ETHICS
Morality’s good ol’ days? They never existed
Regarding “Anthony Weiner: Sign of moral decline or fleeting trifle?” (Opinion, June 16), Bill York may need a history lesson regarding his belief that the America of yesterday was any more moral than the one of today.
York is old enough to remember when blacks were treated as second-class citizens, and their peaceful protests were met with fire hoses and vicious dogs. He is old enough to remember when a woman best served society by staying in the kitchen and scrubbing the floors. He is old enough to remember when politicians slept around, yet the media was too kind to even care.
York’s generation and those before were no more “moral” than the generation of today. I find his indignation to be rather “immoral” on its own.
Brian Foster, Rome
ETHICS
A mockery of justice and common sense
Mary Sanchez’s apologia in “Anthony Weiner: Sign of moral decline or fleeting trifle?” (Opinion, June 16) is a glorious example of a popular and predictable trope of the left: the idea that there is a moral equivalence between the good (but imperfect) and the truly evil — the only difference being the degree of imperfection. This extreme “nonjudgmentalism” makes a mockery of justice and common sense.
The good part for those like Sanchez who espouse this preposterous stance is that it allows a person to reach whatever absurd conclusion they wish (for example, that even though Anthony Weiner is an idiot, a deviant and a puerile narcissist, he should be allowed to keep his high position because he’s no different from anyone else). See how this works?
Debbie Wagner, Sandy Springs
ELECTIONS
Tucker has it all wrong on voter ID law
Cynthia Tucker’s latest attempt to round up the usual suspects of voter suppression — Republicans and Georgia’s election laws — is her most obtuse column on voter fraud prevention to date (“Voter suppression is un-American,” Opinion, June 15).
First, she states that Georgia is “an early adapter of modern methods of voter suppression,” such as photo ID, but of course provides no evidence. In fact, under the photo ID law, no voter is ever turned away from the polls because they do not have an acceptable form of photo ID. More, three separate courts have ruled that photo ID does not violate the rights of any citizen.
Second, Tucker issues a “crying wolf” claim that Republican legislators make little effort to combat absentee ballot fraud. In fact, the secretary of state’s office has increased the absentee ballot fraud penalty to a felony and implemented stringent verification and handling procedures for county elections officials. The State Election Board has issued nearly $275,000 in fines to violators of absentee ballot laws and works with district attorneys to prosecute them on felony criminal charges.
Cynthia Tucker may call Georgia’s election process protection laws voter suppression. I call them common sense.
Brian Kemp, Georgia Secretary of State
