<strong><span class="subhead">Role of Constitution</span></strong></p><p>All organized sports have a rule book. If the coaches and referees of organized sports started making their own rules and calls, in violation of how the rule book read, you would have unworkable chaos. </p><p>You can compare the sports coaches and referees to our politicians and judges. Compare the sports rule book to our U.S. Constitution. For decades presidents, members of Congress and judges have been making and approving &ldquo;plays&rdquo; that are either not constitutionally provided for or are just outright prohibited.</p><p> Such is the present efforts of our government to basically grab an overly large role in our badly needed health care reform. That, and other power grabs, have put us at least halfway into the awaiting chaos.</p><p>If government or sports teams want to break the rules, then please, at least for the sake of reason and stability, change the rule book first.</p><p><p align="right"><strong>Larry McMeins</strong></p></p><p><p align="right"><em>Olathe</em></p></p><p>Many conservatives spend a lot of time and effort professing to the purity of and strict adherence required to the U.S. Constitution. I have only a few questions. </p><p>Why did it require 27 amendments? Why do the senators from Wyoming represent 500,000 citizens, while the senators from California represent more than 36,000,000, but each has one vote? Fair? Democratic? </p><p>Wonder why the Afghans, Iraqis and Iranians are having problems getting this concept to work? Obviously a few more amendments may be needed to this flawed document. </p><p>No, I am not a communist! </p><p><p align="right"><strong>Robert Wewers</strong></p> <p align="right"><em>Leawood</em></p></p><p><strong><span class="subhead">Greed at Moody&rsquo;s</span></strong></p><p>Congratulations to McClatchy Newspapers and Kevin G. Hall for the front-page article on just how the vice of personal greed was employed by the management at Moody&rsquo;s Investors Service to arrive at AAA ratings for dubious &ldquo;packaged&rdquo; securities back in the mid-2000s (10/19, A1, &ldquo;Profit motive dents Moody&rsquo;s credibility&rdquo;). </p><p>Fire the old guys. Replace them with go-go, hungrier younger guys who understood the quarterly bottom line, and give them stock options. Legitimate bad ratings were bad for their business. Good ratings were good for the rating business and for their personal incomes. Voila! AAAs for everyone! </p><p>Now, at that time the Republicans insisted that income tax cuts on the very high income earners would make them more willing to make capital investment in our economy. Otherwise, they wouldn&rsquo;t be quite so eager to earn and invest those high incomes. </p><p>The result was mass stimulation of personal greed over duty. </p><p><p align="right"><strong>Lloyd Hellman</strong></p></p><p><p align="right"><em>Leawood</em></p></p><p><strong><span class="subhead">How now Mao?</span></strong></p><p>President Obama picks Timothy Geithner for Treasury secretary &mdash;someone who has trouble with his own tax return. </p><p>Anita Dunn, White House communications director, says Mao Zedong is a favorite political philosopher of hers. </p><p>Ron Bloom, manufacturing czar, says he agrees with Mao that political power comes largely from the barrel of a gun.</p><p>I wonder if these Obama-ites agree with Mao&rsquo;s cultural revolution when millions of Chinese were slaughtered? Is this the United States of America with leadership like this? </p><p>Wake up America! This is not a story. These people can make decisions that will ruin our culture and gut our freedoms. </p><p><p align="right"><strong>Charlie Birmingham</strong></p> <p align="right"><em>Spring Hill</em></p></p><p><strong><span class="subhead">Why we need health care reform</span></strong></p><p>In Mike Hendricks&rsquo; column &ldquo;Double dose of bad news: Cancer and losing his job&rdquo; (10/21, National/Local), a Garmin vice president wrote: &ldquo;We treated (our employee) with patience, respect and went above and beyond all legal requirements in order to assist him and his family during this challenging time.&rdquo;