Letters to the Editor: No compelling reason for death penalty
Why don’t do more for homeless people?
The story about the homelessness in Delaware saddens me. The article confirms the magnitude of the issue but offers no resolution. People Minimum Wage will not remove these families off the street; people can’t pay rent, pay utilities, buy a bus card or gas for a car to get back and forth to a job, buy food and in some cases pay day care, car insurance and life insurance. If you are able to obtain a job and collect food stamps, they will stop them.
We Americans want to get the homeless off the street but at what cost or sacrifice? We talk about the working poor, we talk about the jobless , and homeless, we put false hope in our young people got to college, they go and graduate and can’t find employment, yet the loans come due six months after graduation.
No experience is what they are told, if they are told anything. Yet we can pay athletes millions, bail out banks, bail out Wall Street who bet against Americans with bad mortgage loans.
Mabel Cole
Middletown
Delaware backs constitutional convention
On March 25, the Delaware Senate made history by passing Senate Concurrent Resolution 6. SCR 6 calls for an Article V Convention of the states to consider amending the US Constitution to reverse Citizens United and other Supreme Court decisions that allow special-interest money to corrupt our electoral process.
Special thanks go to Sen. Bryan Townsend, the resolution's primary sponsor, for taking a bold position and acting responsibly – as the authors of our Constitution intended – to help restore democracy to our citizens when the legalized corruption of our electoral process renders the U.S. Congress incapable of doing so.
As the mother of two millennial adult children who have never known anything other than the dysfunctional federal government of the past two decades, I am profoundly indebted to Sen. Townsend and the ten other Senators who passed SCR 6. They have given me hope
Judith Butler
Wilmington
Don’t turn Delaware into Mississippi
We should think hard before turning prosperous Delaware into a “right to work” state. Most of the poorest states are right to work states. Most of the richest states are not.
Delaware is ranked with the highest income states. Delaware has a lower poverty rate than most states. Gallup just ranked Delaware among the top 10 states for job creation. Our unemployment rate is below 5 percent.
States like Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana – states at the very bottom, with the lowest incomes, the highest poverty – are all right to work states.
We have a great location, a great workforce, and one of the best overall standards of living. Let’s not join the race to the bottom chasing lower wage jobs.
Bill Holt
Bellevue
No compelling reason for death penalty
State legislators have had the opportunity to hear witnesses – victims’ families, clergy, civil rights advocates, representatives of our legal system – present the myriad reasons and the data that support the case for abolishing state-sponsored executions (the death penalty).
In rebuttal, the law-enforcement community – chief critics of the bill to repeal the death penalty in Delaware except for those currently on death row – has presented no compelling reasons to keep it on the books and has only been able to say it doesn’t believe the data or that somehow these don’t apply to our state. I witnessed these hearings back in 2013 and again last month in Legislative Hall and have come to the conclusion, as much as I respect law-enforcement officers for what they do and how they daily put their lives on the line, that they are simply interested in retribution for killing one of their own. Retribution is not justice, in my view, and all lives are of equal worth.
I want my state’s legislators to bravely do what is right for all Delawareans, not just for a special-interest group, by supporting SB40. It is farcical to live in a so-called civilized society where homicide is against the law, yet the state can execute someone for committing such an act – not only that but in such a racially biased way and at greater cost (ultimately) to taxpayers. We need true leadership from our elected representatives. It is not enough to hide from the facts. Please stop the killing!
Mark Deshon
Newark
Cartoon offensive to police officers
As a retired police officer who spent 21 years protecting the citizens of New Castle County, I am more than a little offended by a recent cartoon editorial page. There are literally tens and tens and tens of thousands of law enforcement officers who put their lives on the line every day. To lump us all together because of the actions of a minute few is beyond offensive. Using your rationale, all teachers and youth coaches are rapists and pedophiles. All politicians are crooks and all athletes abuse drugs and their partners. What a sorry excuse for a newspaper
Bob Kwiatkowski
Middletown