Northland letters to the editor
Open bids for office
It would seem our society is ready to offer the presidency of the United States to the highest bidder, regardless of qualifications. Perhaps this is a good idea because so many millionaires and billionaires exist now.
Let them vie to purchase the office. Start the bidding now, and the probable billions that the winner will pour into the public coffers can then be used for real human problems such as the highly needed second vacation homes, yachts, etc. for Republicans and true Christians.
Do the same for vice president and all of the congressional seats, and the deficit will go away. Never mind the moral deficit that could occur.
That is quite beside the point.
Jim Semadeni
Kansas City
Franken-foods
Opposition to genetically modified organisms is not about whether genetically modified food is dangerous for human consumption. I am angry that public debate and coverage by the media never goes further.
It is about taking away my rights as an individual to know what I eat and feed my family and turning those rights over to a corporation. There are few things more basic to being a living creature on earth than choosing what to put in your mouth.
The Dark Act — if passed — makes it law that Monsanto will decide that for me.
Aaron Dougherty
Kansas City
Immigration reality
I am puzzled and distressed about the emerging panic concerning immigrants. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's calling them rapists and thieves is making this bias respectable and mainline.
In the past we have sometimes limited the immigration of the Irish, Polish, Italians, eastern Mediterraneans and Asians. The valve has been opened and shut a lot, depending on industry and agriculture's demand for bodies. It has worked pretty well so far.
This new approach makes a mockery of our tradition of accepting those who yearn to be free. After all, these are people who are fleeing corruption, class and racial hatreds and societal collapse.
They bring their wives and children because they value family, as we do. How can we reconcile our own ethical tradition, which is to love one another, with this brutal behavior? Shame on those who teach us to scorn them as free-loaders and a danger to our traditions.
We are all (but the Indian) children of immigrants. Our greatest scientists and business leaders are children and grandchildren of immigrants, legal and illegal.
Ben Vineyard
St. Joseph
Guns, cars, safety
Some people contend that citizens should not have to ask the state for permission to exercise a right and that testing and licensing are OK for privileges like driving a car but not for carrying a lethal weapon.
Of necessity, every right conferred by our laws has limitations. One person’s right to a gun is limited by my right to remain among the living.
Voting is a right, but not everyone may exercise it. Under some people’s logic, we should be sending our toddlers to the polls packing heat.
I hope even these folks can see the folly in this. We would be inviting a catastrophe — the perpetuation of current Kansas politics.
Paul Schenk
Gladstone
Clinton on guns
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton had to say something about the mass murder in Oregon. Her solution to gun violence is allowing the victims to sue the gun manufacturers for the misuse of their product.
This can be dangerously far-reaching as a precedent. Following this logic any misuse of a product that results in a person’s death, the manufacturer would be held liable.
If a plane crashed then the plane manufacturer would have to pay for all the dead and injured. The top amount would be the deaths caused by the misuse of automobiles.
People die in a car wreck, sue General Motors or Ford. All this is ridiculous of course, just like all the other Democratic solutions to this nation's problems.
Clinton should remember the saying, “It is better to be silent and thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.”
Gun manufacturers are no more responsible for the misuse of their products than any other manufacturing company.
Joseph Lavender
Lenexa
Young adult trends
Millennials, most agree, are those born after 1980 and therefore began reaching adulthood by 2000. Some recent studies conclude that millennials do not favor home and automobile ownership and, according to Pew Research, do not belong to organized religion. Granted these are only a few characteristics applied to millennials.
I would suggest that these three factors — home and auto ownership and religious affiliation — can be attributed to the dreadful state of the American economy. Both the unemployment and gross domestic product figures are so skewered that it’s difficult to get a handle on how bad things are.
Many millennials today are unemployed or underemployed and still living at home. This explains why home and automobile ownership is not a consideration, and religious affiliation is beyond being economically affordable.
Steve Katz
Leawood
Minimum wage effect
I have a son in the food prep business. He has been there for 20 years and has increased his pay to about $18 per hour — a livable wage. What effect would a minimum wage have on him?
His pay would not go down so he would not be affected. Wrong, he and all the others in his situation would be dramatically affected. And what is the owner to do, give everyone a sizable raise to maintain a balance?
The military has tried, somewhat successfully, to resolve the problems of high and low cost of living areas by having a cost of living adjustment — if they move you to New York City, you get a bonus. If they move you to the Midwest, you lose the bonus or it is less. The same job in a different locale can and should pay differently.
I am not necessarily a conspiracy theorist, but there is another segment of people who will benefit from any increase in the minimum wage. The local, state and federal governments would see an increase in tax revenue.
They do not have to raise taxes, they just watch it come in.
Jim Nichols
Olathe
This story was originally published October 23, 2015 at 12:18 PM with the headline "Northland letters to the editor."