Do we get to pick which laws to obey?
Even though federal law dictates that state, city and county officials cooperate with federal law enforcement officers about their legitimate duties, liberal mayors defy regulations by protecting those outside the law by promoting so-called sanctuary cities to avoid compliance.
Do local officials get to choose which laws they will obey?
I'm not fond of paying federal income taxes; can I, and other citizens choose, by the same standard, to disregard payment of income taxes to the IRS? Does everyone get to choose which laws to obey?
Dale E. Yoder
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Southern, Civil War past being dismantled
I feel like I live in an alternative universe.
When then-Gov. Nikki Haley allowed the removal of the Confederate flag from South Carolina, I felt a slow, burning outrage. I realized then my Southern roots were ingrained deep within my soul.
Through the years I have watched what I call the radical black minority methodically desecrate Southern history. First, it was the take-down of the Confederate flag, then removing racial epithets from literature and now getting rid of all Southern Civil War statues of white heroes. Many ask, what is next?
What are the hate groups of the "counter-protesters?" The most dangerous one is the Southern Poverty Law Center, a place of racial hatred and bigotry. There are many others.
What authority do the black power groups have to take down our Southern Civil War statues and monuments? There is none, moral or otherwise. T
he lily-livered, namby-pamby politicians just don't seem to get it; maybe it's not in their DNA.
Helen Fussell, Rossville
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Let's add to, not take
away, our monuments
"Historians warn against rushing to take down statues" (page A7 in last Saturday's TFP) helpfully details the two questions underlying the controversy over removal of Confederate monuments: Who decides if a memorial should stand or fall? According to what criteria?
If these questions are posed about the bust of Gen. A.P. Stewart in front of the Hamilton County Courthouse, neither answer to these questions is likely to satisfy those petitioning its removal, while the explanation that it honors a man instrumental in bringing together Union and Confederate veterans more than a century ago seems on its face sufficiently valid. What is to be gained by its removal? What may be lost in the process?
So rather than trying to re-visit the past by removing its markers (i.e., subtraction), why not allow the addition of plaques and memorials by private groups? Public facilities such as schools, government buildings and street names would be designated according to strict criteria.
There is much in this proposal to criticize, but the current controversy threatens to expose violently every one of the inherent weaknesses of a pluralistic society. Addition is preferable here to subtraction.
Gary Lindley, Lookout Mountain, Ga.