BBB thanked for shredding event
I just wanted to let everyone know how much I appreciate the Better Business Bureau's biannual shredding event held recently. Protecting your identity and personal information is something we all should be concerned about.
This is a free service and works very efficiently. If you have documents or even a computer hard drive, they can all be shredded at this event. Look for the next one in the fall.
Ken Carter
Cleveland, Tenn.
Rights trump will of the majority
With all due respect to the writer of a recent letter to the editor ("Bathroom bill does not serve majority"), there are things in a democracy not subject to the will of the majority. We call those "rights." They include the right to vote, the right to privacy, the right to be free of discrimination on the basis of an immutable characteristic, the right to free speech and the right to freedom of association. In the case of transgender people using the bathroom of their choice, they have two rights: the right to be free of discrimination and the right to privacy. The "majority" does not have the right to infringe. This may be inconvenient, but it is true.
Perhaps an example would make this clearer. If all Caucasians and all African-Americans came together, they could vote to deny Hispanics the right to vote. The problem is those courts wanting to guarantee that people have certain rights.
The ultimate objective here, for both the legislature and the letter writer, is to change the demographics of this country.
Forty percent of transgender people attempt suicide at some point. The legislature will not be content until that is 100 percent.
John West
Signal Mountain
We need 'bought and paid for' insurance
The legislative session in Nashville has wound down. Republicans sat on their hands for months at taxpayer expense and did nothing. They were ordered to do so by A.L.E.C. and its subsidiary Americans for Prosperity.
It is an election year, and legislators are busily pretending they care about their constituents. Their summer and fall will be filled with campaigns where they act interested in issues like Insure Tennessee but are really only interested in duping voters into giving them another term.
They will pretend they care about the working people in their districts for whom they refused health insurance the last two years. This insurance was bought and paid for by the federal government, but these Republican lawmakers denied delivery.
Now they are pretending to come up with a solution. They will say and do anything. They have already indicated that 280,000 uninsured, working Tennesseans don't matter to them. They have a plan all right. It is called "do as you are told," and when it comes to caring for your constituents, "talk a lot but do nothing."
David Clark
Tullahoma, Tenn.