Readers react to the Confederate flag, the transportation bill and Donald Trump
Confederacy, slavery
The discussion over the Confederate flag has generated an attempt to claim that the Civil War was not fought over slavery but over states’ rights and economic issues.
Anyone believing this should read the Confederate constitution. Examples:
Article I, Section 9, Clause 4: “No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed.”
Article IV, Section 2, Clause 1: “The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States; and shall have the right of transit and sojourn in any State of this Confederacy, with their slaves and other property; and the right of property in said slaves shall not be thereby impaired.”
Article IV, Section 3, Clause 3: “The Confederate States may acquire new territory. ... In all such territory the institution of negro slavery, as it now exists in the Confederate States shall be recognized and protected by Congress and the Territorial government; and the inhabitants of the several Confederate States and Territories shall have the right to take to such Territory any slaves lawfully held by them in any of the States or Territories of the Confederate States.”
Jerry Brekke
Maryville, Mo.
Congressional follies
The Kansas City Star reports that the Senate agreed to take up a sweeping, 1,000-page transportation bill just a little over a week before states face a cutoff of highway and transit aid in the middle of the summer construction season.
The Star did not mention that Congress has been trying for 10 years to pass a long-term bill; that more than 30 times over the past six years, Congress has been able to pass only short-term extensions of the federal highway trust fund; or that one of the gimmicks in the bill would expand the power of private debt agencies to collect federal taxes.
Congress first authorized private collectors in 1872, then repealed the provision in 1874. The Clinton and Bush administrations 120 years later both pursued projects to privatize some Internal Revenue Service collection work. Both were wasteful failures and were canceled.
In the meantime, Congress has been systematically gutting the tax agency’s budget for years to the point that it can no longer function properly. Now Congress can disingenuously privatize agency functions at a net loss in funds to the U.S. taxpayer but at a big benefit to campaign donors.
This is truly the best system money can buy.
Clyde Waltermate
Raytown
Trump, White House
For a long time since Saint Ronald Reagan, the Republican Party has embraced an economic theory that is an insult to the middle class and the poor: trickle-down economics.
And now Donald Trump is running for the Republican nomination for president.
He’s starting his race with promises to protect us from Mexican drug runners and rapists. I’m sure he has plenty left where that came from for all our other minorities.
Anyway, that leaves a huge question to which we here in Kansas City hold the key: If he is nominated, how will the comb-over candidate fare in the flyover states?
John Van Horn
Kansas City
Lee Judge cartoons
Count me as one who is not offended by Lee Judge’s cartoons. In fact, I often find myself nodding my head in agreement if not smiling at his opinion.
However, I am fairly consistently offended by the way this state is running into the dumps as well as by the narrow minds and biased outlook of too many Kansans.
Ruth Fine
Paola
Wrong racial profiling
Given what happened Thursday evening in Lafayette, La., the preponderance of white mass shooters leads me to suggest that police departments nationwide begin profiling Caucasian males (7-24, A10, “Louisiana theater rampage leaves at least three dead”).
I am tired of my African-American (black of any nationality), Latino, Asian, Arabic, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans (insert any other grouping) taking the brunt from police in the crime-raged white male population.
David Davis
Overland Park
Royals broadcasts
There is so much negativity regarding the Kansas City Royals’ television broadcast crew. Well, here’s something positive for a change.
These guys are great. Rex Hudler adds color and presents a comedic flare to the broadcast. Ryan Lefebvre and Rex both know their baseball and are very informative.
So for all of you haters out there who keep hurling insults at Rex and Ryan, in the famous words of Rex himself, “You can’t sneak a piece of cheese by a hungry rat,” and “You got to gooooo.”
I love it. Go Royals.
Dave Brown
Grandview
Goldberg columns
We can always depend on Jonah Goldberg to construct an oblique argument based on unrelated anecdotes and quotes, full of tenuous connections (but impeccable grammar) and reaching one of his favorite conclusions.
1. We need to cut taxes on corporations and the wealthiest Americans so they can create jobs.
2. President Barack Obama is an Islamic terrorist out to destroy us.
3. The liberal media are lying.
4. We need to bomb Iran now to save Israel.
5. Muslims cannot be trusted.
6. Global warming is a liberal plot.
7. Fill in your favorite thinly veiled racist, elitist or uber-conservative slogan.
Now. Can we fill that top right-hand column space with a logical, well-reasoned essay, please? I’ll be happy to accept an occasional dangling preposition, as long as the theme makes sense.
Rich Leppert
Kansas City
Missouri road tax
With all the talk about raising the minimum wage, what if you could get around the Kansas City area without an automobile? What would you save?
The cost of operating an automobile is about $750 a month, according to AAA.
Maybe the time has come for mass transportation. It is my belief that the wear and tear on our road infrastructure is not caused by the automobile. It’s the weather and the truck traffic.
In the future, I hope all our public schools and community centers are designed around mass transportation for all ages to have easy accessibility.
Oh, yes, there is one more big bump in the road. How do you acquire that first automobile?
Missouri has ignored talking about a building and maintaining road tax for many years. In the next few months, please make this the top priority.
Missouri’s legislators have done nothing in this last session. I hope the governor will call a special session to address a gas tax.
Toll roads and a bi-state tax for mass transportation would help the state. Please let the voters decide.
John Ivey
Kansas City
Kudos to The Star
Cindy Hoedel’s July 26 FYI special project “Plain talk on race,” if followed up with additional reporting, could certainly earn Ms. Hoedel and The Star a Pulitzer Prize.
The oh-so-uncomfortable topic was dealt with beautifully through the direct and very frank discussion of the four panelists.
This discussion should be part of everyone’s education, from kindergarten through 12th grade and beyond — reading, writing and racism.
The No Child Left Behind curriculum needs a sequel, No Race Left Behind.
I had been in this area only a few weeks before being treated to an outdoor barrage of white racist Confederate flag waving. Mounted on the back of a pickup truck and coupled with the Gadsden flag proclaiming “Don’t Tread On Me,” both flags interrupted our outdoor patio dinner at a restaurant in Liberty (interesting dichotomy).
When I was a young man, I decorated my bedroom with a Confederate flag because I thought it looked cool. Never in my wildest dreams would I have done that if I had understood what that flag stood for. Never.
That message needs to get shouted from every front porch — especially every front porch attached to a governor’s mansion.
Jeff Greek
Kansas City
This story was originally published July 28, 2015 at 10:00 AM with the headline "Readers react to the Confederate flag, the transportation bill and Donald Trump."