we didn’t want the truth or justice served.

Jamie Gorelick should never have been considered, let alone selected or approved, for the September 11 commission. She must either resign or be removed immediately and then asked to testify concerning her role.

GERALD REN

Port Orange, Fla.

Questions still unanswered

Tod Lindberg’s article “A Saddam-free world” (Op-Ed, Tuesday) fails to address the fundamental issue of whether the U.S. administration has been able to discover weapons of mass destruction or at least traces of such weaponry in Iraq.

Pakistan, on the other hand, an ally of the United States in the war on terror, has exhibited enough evidence to the international community about the nature of its nuclear program and exportation of nuclear arms technology to rogue states such as North Korea and Libya.

I am appalled at the discretion of Mr. Lindberg with regards to this open nuclear proliferation by Pakistan. The U.S. administration seems to me like an ostrich with its head buried in the sand with respect to Pakistan.

VENKAT VANKIPURAM

Albuquerque, N.M.

An ’essential’ act

When Israel assassinates the leader of a terrorist organization, as it has laudably done with the latest leader of Hamas (“Israelis kill Hamas chief in Gaza attack,” Page 1, yesterday), the outrage is that international condemnation of Israel swiftly and surely follows. Hamas has as its goal not negotiation for land and living peacefully with its Israeli neighbors, but wiping Israel from the face of the Earth.

Israel has no such aim as regards its Arab neighbors, and were it not for a history of Arab attacks against Israel from the dawn of its existence in 1947, today there would be peaceful relations between Arabs and Israelis living in the same region.

If Israeli leadership knew of a means to target and eliminate those who plot the murder of innocent men, women, children and infants, but elected to take no action, the Israeli government would be derelict in discharging its primary duty, to protect its citizens.

Violent death is never an event to be celebrated, but when the decedent is a person of evil, an individual who has in his sights innocent non-combatants, the action is praiseworthy and essential.

OREN M. SPIEGLER

Upper Saint Clair, Pa.

On justice and liberty

At the end of Raafat S. Toss’ letter, “Lessons from other U.S. ’quagmires,’” (yesterday), he says, “We will prevail because justice anywhere is a threat to injustice everywhere. We will prevail because liberty tried is liberty triumphant.”

How does this fine talk of justice and liberty square with President Bush agreeing with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon that Israel can keep East Jerusalem and large areas of Palestinian land in the West Bank? These were illegally annexed just because Israel wants more land. Is it that justice, liberty and common morality does not apply when a people inconveniently live on land that America’s ally desires?

WILLIAM G. GARRETT

United Kingdom

Take me out to the ballpark

Don’t fall for the baloney about building a new ballpark (“Ballpark follies,” Op-Ed, Friday). In San Diego, the voters passed a ballot measure after a bitter debate to build a new ballpark fashioned after Baltimore’s Camden Yards because the existing stadium was better suited to football.

No sooner was the ballpark approved than the football Chargers were demanding a new stadium, even though the existing stadium was well-suited to football. Since the excuse for building Petco Park (naming rights sold to a pet food chain) was to develop a rundown section of downtown, the Chargers are proposing to pay for the new stadium if the city gives them a billion dollars worth of land to build residential and commercial buildings that would benefit billionaire owner Alex Spanos.

All I can say is: The difference between a ballpark and a stadium is that the price of hot dogs is double at a ballpark.

BYRON SLATER

San Diego, Calif.