Replies

Last modified Wednesday, March 9, 2005 11:15 AM PST

Editor's mailbag

http://www.democratherald.com/articles/2005/03/09/news/opinion/edit02.txt

Government by the courts

I was educated in another country. However, we were taught more about American history and government than our own. One thing we were taught was that the three branches of government — executive, legislative and judicial — were equal with none being more powerful than the other two.

In the last 30-plus years this has slowly eroded until one branch is the governing body. Judges now run this country and in my humble estimation, they are running the country into the ground. They are more powerful than the executive, more powerful than the legislative and, frighteningly so, more powerful than the people.

Recently, the same judicial system that ruled that death row inmates must be put to death humanely, must use sterilized needles, (apparently so the person being executed won't get infection), must have their final meal, must have appeal after appeal — that same judicial system ruled that Terri Schiavo, the brain-damaged lady in Florida, can be starved to death, a fate that doctors determine would take up to two weeks without food or water.

Do you realize that had Mrs. Schiavo murdered someone prior to her accident, it would be unconstitutional to put her to death in this manner?

Do you also realize, should the system be fair, Mrs. Schiavo's husband, Michael, his attorney George Felos, the judge who decides that it is all right to starve her to death and the doctor who pulls the feeding tubes from her abdomen, would all be charged with conspiracy to commit murder?

Now I don't know if Mrs. Schiavo wants to live, but I do know that if that decision is made by someone else, there must be a more humane way than starvation. I also believe that it is not the place of one judge to act as God.

Again today a judge usurped the power given by the founders and ruled against the people of 19 states, immediately releasing more than a hundred murderers from death row. This judge made the ruling that no one under the age of 18, regardless of the number of gruesome murders committed, could be executed. One judge, ruling on personal feelings, undid what the people voted for. Too much power for one person.

Larry Crompton, Scio

Remember what Kennedy said

The Christian people are supporting an administration that not only condones torture but tries to make it seem legal and moral. They apparently do not care that men and woman, both U.S. and Iraqi, are dying in the thousands for no reason other than fiction and oil.

The Christians deny the truth such as "No Weapons of Mass Destruction" or "Saddam did not attack the towers." When the Catholic Church tells the people how to vote, you have to wonder where these bishops were when priests were molesting children and not being punished for it.

Should a woman get raped and become pregnant they do not want to abort it, but believe that the woman must carry this child to full term. If a child is totally deformed or mentally challenged they usually say it's God's will. These have become the most important Christian doctrines. They quote the Old Testament to justify the anti-gay, anti-woman and pro-war statements. When did this all happen?

According to the New Testament, Christ fulfilled the Old Testament and said that you must follow the Golden Rule: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

To quote President Kennedy at the Greater Houston Ministerial Association on Sept. 12, 1960: "I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute; where no Catholic prelate would tell the president — should he be Catholic — how to act, and no protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote; where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference ... where no public official either requests or accept instructions on public policy from the Pope or ... any other ecclesiastical source; where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials."

Remember, the devil can speak scripture.

Chris Christina, Albany

All deserve respectful treatment

I'm writing this in response to Mary Grace (Mailbag, Feb. 26).

Mary, does the word attainder mean anything to you? As in the federal government will not pass bills of attainder? The states may not pass bills of attainder; a pivotal word used by our founding fathers. Attainder: the loss of civil rights or property of one sentenced to death or outlawed, twice forbidden in the Constitution of our nation. We all, always, deserve to be treated with respect.

Lordy, Mary, lighten up. If the Arizona style of justice is your thing, why don't you move there? Let the citizens of Linn County, convict or not, raise our own children. You would be teary-eyed too if you were the child having to watch as your parents are dragged off to jail; because they bought you food instead of paying their excessive fine imposed by Linn County justice.

Society has gotten to the point where those convicted of any crime are put in jail. Jail is the easy part, compared to the lifelong stigma attached unconstitutionally on felons. Judges have little say in the sentences they hand down. They don't have the ability to consider the ability of the offender to ever pay fines imposed by state legislators.

The children are the silent victims as we are the silent offenders.

John Healy, Lebanon

Lost letters: Because of a problem with e-mail Tuesday night, letters that were sent to the Democrat-Herald's news address, news@dhonline.com, between Sunday and Tuesday, and possibly earlier, may be gone from our system. We ask that readers who submitted letters during that period resend them to news@dhonline.com. We appreciate the extra effort and regret any inconvenience. — Graham Kislingbury, managing editor