September 2002
Letters to the Editor

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Reject Irresponsible Democrats

The veto from Acting Governor Jane Swift on the budget was the last best hope to stop the destructive tax increase passed by the state legislature.

Unfortunately, the legislature has since decided that they know what is best for us and overrode Swift's veto. This flies in the face of opinion polls and a referendum passed which required the legislature to rescind the 'temporary' tax increases of years past. Clearly, the legislature is out of touch with the mainstream.

The Democrat led legislature's decision to pass the largest tax increase in state history caps a 76% increase in the state budget over the last 10 years. At a time when we are under stressful economic times, this increase in taxes will not bode well for the average taxpayer who will now pay an additional $600 in taxes.

It is time for the people of Massachusetts to reject the fiscally irresponsible Democrats and elect Independents and Republicans in order to balance the ideals of liberalism with the fiscal realities the state faces today and into the future.

—Bill Dutton
Pembroke

Questions 'Voice of the Faithful'

Although practicing Roman Catholics should unanimously applaud the goal of supporting the victims of sexual abuse as well as "priests of integrity," the Voice of the Faithful's third announced goal of shaping "structural changes" in the Church raises multiple red flags.

With the VOTF leader stating that the group has failed to take a stand on controversial issues, the invitation of Debra Haffner, a Director of Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan Washington, as a speaker on 7/20/02 in Boston should be enough for any committed Roman Catholic to see where VOTF seeks to lead "the faithful." A copy of Ms Haffner's "safe sex" projects, if listed here, would be classified as pornographic.

In the last few decades, a sub-culture of predatory homosexual priests permanently affected the lives of scores of adolescents and children by abusing them sexually. And the Boston Archdiocese egregiously mishandled the situation. These are two horrendous tragedies, but to now attempt to undermine and destroy the Church's fundamental teaching on sexuality and the God-given right to life by VOTF is unconscionable, as well.

As a layman faithful to the Church's teaching on the sanctity of all human life, I take this action by VOTF to be an insult and clear evidence of some of an agenda which they steadfastly have refused to acknowledge.

— R.T. Neary
Medfield

Editor's Comment: As we watch the Boston Globe pushing this group with all its might, we realize that the Catholic Church must be very vigilant because they have a lot of power coming against them.

Abortion Laws Control Heartless

When it comes to abortion I often hear, "You can't legislate morality." "Stopping abortion will not happen through changing laws but from changing hearts." This is simply the position of someone who knows that abortion is evil but lacks the courage to take a stand, has a financial or political interest in abortion, or is trying to appease both sides.

The reality is; no one disagrees that the answer to all of humanity's problems lies in changing hearts. But, practically speaking, what would our crime rate look like if we just waited around for that to happen? Should we erase all our laws from the books? Maybe the criminals will change their hearts.

Martin Luther King once pointed out that laws are not intended to change hearts but to control the heartless. He was right. And in modern society, no one is more heartless than the gang of moral degenerates who work at abortion clinics. Until laws prohibiting abortion are restored, abortionists will be free to kill helpless unborn children, while maiming, raping, and killing many of their moms. Maybe some people think this is acceptable, but I don't. Women and children deserve better.

If abortion is not wrong then why do we need this change of heart? And if it is wrong, why do we allow the heartless to do it? I say, let the law lead and maybe the heartless will follow.

— Thomas Messe, M.D.
Groton, CT

Encourage the Legislators Who Stood Up for Your Rights

I was delighted to see so many supporters of the Protection of Marriage Amendment turn out at the State House on July 17 to express support for this important amendment, which is designed to restore some semblance of sanity to this liberal-leaning state. Unfortunately, the homosexual lobby was successful in getting most Senators and Representatives to ignore the will of more than 130,000 people who signed the petition. Rather than get discouraged, I contacted Senator Walsh and voiced my displeasure with her vote for adjournment. I wrote to all of the representatives and senators who voted against adjournment, congratulating them for standing up for the people. I urge all residents who signed the petition to do the same. If we permit the well-funded, vocal homosexual lobby to get complete control of this state, there will be no recourse but to start packing our bags and heading for greener pastures.

— Jan Stevenson
Norwood

Will Those Responsible Pay For Thrashing Marriage Amendment?

I'd like to say a few things about the broader implications of Senator Birmingham's recent fast-gaveling of the Protection of Marriage Amendment.

Yes, it was an outrage, for a number of reasons. Everybody knows that, especially the readers of MassNews. To repeat that assertion here is to preach to the choir.

But now, I have a simple question. Will the likes of Senators Birmingham, Jacques, et al, be made to answer for this outrage the next time they stand for election?

I already know the answer. The answer is no. I am serenely confident that even though an easy majority of voters supported the Defense of Marriage Act, not one legislator who opposed it will be voted out of office as a consequence. They will have gotten away with their perfidies cost-free. But how can such a thing be?

I think it was John Adams who said that our government was designed for a wise, tolerant, and religious people, and is wholly unsuited for the governance of any other kind. In other words, it only works to the extent that we are virtuous enough to make it work properly.

As old Ben Franklin was exiting Convention Hall in Philadelphia in 1787 after the Constitution had been ratified, someone asked him, "What kind of government do we have?" And old Ben replied, "A Republic, if you can hold it!"

In other words, old Ben was not certain whether this Republic was capable of lasting. Presumably, his uncertainty was at least in part for reasons which he shared with John Adams, an uncertainty that the citizenry had sufficient moral caliber to make it work for a long time. He thought that we could lose it, if we weren't careful or sufficiently vigilant.

Ask yourselves this question: are we a people who are "wise, tolerant, and religious"? I am of the opinion that the answer is a resounding no. But if no, then it follows that our government is no longer suited for us. So the next question becomes, can it endure much longer?

I want to tell everybody when I knew we were in deep trouble. It was in 1976 when Jimmy Carter was running for President and promised us that he would give us "a government that was as fine and decent as are the American People themselves." When I heard that, I said to myself, "Now I know we are in trouble!"

We are taught that our rights are inalienable, that they come either from Nature or from Nature's God, depending upon one's preference. They cannot by definition be taken away for transient and light cause. The novel innovation of the new United States was our declaration that, unlike all the other countries of the world where despots had the right to tell us what rights we had, where citizens had only those rights which a despot felt moved to grant for his own particular whimsical reasons, in the United States, the government itself did not bestow rights; rather, its purpose was merely to guarantee that we could exercise those rights which Nature or Nature's God, and not the government, had already bestowed upon us, simply by virtue of the fact that we are human beings, formed in the Image and Likeness of God.

I always believed this until recently. Now, my opinion has modified somewhat. I still believe that rights ultimately come either from Nature or from Nature's God - but I no longer believe that they are inalienable. I believe, rather, that our rights are bestowed upon us (by Nature or Nature's God) conditionally. That is to say, we continue to have them only as long as we deserve to have them. In a sense, we have rights on license from the Creator. And just as my "right" to have an automobile license is conditional, and can be removed for cause. So, too, can the Creator remove our rights for Cause. If that time hasn't already come, it will shortly.

To me, the fact that our elected leaders not only fail to pass a legislative act which is steeped in morality, but moreover do it in a parliamentary obscene way, and will not pay any penalty for it, only tells me that time's up. The Great Democratic Experiment is over.

Of course, this isn't the only reason why I think this. Patrick Buchanan has recently published a book called The Death of the West which ought to open any reader's eyes as to how far the rot has really gone. For many reasons, but all boiling down to the themes already discussed here, this current governmental system (and its citizenry too, make no mistake) have simply become so morally flabby that we/it can no longer sustain a democratic system of government, because such a system depends upon having a citizenry which is made of sterner stuff than what we have.

It needs to be and will be replaced by some kind of drastic authoritarian police state. If we're lucky, it will be a police state molded along basic values which are held by the last real bastion of morality in the country, the military, where basic values such as honesty, honor, duty, sacrifice are demanded.

We already have vast powers of surveillance of private individuals. We make the old communists of the USSR look like hopeless, incompetent barbarians; we have such advanced abilities to learn everything worthwhile to know about private individuals. Old Joe Stalin or Heinrich Himmler would have been thrilled to have had their hands on such techniques and technologies that we have. The structures of the Coming Police State are already in place. All that we need now is some kind of threshold event to make it happen. And all we need to help midwife this day into being is more of what we've been doing for far too long.

Go ahead. Prove me wrong. Vote out the rascals. But you won't do it.

— James A. Nollet Billerica

Editor's Comment: Jim Nollet is too feisty to give up this easily. If you don't believe so, see the story about him on page 9 of MassNews for December 2001 where he received $5,000 from the City of Lawrence for illegally arresting him under a Restraining Order.
He obviously wrote the above letter before hearing the plans of Mass. Citizens for Marriage and the lawsuit against Tom Birmingham. They say there will be another vote a little later in the year.

Drugging Children for Profit

Massachusetts may lose leading state pharmacies due to proposed Medicaid cuts. Why? Because you are listening to mental health lobbyists, including the 'family' groups that the pharmaceutical companies fund, as opposed to really investigating the facts.

1. DSS (Massachusetts Department of Social Services) treats all their foster and residential children as mentally ill 100%. Many of these children are being drugged mindlessly on several dangerous psychiatric drugs at a time. This is an outrageous fraud by the state and federal governments and unfathomable abuse of children. Officials allow this disgusting robbery of approximately $200 million per year to continue at the children's expense. Sometimes I honestly wonder how state officials can sleep at night or be so oblivious to what is really going on!

2. DMH (Dept.of Mental Health) This is pretty much the same situation as with DSS.

3. DYS(Dept. of Youth Services) ditto.

4. DOE (Dept. of Education) 17% of Massachusetts children are in special education and most of them with mental illness diagnoses wherein they are usually drugged? Can you cut this please?

Raising taxes was simply nonsense when we could have cut into the oppressive businesses of drugging our children for profit.

— Kevin Hall, New England Director,
Citizens Commission on Human Rights
Boston

Lexington Resident Snubbed By Minuteman

(On August 12th, the reader submitted this letter for publication in the Lexington Minuteman which refused to publish it.)

This letter is in response to letters written July 18th and July 25th [in the Lexington Minuteman]. While I knew I would get a response to my letter, I was surprised at the vicious responses. My letter was not written to offend Jewish people in our community. That was not my intent. There are many Jewish people in our community that I respect, associate with, and am friends with. Whether you call it anti-Semitism or discrimination, I feel that they are both wrongs.

People opposing the Crèche don't understand why the Crèche should be on the Battle Green. The Free Speech and Free Exercise Clauses of the First Amendment states, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech." It is our Constitutional right. Regulations denying us that right are not content neutral. While they appear to be neutral in word, they are not in meaning. The only display banned from the Green was the Crèche.

When I went to Rep. Kaufman's (D-Lexington) Open House, I was not sure what I was going to hear. Mr. Andrew Tarsey from the Anti-Defamation League talked about what Christians called Jews. That infuriated me. I asked him why the majority (not all) of the people against the Crèche were Jewish. Mr. Kaufman and his aide treated me very badly. I was humiliated and ignored because I dared to ask such a question. If I were permitted to submit a list of names, I would. The paper policy prohibits me from doing so. I guess for some, when they are wrong, they are right.

Separation of Church and State only applies to Christians in our community. I have had three sons serve as altar servers at church, of whom I am very proud, and they received community service credit. As I have written in the past, it's nothing but an excuse. At the same time the school changed the community service requirement, they promoted (walking students from school to) the homosexual exhibit at the First Parish Unitarian Church. They couldn't bus the students because of an injunction filed by 5 Lexington residents. This is a double standard or discrimination against Christians.

How many letters have been published in this paper, about Christians over the past couple of years?

I will not be silenced my hecklers.

— Lorraine Fournier
Lexington