Readers Write, 7/24

JUDICIARY

Year of life was stolen

It’s good to see that Superior Court Judge Dane Perkins has finally ordered Frank Hatley (“Indigent ‘Dad’ released from jail,” Metro, July 16) released from prison for nonpayment of child support.

Perhaps it took Perkins a year to release Hatley because Perkins would be effectively admitting error in putting him in jail in the first place.

For justice to be served, Perkins should now take Hatley’s place in jail. But even with this unlikely event, how can society pay Hatley back for a year of stolen life?

Len Cayce, Suwanee

Empathy becomes bias

People who believe that judges should use more empathy in their decisions may be overlooking the fact that there are two parties to every case.

The question then becomes, empathy for which one?

We are all prone to assume that the judge will have empathy for us, or people like us, or for people for whom we would have empathy.

However, if the judge is empathetic with the other side, we may be more likely to see it for what it is: bias.

David Lawson, Decatur

COLUMNISTS

Useless bit of sarcasm

Who is running the editorial board at the AJC, and do you even read the articles you print? Do you call “If running mates swapped tweets — mavericky style” (Opinion, July 16) serious journalism?

Editorials have always been sprinkled with sarcasm, but I fail to see the point. Could it be that there was no real point, and the article’s purpose was to degrade and belittle John McCain and Sarah Palin?

This article has a place as a Letterman monologue, but not on the editorial page of a major metropolitan newspaper. The AJC editorial page will never be taken seriously until it becomes unbiased, and prints editorials dealing with real issues.

Butch Entrekin, Stockbridge

Pass on the pork, please

In “F-22 still needed to secure skies” (Opinion, July 16), Kyle Wingfield trotted out the same unconvincing argument about why American taxpayers should continue to throw good money after bad on the hugely expensive F-22 aircraft program.

Following Wingfield’s logic, we should never curtail any weapons program, no matter how impractical or expensive, because we don’t know “what the future holds.”

Wingfield also failed to mention the life cycle support costs for this aircraft.

The secretary of defense and a Republican presidential candidate have both come out emphatically against building additional F-22s.

Apparently, Wingfield knows better than they do.

Extension of the F-22 program would be just another massive helping of pork for Sen. Saxby Chambliss, at the expense of other programs desperately needed by the American public.

Dick Thomson, Marietta