Letters: Readers discuss the RAISE Act, our election primary system and Trump
Wrong solution
Republican Sens. David Perdue of Georgia and Tom Cotton of Arkansas’ RAISE Act attempts to resolve the longstanding stalemate in America’s efforts to reform our broken immigration system, but it ultimately fails as a helpful or moral solution.
Although a merit-based solution makes sense in a reform package, particularly in the age of a global and competitive economy, it would be a serious mistake to scale back a significant driver of our economy — the millions of hard-working immigrants who are so intertwined in our communities, industries and, in turn, our future success.
Our country needs an immigration system that values and respects the contributions of these men and woman. Such an immigration system reflects the teachings of my faith, which instructs me that a key measure of faithfulness to God is to serve as an advocate for those in need of a helping hand, as in James 1:27, and in particular for the immigrant, as in Exodus 21:21.
America needs immigration reform, but we can do better than the RAISE Act.
Derrick C. Lynch
Leawood
Better system
Marvin A. Singleton’s Aug. 13 guest commentary, “Change election primaries to save our democracy,” (17A) offered an accurate assessment of the ills of primary election processes in the 50 states. The solution offered would, however, create more problems than it would cure.
The top-two method largely ensures that voters in the general election will be forced to choose between candidates from the same political party. In other words, the voters in most states will have no choice at all. Top-two is a means for the dominant party in a state to reinforce its dominance.
Curing our elections (and our government) means ensuring candidates face more competition, giving voters additional choices, neutralizing dark money and eliminating gerrymandering. Those things can be accomplished with two simple changes to our primary and general elections.
First, replace the winner-take-all ballot we use now with ranked choice voting. This system would give us a majority winner every time, eliminating plurality winners. Second, institute proportional representation. Representative government means significant segments of our people should all be represented, not shut out.
For more information about these better solutions, see FairVote.org and TheCenterStrikesBack.org.
Larry R. Bradley
Kansas City
Real fake news
There is much talk lately about “fake news,” with suggestions that some media outlets are inventing stories to achieve a political outcome. I don’t know, but if so, the media have much to learn from supermarket tabloids, certainly in terms of headlines.
Headlines such as “Child born with full beard” or “Woman claims she is carrying Godzilla’s child” really capture attention. Who wouldn’t want to read those?
The fact that the headline has no relationship to the actual facts doesn’t matter. It is the headline that counts. Some people actually believe them. I know I do.
If I wrote headlines, I would write such things as “Trump appoints Sasquatch to Cabinet position” or “Hillary blames election loss on alien hairdresser.” Those would capture people’s attention.
The mainstream media lag far behind the curve when it comes to fake news. They must have attended the wrong journalism schools.
Fake news is creating people who either believe everything they read or believe nothing.
I’m not sure it is in the best interest of the profession or the nation.
Mike Hanrahan
Cameron, Mo.
Chicken, egg
The Republicans in Congress must believe the American public suffers from dementia and extreme forgetfulness. They act as if we have forgotten the extreme prejudice and racism they displayed toward former President Barack Obama, which we witnessed repeatedly throughout his time in office.
Now the egg they incubated, which turned into a horrible boss baby, is as much a reflection of them as a baby chick would be of a hen that incubates an egg.
We have not forgotten their rudeness.
Valerie Jansen
Lenexa
Speak up now
In past times of civil strife, a lot of people didn’t want to get involved. We’ve seen how that worked out too many times.
This is a good time to get involved.
Take a few minutes today to write, email, tweet or call your senators and representative urgently advocating the removal of President Donald Trump from office. His recent actions have exposed him as a traitor to American values.
Charles Barnes
Kansas City
This story was originally published August 19, 2017 at 8:30 PM with the headline "Letters: Readers discuss the RAISE Act, our election primary system and Trump."