Readers react to guns, the 2016 elections and unethical behavior
Double standard
Why do far too many white men feel powerful only when carrying a gun?
Remember the Black Panthers? Panthers legally carried weapons in the street, and white folks went crazy.
A 12-year-old African-American child is slain by police for playing with a toy gun in a park, but armed white men can seize a nature preserve, and the Feds stand down?
Remember the American Indian Movement occupation at Wounded Knee beginning in February 1973? The federal land these armed militia men now occupy was confiscated from the Paiute tribe by the federal government.
These white terrorists in Oregon are in violation of Article I of their beloved U.S. Constitution. Their armed protest is tantamount to an “insurrection.”
Sad that we, the people, continue to uphold one set of laws for white privilege and another for everyone else. Look no further than the prison industrial complex.
This is not a democracy. It’s disgraceful and dangerous hypocrisy fueled by blatant white supremacy.
Rosemarie Woods
Kansas City
Generation flop
In 1960, John F. Kennedy described a huge responsibility of the baby boomer generation to carry the torch of freedom from the previous generation. Sadly, this responsibility has not been performed with a responsible attitude.
Earlier this year, I was honored to attend my best friend’s mother’s 90th birthday celebration. I also attended the funeral of a friend’s father, who fought in the Battle of the Bulge.
I thought, What would they would say about my generation and how we have carried this great country?
The disappointment was painful. The Depression babies fought and won a world war to preserve our freedom.
Now we drift away from these freedoms and flirt with socialism, one step from communism.
We are wasting the incredible sacrifice of the previous generation for our own selfish, stupid beliefs in taxing the rich out of existence while strangling our freedoms one at a time.
The chairman of the Democratic National Committee couldn’t articulate the difference between a Democrat and a socialist on “Hardball with Chris Matthews.”
In the 2016 elections, the only way those Democrats running can fulfill their promises for more free stuff is by taking away freedoms one at at a time.
Joseph Lavender
Lenexa
Ethical squeeze
My time at a chiropractic sports clinic opened my eyes to some questionable and unethical behaviors.
Every day I went into work, there were a plethora of notes pertaining to billing for rehabilitation. These often included competitions to see which rehabilitation employee could get the most units.
The owner often said: “We can get the same if not better results than a physical therapist. Why can’t we bill like them?”
No direction was given. The real ethical issue is what insurance the patient had. If that particular patient had the wrong insurance, the owner told us to do the minimum, seeing as our time was too precious for the amount of money the patient would bring in.
It was also directed that some therapies were covered; the length of time was too long, so we would essentially charge the patient. If the patient had regular insurance, we were encouraged to bill as many units as possible.
There was even documentation stating, “If you have to go over simple stretches again, repeat or talk with them for a couple extra minutes to get that extra unit, do so!”
Every patient was treated differently and more as a number than a patient.
Nick Hayden
Kansas City
Plaza’s new owners
I certainly hope the new owners of the Plaza will not continue in the tradition begun by Highwoods: turning the Plaza into Oak Park Mall North.
Terry Snyder
Mission Hills
Saving the planet
We are destroying the viability of the planet. The major life-support systems of the Earth — fresh water, the soil, the oceans, the fisheries, plant and animal life, the atmosphere, the forests — are all in decline.
We hear arguments that this or that action to reduce global warming is not cost-effective, would cost jobs or is not good for the economy. If we don’t have a viable planet, there will be no jobs, no economy and no way of life as we know it.
Thus, the aforementioned arguments are irrelevant.
No price is too high when it comes to saving the planet, which also means saving ourselves.
Ron Ruhnke
St. Joseph
This story was originally published January 7, 2016 at 9:00 AM with the headline "Readers react to guns, the 2016 elections and unethical behavior."