Readers react to Gov. Sam Brownback, the Chiefs chop and sexual orientation

Brownbackistan

Kansas firearms laws allow any adult without training or permit to carry a concealed weapon. Even children can carry firearms without permit or training if the barrel is longer than 12 inches.

With this heavily armed environment, Kansas citizens shouldn’t be afraid of Guantanamo prisoners at Fort Leavenworth, Syrian immigrants or frankly anyone other than Kansas’ own brand of murderers. Our heavily armed citizenry would be more than ready to protect hearth and home.

Apparently, the present lack of restrictions on owning and carrying a gun in Kansas still doesn’t offer enough peace of mind, so the state government of Brownbackistan has adopted the xenophobic approach to protecting our great red state. Keep all foreigners out.

Is a wall down the middle of State Line Road with border checkpoints next on the feckless governor’s list of political grandstanding?

Does it sound ridiculous and nonsensical? Certainly, but this is Kansas, where any irrational, poorly conceived crackpot idea can become law.

Dale Thomas

Leawood

Keep Chiefs chop

“It would show great progress for Kansas City sports fans to drop the silly gesture. Just don’t hold your breath that this kind of respectable action will be taken,” Yael T. Abouhalkah wrote in a Jan. 14 Short Take.

Really? I could not disagree more with Abouhalkah.

I imagine I’m not the only reader whose jaw dropped that morning. I was at NRG Stadium in Houston on Jan. 9. The chop was very effective and somewhat intimidating.

The sea of red that gathered behind the Chiefs’ bench after our victory was awesome and could be heard over the television. Even exiting the stadium, Chiefs fans were loud and proud.

Nicki Naylor

Lee’s Summit

Shelly column

Barbara Shelly’s animosity toward sound economics and personal liberty is no secret, but she could have at least offered fact-based criticisms in her Jan. 15 column, “No waking up from this bad dream.” An honest review of Kansas Policy Institute’s policy positions belies her recent claim that the institute is essentially a servile flatterer of Gov. Sam Brownback.

Yes, we agree with the governor when he lowers taxes, makes government operate more efficiently and promotes a more student-focused education system. But, we also openly criticize his actions when they run counter to these principles.

We adamantly opposed his proposals to raise taxes in 2013 and 2015 to subsidize and mandate the use of costly renewable energy and to borrow $1 billion to prop up a broken Kansas Public Employees Retirement System. On taxes, we believe the ideal structure would lower marginal rates on all Kansans while removing corporate carve-outs and other preferential treatment in the code.

These are not a courtier’s actions but those of an organization that adheres to its limited-government, economic-freedom principles. Someone as engaged as Shelly surely understands this.

It’s a shame she chooses to cast blanket aspersions rather than acknowledge that principles exist beyond blind allegiance to Team Red and Team Blue.

James Franko

Vice President

Policy Director

Kansas Policy Institute

Wichita

Sexual orientation

Being transgender is not, as some physicians claim, a mental disorder. Instead, it is innate.

Some physicians contend that transgender must be a mental disorder because a transgender’s identity does not match up with physical reality. The problem with this argument is that gender and sex are not the same thing.

Gender is who you are, and most people are fortunate enough to have their gender match their physical sex. So when people cannot be organized into little boxes with labels across the top, society justifies its norms by declaring people who are different “abnormal” or simply confused.

Physicians also claim that children are susceptible to ideas and develop the “disorder” through nurturing. It is very true that children are susceptible to new ideas, but nobody goes around telling children they should be a different gender.

As children, we are taught the norms and expected to be what society tells us. Kids are told to be themselves, but they are shoved back into the closet by those who contend that uniqueness must be a disorder.

One’s sexuality does not need to be fixed.

Kelsey Trapp

Lee’s Summit

This story was originally published January 19, 2016 at 9:00 AM with the headline "Readers react to Gov. Sam Brownback, the Chiefs chop and sexual orientation."