Arizona law
A recent letter writer thinks a fellow human being is having his human rights violated by being called an “illegal” (Voice of the People, May 23)!
When a person breaks a law and is found guilty after due process, exactly what are we to call that person?
We used to call that person a “criminal,” but that obviously doesn’t work anymore. Has the world changed so much in our “brave new world” that violating a federal law means so little?
The letter writer goes on with the misconception that the Arizona law allows for a person to be “cuffed, thrown in a truck and dumped somewhere across the border” based purely upon suspicion of being an “illegal.” The law doesn’t even take effect until July 29 and the letter writer is contributing to the idea that the state of Arizona has also overturned the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Does anyone really think Arizona wants the cost of unnecessary arrests, incarcerations and transportation to the U.S. border added to its nearly bankrupt state budget? I don’t think so.
Like news coverage based on political polls long before an election, premature ideas about what might happen in the future do little to tell the facts or ensure domestic tranquility.
— David C. Jahntz, Geneva
Joy of motherhood
For almost 30 years now, I have had the honor and the privilege of having the most important and fulfilling job in existence. It has the extremes of every emotion and experience imaginable to mankind. It gives meaning and purpose to my life.
It is motherhood.
Shortly, as my youngest graduates from high school, it will change dramatically. If I have done my job properly, I will be in semiretirement. It will be the hardest transition I have ever faced.
So if you see me out and about and I burst into tears, know that all is well and this, too, shall pass.
To those who have gone before me in this arena, you have my greatest respect. To those who will follow, my greatest support. And to my wonderful children, my greatest thanks.
— Mary Mikos, Wood Dale
Our growing debt
In “Tea partiers taking pages from New Left” (Commentary, May 19), Tribune columnist Clarence Page continues to miss the mark in his mission to denigrate the tea party movement, including his comments that “The tea partiers want freedom from obligations imposed by ‘big government’ but not its benefits … they tend not to mind receiving the biggest items in the federal budget: Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.”
In truth, what the tea partiers are upset about is that our government is letting Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid go bankrupt while pushing our country further and further into debt, a debt that is growing so large that it will not only affect our children and grandchildren but will soon affect us all.
— Russ Marineau, Naperville
Inspiring violence
The tea party is actually desecrating the flag rather than honoring it by using it as a tool of hatred.
It’s no different than the way the Ku Klux Klan used the flag to try to define its members as the “real Americans” when their message is that the rest of us are not as real Americans as they are.
They walk around in their costumes, waving their flags and their crosses and wearing their guns, and spouting racist rhetoric, calling everyone who disagrees with them communists and Nazis.
Their message is meant to inspire violence, and is phony and dishonest.
America is a land of many cultures. We are all immigrants or the descendants of immigrants from all parts of the world. This is not a nation of just white people. When someone uses the flag to send a message of hate and exclusion, he or she is dishonoring everything America stands for. It takes more than just waiving a flag to be an American.
When the flag becomes a lie about one’s patriotism and one uses it as a tool of anger, one might as well just set it on fire because that person’s message is not the message that this country was founded upon.
— Marc Perkel, Gilroy, Calif.
Proving citizenship
First let me state that I understand Arizona’s plight, and I sort of agree with what it is trying to do. However, I have a question for all the diehard supporters of Arizona’s new law: If you were stopped at this moment and asked to prove your citizenship, could you do it? Right here, right now? I didn’t think so.
— Richard Carlucci, Chicago
Kirk’s ‘mistakes’
I see where Republican U.S. Senate candidate Mark Kirk called the inaccuracies on his resume “mistakes.” If he were applying for nearly any position on Earth, he would no longer be considered for the position and/or be immediately fired for lying. Not to worry! The people of the Great State of Illinois would never elect a crook and a cheat! Would they? Kirk should withdraw from the race immediately.
— Tom Cox, Naperville
Kirk’s record
So let me get this straight: Mark Kirk served his country. And Alexi Giannoulias has done what?
— Henry Smit, Oak Forest
No good candidate
The problem with wanting to make a difference in the November election is that no one is a good candidate. The primaries, party-oriented, offer poor choices at the final vote. And so the independent voter has no one to support for better government. The process needs to start at the primaries.
— Barbara Abrams, Chicago
Kirk’s service
I’m a veteran and I’m sick and tired of politicians like Mark Kirk lying about their military service. Kirk used to brag that he “served in Iraq,” claiming to be the only member of Congress to do so. Now he claims that he meant to say that he “served during Iraq,” but was actually stationed stateside.
For Illinois’ sake, I hope that also means that he will be serving somewhere else other than the Senate.
— John Walker, Buffalo Grove
Too long of an election
I wish someone would take a poll. Elections will not be held until Nov. 2. Right now, this day, how many people are sick and tired of being bombarded by all these irritating election ads?
We would all do well, candidates and voters alike, to follow the electoral process practiced by the people of Great Britain.
— Emily J. Head, Evanston
Shortchanged voters
Alas, it appears that Illinois voters are faced with a choice of two flawed candidates for the soon-to-be-vacant U.S. Senate seat.
Congressman Mark Kirk has now been exposed as a guy who felt it necessary to enhance the military service aspects of his resume. I can understand how anyone would want to put the best spin on one’s accomplishments, but I don’t really have much use for people who phony up their military and/or academic accomplishments.
Illinois Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias, in my mind, is pretty much in the same boat with Kirk. Giannoulias, when running for treasurer, told us all that his vast experience in his family’s bank made him super-qualified to be our treasurer. However, when it developed that a number of loans he made to questionable characters while he worked for the bank went sour, he then told us that he really didn’t have much to do with them after all. Matters for Giannoulias went from bad to worse when the government seized and shut down his family’s Broadway Bank where he had been a key member of the management. This event should be a startling indicator that his experience wasn’t that great after all. Thus, Giannoulias phonied up his professional achievements to gain advantage, just as Kirk phonied up his military credentials for the same reasons.
This is all quite sad because, otherwise, both of these guys are probably decent and well-meaning people. Now the voters are faced with the odd choice of trying to choose between two phonies.
— Charles F. Falk, Schaumburg
Win for Mom
My mother loved the Hawks. (OK my mother really liked the Hawks; raising her 12 children is what she loved.) The Hawks were my mother and father’s favorite distraction from all those children she loved. My father and mother did not go out too often, but my dad used to get some Hawks tickets once in a while, and Mom and Dad would go to the game. She liked the crowd, the speed of the game, the excitement. My quiet, genteel mother falling for hockey? I still find it hard to believe.
They even named a child after Bobby Hull (yours truly, 1965).
Mom died nine years ago, but every year during the Hawks season, we all share a special vibe while watching them play — a Mom vibe, wishing she was sitting next to us watching the game. Thank you to the Blackhawks for this year and all the years before, for all the bonds that form in families while cheering for you to win.
Now get out there and win for Mom.
— Robert Keaty, Chicago
