Letters: Readers discuss the Tomahawk Ridge statue, Supreme Court justices and arrogance
Another way
How to deal with suspects who don’t show up for their court dates? How about resurrection of applying charges for civil disobedience?
For example, that tactic could be used in interviews at crime scenes when bystanders say, “I saw nothing” (even though they were there).
Homer Garrison
Shawnee
Art for all ages
I respectfully disagree with the statement in the headline of The Star’s July 11 editorial: “Expensive art and 5-year-olds don’t mix.” (14A)
With the appropriate support, very young children can have meaningful experiences with great works of art. It is essential that we take the time and effort to introduce these cultural resources to very young learners. Education begins in early childhood, and patterns we set now with young children often continue and grow for a lifetime.
One of the deepest values of the arts is learning to encounter and understand something from a new point of view. In our current cultural climate, this value is sorely lacking and in desperate need of attention.
What happened at the Tomahawk Ridge Community Center, in my view, was a failure of context. It was not the fault of the child. Community centers, artists and visitors need to do better deciding what types of exhibitions are in or out of their scope.
Whatever choices are made, let’s not close our minds by thinking that valuable art and young children don’t mix.
Charles Schwall
Mission
Why the lean?
We have a new Supreme Court nominee, so here comes the show. Over the past several decades, this dance has become all too familiar: Emotions are ginned up in support of or opposition to the pick based on speculation.
Our president has made his selection from a menu of judges labeled “conservative.” Since when is our judiciary boiled down to the equivalent of a paint-by-numbers set?
One must ask: Is this what we wanted when some held their noses and voted for Donald Trump? Why should the court have an ideological lean? Does such a lean undermine our democracy?
What do we really need from our highest court and her justices?
As simple as it may sound, we really need them to do the job with which they are charged: Interpret the law as it fits the times in which we live and uphold precedent where prudent. We should not look to the courts to uphold or implement an ideology.
If this is a bad pick, the Senate should vote him down. If the pick is good, the Senate should confirm him.
We deserve better from all our elected officials because we all matter. Elections matter. Missouri matters.
Henry Martin
Candidate for Missouri’s
6th District
Kansas City
Can’t see itself
I’m a Korean War vet, and my service enabled me to earn my degrees to teach — almost 30 years in a public junior high school classroom, from which I’ve been retired for 30 years.
Where my years’ experiences have taken my life, I believe I can recognize arrogance.
Paying attention, listening, watching and reading his tweets, I see that President Donald Trump leads with arrogance.
Arrogance cannot recognize itself.
Arrogance is not a virtue.
Our nation is suffering the consequences of arrogance.
This is not a political comment. It is concerning mental health.
Ken McCully
Belton
Original intents
We all know the old saw: “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.”
At no time in recent history will the flaws in the American political system be more on display than in the coming weeks.
“Elections have consequences,” Republicans will say. Who could disagree? But when they say it, they point to Donald Trump’s Electoral College victory in the 2016 election, which thrust him into a position to affect the Supreme Court for all Americans — not just conservatives — for generations to come.
They do not mention that President Barack Obama also won an election that gave him the right to choose a Supreme Court nominee — a right decimated by Mitch McConnell, who was not elected president but whose position as Senate Majority Leader allowed him to block Obama’s pick from even being considered.
They say the Constitution should be followed exactly as written, but it is likely that the framers, citing the need for a “well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State,” did not intend to place an AK-47 in the hands of anyone who wants one.
How fragile are our rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Janelle Lazzo
Roeland Park