Insurance chief puts us on the hook
Thank you for your excellent report by James Salzer and Carrie Teegardin on auto insurance rates in Georgia (“Drivers in Ga. see insurance rates soar,” News, June 21). Your report makes this consumer angry that insurance companies seem to be able to obtain rate increases on demand in Georgia. And this, while State Farm quadrupled its profits in 2012. Georgia seems to have had a number of poor insurance commissioners such as good old boy Ralph Hudgens.
I hope the AJC will remind voters of the anti-consumer record of Hudgens and his acceptance of money from insurance businesses come election time. Voter have short memories. I am sure an election loss would not faze Mr. Hudgens in the least. There is certainly a job waiting for him with his buddies in the insurance industry.
STEVE MILLER, DECATUR
It’s time to lower Confederate flag
The biggest problem in the U.S. is not the budget, Iran, Russia or guns. It’s the white supremacists who become disturbed because black Americans seem to be doing better than them. The white man who killed nine blacks in Charleston was a white supremacist. His jacket was adorned with flags adopted as emblems by modern-day white supremacists. He burned the American flag and waved the Confederate flag, another symbol of white supremacy.
Sen. Lindsay Graham, a white Republican from South Carolina who is running for president, said, “I don’t think it’s anything broader than … about a young man who is obviously twisted.” Graham does not realize this killing was motivated by white supremacy. Isn’t it time for Americans to stop flying the Confederate flag and behaving like white supremacists?
GERALD WALDBAUM, HOSCHTON
Ignorance at fault in Charleston deaths
Leroy Chapman’s eloquently stated question of why we all suffer the Charleston tragedy (“Big question we face: Why?” Opinion, June 21) can be answered in my view by going to the source of Roof’s dementia: Our young men and women have undeveloped minds and are easily impressed with the violence they see every day on any media they choose to watch.
The young man’s mind was filled with visions of being “somebody” that would portray him as some kind of hero or someone to be admired for his 15 minutes of fame. Roof got his picture on national television along with the pictures taken by himself of himself that he thought portrayed him as some sort of sinister, legendary figure of great strength and ability. With visions of grandeur on his mind, he didn’t have the ability to think for himself. The horrible incident that took place in Charleston was not racially motivated; it was ignorance, which is at the root of all human acts of unnecessary violence.
JACK FRANKLIN, CONYERS
