FIRST AMENDMENT
Supreme Court’s ruling wrong on hate speech
I do not understand how the U.S. Supreme Court could rule that a church in Topeka, Kan., (or any entity) has the right of freedom of speech to spout hateful statements and conduct disrespectful demonstrations at the funerals of slain U.S. service personnel.
The Supreme Court is wrong to believe their recent ruling protects freedom of speech. Americans are free to say whatever they want almost any time or in any place they choose. A few restrictions already exist about when and where some speech is allowed.
A funeral is not the place for intruders to make speeches, demonstrate or sell cookies, unless they are invited to do so. There are many other times and places where our right to speak freely is protected (regardless of how repugnant the message might be). Our Supreme Court may know the law, but not the fair way to apply it.
Tony Gardner, Cumming
TRANSPORTATION
Highway subsidies make us oil-dependent
Bob Barr is correct that there is a major problem with the federal transportation budget (“High-speed rail is a false remedy,” Opinion, Feb. 28). However, the problem is not high-speed rail. The problem is highway subsidies, which make us more dependent on oil and vulnerable to high gas prices.
In 2008 alone, the federal government spent billions on roads. That year of highway subsidies could have paid for decades of high-speed rail. The equivalent of another year of highway funding could pay for decades of local rail transit.
We can afford to cut some of America’s road funding to begin building high-speed rail and local public transit systems. It will take time to build rail systems that reduce our dependence on oil.
The sooner we begin correcting the problem, the sooner we can reduce the need to pay high gasoline prices.
Now is the time to balance our spending on roads with investment in high-speed rail and local public transit. America’s future depends on it.
Ashley Robbins, president, Citizens for Progressive Transit
POLITICS
Tired of candidates who are hypocrites
Newt Gingrich refers to his past adulteries as irrelevant. He says the American people don’t care about them. They are looking to the future, he says. I believe differently.
I think the American people are tired of people as hypocritical as Newt. If a man running for president is not going to be honest with his own wife, how can we expect anything different from him in that highest and most important office? This says nothing about what he tried to foist on the American people with his “Contract for America.” It is clear that it was not about making America a better place, but about an agenda he was trying to force down our throats. We did not like it (as he realized very soon).
If anyone thinks this man has mellowed, just look at a man who only weeks ago was supposedly our friend in the Middle East: Moammar Gadhafi. William E. Lynch, Adairsville
