Controversial sheriff should quietly step aside
Re: Victor Hill. Is this guy for real? He is, and has been for many years, a professional law enforcement officer; he has been trained and found competent to handle firearms and to use professional judgment. Are we now to believe that either he is either extremely callous and indifferent to what he did, or that he is too stupid to fully understand the consequences of his actions? Neither option will look good on his résumé. Didn’t we just go through this with the ex-Police Chief in Peachtree City who shot his wife while under the influence of alcohol and medication? If the citizens do not have the sand to fire him, he needs to do the right thing and quietly retire and become a talk-show host or a politician.
DAVID PORTER, DORAVILLE
Sowell ignores key factors
Thomas Sowell’s arguments (“Legacy of slavery is an evasion of responsibility,” Opinion, May 6) are unhelpful and need to be addressed. I suspect that there was less rioting back when there was more racism not because of an association with welfare, but because the cost of rioting, in terms of incarceration, injury and loss of life, would have been much higher. The legacy of slavery is still being worked out, and what we are seeing now is another stop along the journey toward putting it behind us. The bigger issue in Sowell’s argument is his contention that, true to the time-worn value of American individualism, those in poverty have the same choices in front of them that everyone else does, and they simply need to choose correctly. However, with the rise of brain scanning and an understanding of neuroplasticity, we now know that children raised with trauma, inadequate attachment, drug-addicted parents or by whole communities suffering from anxiety and depression, don’t end up having the same choices as others because their brains are literally not wired the same way. Thanks also to neuroplasticity, their brains can change to support, in Sowell’s words “behavioral standards, personal responsibility and all the other basic things the clever intelligentsia disdain.” But the key is, they won’t be able to make changes without a lot of help, nor can the rest of us.
DARBY CHRISTOPHER, DUNWOODY
No promise of quality of life
The article by Jared Loggins and Avery Jackson is an award-winning piece (“Word to the wise: We are not thugs,” Editorial, May 3). I am just not sure which award it rates: most-ridiculous or most-twisted logic. Americans, millennials or otherwise, have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; nobody is promised any specific “quality of life.” If a person gets angry and assaults another person, they are a criminal. If they get angry and burn down buildings, they are a criminal. If they use civil unrest to loot and steal, they are a criminal. If they do all of these things in the name of objecting to their quality of life, they are not only a criminal, but an inconsiderate, selfish, opportunistic, social misfit, i.e., a thug. And in being such, they both obstruct and dilute the valid conversation this issue requires. President Barack Obama and Baltimore’s Mayor got it right.
STEPHEN B. BOX, DOUGLASVILLE
Denying climate change is moral wrong
Recently, the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, Katharine Jefferts Schori, pronounced climate change denial is a “blind” and immoral position which rejects God’s gift of knowledge. The Church of England has begun its divestment from the fossil fuel industry. Recently, the Vatican Climate Conference declared “Human-induced climate change is a scientific reality, and its decisive mitigation is a moral and religious imperative for humanity.” These events lead me to believe that climate change deniers such as the fossil fuel industry-funded Heartland Institute and numerous writers for The Wall Street Journal, are not only factually wrong, but they are immorally wrong as well. As a first step, a carbon fee and dividend program is needed as soon as possible.
DAVID GREENLAND, SANDY SPRINGS
Fact-check shows political bias
PolitiFact’s tortured parsing of Newt Gingrich’s remarks over the propriety of the Clinton Foundation accepting foreign donations while Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State is disappointing (“Gingrich off base with his comments about Clintons,” Metro, May 5). There has been much scrutiny of expenditures by the Clintons of those funds, and it appears that they are spending far more on themselves than on any stated purpose of the Foundation. Do the analysts of Politifact seriously think that those donations weren’t intended to buy access or curry favor with Secretary Clinton? If so, I find their analysis flawed and politically biased.
PATRICK MULVANY, LAGRANGE
