Editor, Times-Union: Where is the Civil Liberties Union when you really need them?
In the recent election, voters sent to Washington a Senate equally divided. That was the peoples' choice! Now Senator Jeffords, who ran on the Republican ticket, has switched parties and imposed his choice on the voters. In a Third World country that would be seen as a government coup. He has overturned not just the Vermont voters, but changed the entire country's choice. Isn't he legally bound to honor the ticket on which he was elected? If he doesn't want to honor his commitment to the voters, shouldn't he resign from a position where he misrepresented himself to the voters?
There's talk of more of them switching sides in order to control the Senate. It must be a new game they thought up. Isn't it like the old fable ... "a wolf in sheep's clothing?" Regardless of the vote, once elected, are politicians free to switch parties? Doesn't that violate the Constitution whereby the power of the vote is given to the people?
The real issue here is not what party controls Congress, rather the validity of the vote. If elected officials are not bound by our vote, then do we really have a government ... "of the people, by the people, for the people"... or what now seems to be a government of professional politicians?
If we voted them all out of office, would they leave?
Alberta Wamsley Warsaw
Southern Respect
Editor, Times-Union: This is for Amanda Elliott of Mentone who wrote in about the gentleman who got out of his car and put his hand over his heart as they were passing by to bury her great-grandfather.
Amanda, this gentleman is from the South. It is something that the southern people do, some put their hand over their heart, some salute, it's all about respect and honoring the dead. Years ago I took a girlfriend down to southern Indiana for her grandmother's funeral. As we passed people on the streets took off their hats, saluted and placed their hands over their hearts. I'd never seen anything like it. I asked the funeral director about it and he's the one who told me about this custom of the South. It made its way to southern Indiana, maybe someday it'll make it to the northern part. We may have won the war but there are things we can learn from the South.
