Push candidates to invest in kids

Push candidates to invest in kids

We seem to have money for everything these days — bank bailouts, congressional investigations. Just not our kids.

We slash food stamps and cut early education, and our elected officials just whistle past the graveyard.

New polling shows Virginians think these priorities are all wrong, and expect our leaders to invest in our kids. We should make those running for office in Virginia this year tell us where they stand on these issues.

JOHN HOREJSI
VIENNA

We have rights because we fight for them

Re: “Our God-given freedoms,” July 10 commentary, by William C. Fizer:

Fizer emphasizes that America’s freedoms are God-given. This is the arrogance of Christianity.

It should not come as a surprise that many historical documents and laws were based on Judeo-Christain principles. When the Magna Carta, Mayflower Compact and Declaration of Independence were written, that was all people had to base them on.

If the nation’s founders had been aware of King Hammurabi’s code of law, maybe the original Bill of Rights would not have been written only for white male landowners, and excluded females and African-American slaves. If the rights were God-given, wouldn’t everyone have these rights?

Thomas Jefferson was a Deist who constructed his own Bible based on morals. America’s history can be chronicled with Judeo-Christian images of Moses and the Ten Commandments, but be sure to include the Christian-driven Salem witch trials in that history.

Freedom is not and never will be a gift from the creator. It is based on the collective whole of American citizens and our government. The security of America’s freedom requires sacrifices of American military men and women, not an archaic belief system from the Dark Ages.

ROB DAVIS
DUBLIN

Beware of secret trade negotiations

There is a new trade agreement being drawn up that is not on most people’s radar. The Trans-Pacific Partnership did not escape the notice of Rep. Alan Grayson, D-Fla., and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., though, and is of great concern to them.

The TPP is being negotiated by President Obama’s trade representative. The Obama administration wants to reinstate fast-track authority to negotiate and enter into trade agreements, a process that would allow Congress only to accept or reject them, with no authority to make changes.

The TPP has been controversial, and both Grayson and Warren are dismayed at some parts of the bill. It’s nicknamed “NAFTA on steroids,” and is considered classified. Grayson, who has read it, cannot tell what’s in it.

The one big item, and this should be a wake-up call, Grayson says: “This agreement hands over the sovereignty of our country to corporate interests.”

It would allow them to challenge the government in international courts for, say, losses due to any project that cannot be fulfilled, say, by environmental pushback. These can be fracking, uranium, most anything. Check TPP trade agreement on your search engine. We all lose with that one.

STEPHEN SIVONDA
COVINGTON

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