Criminalizing poverty

Have you noticed that being poor is increasingly seen as a crime?

The first indication of this are the so-called welfare-to-work rules. Do these rules also mean that the elderly, children and disabled must work?

Being poor is now a sign that the person did something to be deserving of being so.

I read a recent Wall Street Journal editorial on the food stamp program.

I wonder why having so little income forcing one to be on food stamps is considered a moral failing. The poor are seen as a burden on the system when in reality they are as much a part of that system as anyone else.

The budgets being advocated by pro-life Republicans would decimate people programs.

Edward Acosta

Shawnee

Aiding homeless people

In response to the Feb. 3 article, “Help or Hindrance?” which examined the practice of feeding the “hard-core homeless,” ministry leaders and charity-minded people should read the book “When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty Without Hurting the Poor ... and Yourself.”

The authors have a compassionate, Bible-based approach, which starts with the fact that we are all broken people. You will learn to discern whether relief, rehabilitation or development are what a person truly needs.

After reading this book, I was struck by the huge number of ministries in our area that almost act like vending machines, dispensing relief to anyone, nonstop. The manner in which it is done often seems so impersonal.

Here’s your sandwich. Bye, see you tomorrow.

What is really needed is for well-off people to befriend and work with the homeless through the long-term process of recovery.

And there’s no better place to do this than through your local church.

This book has me looking at how I can get more involved with the homeless and the poor through my church. But it also has me adjusting what charities I give money to regularly — less to relief, more to rehabilitation.

David Raasch

Independence

Folly of arming teachers

With all of the respect due a fallen hero, but if a deranged gunman is able to get the drop on our nation’s most lethal sniper, what does that say about the folly of arming schoolteachers for the protection of their students (2-4, A2, “ ‘American sniper’ ”)?

Mike Wheeler

Kansas City

Women in combat

When I saw the Jan. 24 headline, “Historic shift under way,” I thought the country will become progressive and peaceful — no more warmongering. But no. The article was about women in combat.

How unimaginative we are.

Elizabeth Smith

Kansas City

In defense of Hagel

As a female veteran of the Army, I can think of no one better than Chuck Hagel for secretary of defense (2-1, A2, “Hagel draws GOP fire”). His experience in combat as a noncommissioned officer makes him more qualified than any secretary in recent memory.

The criticism he is getting for his reluctance about going to war is exactly why we need the guy. How many shoot-first-ask-questions-later wars have we fought lately that have left the U.S. broke and our soldiers broken with little to show for them but a Middle East in greater chaos than ever?

As far as his remarks about Israel, the man only said what a lot of us feel. There is too much influence over our politics than any country should have.

Of course, the senators who are grilling him swear that isn’t the case. We know better.

We should defend Israel if it’s attacked. But Hagel is right in recognizing that Israel’s bombing of Iran would cause World War III rather than prevent it.

Confirm him now.

Kathleen C. Butler

Wichita

Uninformed on guns

I read the letters to the editors with alarm because of the number regarding guns. Most of the writers of these letters apparently know little or nothing about firearms.

But they think they are qualified to determine what types and styles everyone else should be allowed or not allowed to own. Being uninformed or misinformed but still spouting off (or voting in an election) is not solving problems; it only creates more.

Please, folks, lose the ideology at least long enough to inform yourself before you go on your soapbox. And keep it real. Avoid immature references to unrelated objects or subjects.

Keith Shockley

Independence

Bishop Finn is wrong

Contrary to the opinion stated by Bishop Robert Finn, we are very fortunate to have the National Catholic Reporter (1-28, A4, “Bishop criticizes Catholic Reporter”). The articles in the National Catholic Reporter give us information and details on events and subjects we do not see in the diocesan paper.

People need information to make intelligent decisions and form opinions. I hope the National Catholic Reporter continues to keep us well-informed for many years to come.

Ann McShane

Kansas City

Guns unfairly targeted

More people are killed in Chicago by baseball bats than rifles.

So outlaw bats.

More people are killed with cars that travel faster than 25 mph. So outlaw them.

Fatalities are rare in a crash at 15 mph.

Australia spent billions of dollars buying back guns and outlawing some guns. That country’s crime rate is not substantially improved.

What good did the last gun ban do? How well did Prohibition work for the country?

Did these laws work?

Are we thinking or reacting?

Marshall Sherlock

Kansas City

Liberals miss the point

I’ve delayed responding to the myriad antigun comments written by readers and The Star opinion writers alike. It is somewhat fascinating that those on the left respond right out of the box reflexively and emotionally.

You can almost predict how they will respond to most any event.

They always see the trees clearly, and the forest doesn’t matter.

Two quick points are worth illustrating: The biggest massacre in a classroom occurred in the 1920s and was committed by a man with dynamite. We continue to use dynamite to this day.

My other point is that The Star and its legion of left-leaning adherents have not to my eyes asked the pertinent question: What kind of mind does it take to murder your mother?

To me, that is the more important issue to be discussed versus the gunman killing the children.

Someone who would kill his mother in cold blood is more than capable of killing hundreds of someone else’s children with any vehicle of mass destruction.

Greg Akridge

Shawnee

Today’s gun culture

There are significant differences in our current culture from that of the framers of our Constitution, and this should not be ignored.

The utility of firearms was quite different then, with very limited social control of violence from tribes or neighbors.

Also, the culture then more readily accepted the unexpected loss of life, and deaths from firearms were less abhorred (except from close family and friends).

And most significantly, the use of the word “gun” in the framers’ concept was quite different than what is meant today.

Does anyone really think the Founding Fathers would have used the word gun as they did in the Constitution if it connoted to them what it now does to us?

Bob Nash, M.D.

Olathe

Endless gun violence

They are buried every day.

Hearts tear, minds shatter,

Yet we turn and walk away.

Losers in social roulette’s decay

Where just a wrist flick matters.

They are buried every day.

Fast death haunts the highway,

Stalks our homes and theaters;

Yet we turn and walk away.

Or we shoot before they may

And kill our better natures.

They are buried every day.

Others come as we delay.

Say goodbye to sons and daughters

As we turn and walk away.

God awaits and welcomes daily

Those a nation let be slaughtered.

They are buried every day.

Yet we turn and walk away.

Sharon Gibson

Kansas City

Makeover for Chiefs

These are indeed exciting times for the Kansas City Chiefs and their fans. We may even begin to hope for a brighter and more successful future.

But I think the “new” Chiefs should have a new look. How about tweaking the uniforms so they don’t look like the losing Chiefs?

Keep the arrowhead on the helmet, of course, and the colors, but surely they can have a new look that will send the message: These are the new and improved Chiefs.

David Hendricks

Prairie Village