Readers react to religious violence, the University of Missouri and Sen. Ted Cruz
Religious violence
GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump and some of his fellow Republicans want us to worry about Muslims, but they seem to forget the Christian legacy of violence and killing.
Starting as early as the fourth century, Christian violence abounded. Some examples are the intolerance of St. Augustine, the approval of killing heretics and unbelievers by St. Thomas Aquinas, the Crusades, the Inquisition by the Roman Catholic Church and even the Holocaust during World War II when Christians were complicit at best.
Indications are that Christians have killed more people than the rest of the world’s religions combined.
Arlin Buyert
Leawood
MU problems
The person who wrote “Hitler rules” on a flier in a dormitory on the University of Missouri-Columbia campus might well have been an ignorant anti-Semite expressing a vile sentiment at a time of turmoil on the campus (3-2, A9, ‘ “Hitler rules’ written on flier at MU dorm”).
However, I believe we should at least consider one alternative. University students are taught to think critically and encouraged to integrate their education with real-world experiences.
Might it be possible that the person was metaphorically comparing Adolf Hitler to the heavy-handed tactics recently employed by the Missouri state legislature and the university Board of Curators, who chose to bypass established procedures in order to impose their will on the entire university community?
Robert Powell
Independence
Cruz as president
Republicans are really inept. Apparently, the Constitution is vague about whether Canadian-born GOP candidate Ted Cruz can serve as president.
Instead of Republicans getting a ruling on that now, it looks as if they’ll wait until Sen. Cruz wins the nomination (or wins the election), and then you’ll see the Democrats run with it.
Sounds like a real scramble.
Neil Simmons
Bates City, Mo.
Sunshine Law
With much apparent mistrust of governing bodies from federal, state, county and city governments, now Missouri lawmakers say the Sunshine Law doesn’t apply to individual lawmakers (3-3, A7, “Missouri lawmakers say they’re exempt from the Sunshine Law”).
That means legislators representing thousands of residents in their areas could keep what they are doing under cloak. Sunshine could shed light only on the entire legislative body.
Kansas has similar closed records for individual lawmakers under the Open Records Act.
All government should be transparent and open to the people should an interest arise.
What do lawmakers need to hide? Even if a constituent (or lobbyist) calls a legislator with an issue, he or she should not expect the same relationship as a priest in a confessional.
Our country is the land of the free, not the land of darkness.
Keep the records open in Missouri and reopen them in other clouded states such as Kansas.
Larry Miller
Overland Park
Obamacare blues
Economic reality is catching up with the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. The problem is that while acts of Congress can be repealed, the basic laws of economics cannot.
In this case, the law in question is one that most students are taught on the first day of economics class: There is no such thing as a free lunch. Someone always pays.
As a volunteer tax preparer, I am seeing money taken out of low-income persons’ pockets. The penalty for not having health insurance is more than $300 and going up. Income tax refunds are smaller and smaller.
In tax year 2014, the total retained or collected by the Internal Revenue Service because of Obamacare was $1.5 billion. I suspect the total for tax year 2015 may be double that amount.
Full health care for every human being in the U.S. is not cheap. Prices for service, co-pays and premiums are going up.
One of the promises of the Affordable Care Act was price control. It is not working.
My health care service has not improved. Health-care workers are now data entry clerks.
All I hear is the insurance companies have found ways to make money. I am left holding an empty bag.
Richard Blaisdell
Kansas City
This story was originally published March 4, 2016 at 9:00 AM with the headline "Readers react to religious violence, the University of Missouri and Sen. Ted Cruz."