Unfettered Letters

Restricting our liberties

Remember when:

1. You could lick the cake batter out of the bottom of the bowl without the raw eggs giving you salmonella poisoning.

2. Cooking raw chicken didn’t require having a pile of Clorox wipes at hand.

3. Beef didn’t have to be cooked to shoe leather toughness to be safe.

4. Strawberries could be eaten without concern for lower gastrointestinal distress.

Well, folks, that was before big government was in your kitchen protecting our food supply. It’s so much better now.

Our small-government party has moved big government out of the kitchen, endangering our food supply, and into the bedroom, endangering our tradition of broadening civil liberties for citizens, not restricting them.

Janelle Ramsburg

Prairie Village

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/04/08/3540571/letters-monday-april-9.html#storylink=cpy

Getting oil takes time

Once again the paper’s liberal bias comes shining through, and so obvious, talking out of both sides of your collective mouths. First thing, if I’m not mistaken when the previous administration was in power the Democrats were blaming it for high gas prices, remember?

Now they attribute the rise in oil production in the U.S. to the present administration, which has not been in office long enough to take credit for this, because it takes five to seven years for exploration and drilling for a new well to get oil into the system.

Can you try and clarify this because you have me confounded on your thought process.

Jeff Haley

Sheridan, Mo.

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/04/08/3540571/letters-monday-april-9.html#storylink=cpy

Crying over Obama, oil

I am in awe of the accomplishments listed for President Barack Obama on increasing the domestic oil supply. Because he did all this great stuff, that means that the price increases are all the fault of speculators, right?

Whatever happened to the task force on oil speculation, which refers to yet another promise issued in the face of falling approval ratings with probably no intention of keeping it. I realize that The Star is in full Obama campaign mode, but for crying out loud, this came from your parent newspaper company.

And as far as the continuing insistence that none of the Republican solutions would have any immediate effect, that may be true. But for sure if they are “nonstarters” they will be nonfinishers, and we will still be crying the blues in four more years if Obama is re-elected.

Jim Barber

Independence

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/04/08/3540571/letters-monday-april-9.html#storylink=cpy

Oil company drillings

Instead of just shaming Republicans for blaming Obama for high gas prices, why don’t people acknowledge that no one in the congressional delegations of either Missouri or Kansas has the initiative or courage to stand up to the oil industry by submitting a measure to reinstitute a federal speed limit? We’re supposed to believe supply issues are responsible for price increases when every gas station in town has enough gas to swim in?

Let’s get real.

Because every little tweak in the Middle East seems to jack up oil prices in the markets, why don’t we try to tweak the market with the threat of reduced consumption through a federal speed limit? If speculators like Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley really thought there might be a reduction in gas consumption, they’d bail out of the oil markets like scalded cats.

But none of our congressmen or senators has done anything about this fleecing of the American public except promise us more supply 10 years hence by drilling hither, thither and yon — all the while allowing the oil companies to drill us in the meantime.

Dane Hicks

Greeley, Kan.

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/04/08/3540571/letters-monday-april-9.html#storylink=cpy

Revising U.S. history

Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren were acknowledged to be the founders of the Democrat Party as we know it today. Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren were both slave-owning plantation owners and continued to own slaves while they served as president.

President Andrew Jackson authorized the “Trail of Tears” during which the Cherokee were forcibly moved from Georgia to Oklahoma. Was this genocide?

The Republican Party was founded in 1852, and President Abraham Lincoln was the first Republican president. The Republican Party was also known as the Abolitionist Party. The 11 Southern states that seceded from the Union were all Democrat states with Democratic governors and Democratic legislatures. In effect, the Democrats fought a war in an effort to perpetuate and expand slavery.

After the War Between the States, the Republicans passed the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery, the 14th Amendment granting citizenship to all non-whites and the 15th Amendment allowing all non-whites to vote. President Lincoln selected Democrat Andrew Johnson as his vice president for his second term.

As a result, when President Lincoln was assassinated, the Democrats took over the presidency. But, let’s revise history and blame the Republicans.

Glenn Cherry

Kansas City

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/04/08/3540571/letters-monday-april-9.html#storylink=cpy

Holier than thou art Kansas

Here is the original text of the “Sermon on the Kansas Capitol Steps”: “Blessed are those with prosperity, for their parents or in-laws were prosperous.

“Blessed are they who lost their state jobs, for their suffering will balance the budget. Blessed are the powerful, for they can tell others to eat cake.

“Blessed are they who dine at Cedar Crest, for they shall be exempt from the Kansas Open Meetings Act. Blessed are those who oppose contraception and same gender marriage, for our Christian tradition tells us that sex is evil if it does not result in the conception of a baby. (But the sin can be forgiven if it is between a married man and woman.)

“Blessed are the abortion foes, for they will foster or adopt all the babies that are born into unhealthy and unsafe homes. Blessed are native Kansans, for they weren’t born anyplace else.”

Rejoice and be exceedingly glad all you Kansans that you live in a state led by holy politicians.

Donald H. Daniels

Topeka

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/04/08/3540571/letters-monday-april-9.html#storylink=cpy

Leo Morton's residence

The tragedy is not the demolition of the house, but the discovery that University of Missouri-Kansas City Chancellor Leo Morton lives in Leawood (4-4, A1, “UMKC’s progress topples a Tudor”). As a UMKC alumna and Missouri taxpayer, it’s difficult to believe that commensurate housing for a public university’s leader does not exist on the Missouri side of the metropolitan area.

The chancellor’s choice and the UMKC Board of Trustees’ approval of his residence are disappointing and only reinforce the stereotype that the county of choice for professionals is Johnson County.

Martha Cockerell

Kansas City

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/04/08/3540571/letters-monday-april-9.html#storylink=cpy

Architectural rescue

In the April 1 issue of Star Magazine, writer Steve Paul complained about the loss over the years of several old homes in the Southmoreland neighborhood, “Architecture a-z.” He neglected to celebrate the Kansas City Art Institute’s rescue and renovation of the beautiful three-story, red brick Cunningham mansion at 4538 Warwick Blvd., now the home of the college’s Jannes Library and Learning Center.

In 2003, this building won the Historic Kansas City Foundation’s Preservation Award for Rehabilitation.

Mary J. Poehler

Director, Jannes Library

and Learning Center

Kansas City

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/04/08/3540571/letters-monday-april-9.html#storylink=cpy

Senseless homicides

I am pleased at the national attention that the senseless homicide of Trayvon Martin has created. But I’m confused why this one slaying in Florida would be more newsworthy than the countless drive-by shootings we have right here in Kansas City.

These murders are equally senseless. Oh. Wait. I know.

Sharon George

Kansas City

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/04/08/3540571/letters-monday-april-9.html#storylink=cpy

Romney's uphill climb

According to my calculations, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney will have to get 48 percent to 49 percent of the vote to get 1,144 delegates before the Republican National Convention. If GOP presidential hopefuls Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul are able to get 52 percent of the delegates among them, the convention in Tampa, Fla., will be brokered.

Frank Berry

Kansas City

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/04/08/3540571/letters-monday-april-9.html#storylink=cpy