Author: The Seattle Times: Northwest Voices

Clubs still symbol of exploitation

I was happy to see the story on the closure of local strip clubs linked to prostitution and racketeering in the Seattle area [“Proposed plea deal may close Colacurcio strip clubs,” page one, April 23].

My question is: Why are we allowing these clubs to open? A new club opened just a month ago in Renton, an area that had remained free of this blight on our landscape. Recently, Seattle gave the OK for a new club to open near Safeco Field. This is an area that many of our children frequent. Is that the message we want to pass on to our children, that sexism is OK?

Throughout history, women have been exploited, held down the social ladder, held as property and killed with no regard. Sexist extremism is more rampant in our history and today than racism ever was.

Between 1400 and 1800, roughly 7 to 11 million women were killed and tortured during the European witch hunts. It is sad that in today’s “enlightened” society, the exploitation of women is allowed to continue in these clubs. How would you feel if your daughter were working in one of these clubs?

— Timothy Finch, Renton

Attention, snow birds

This is a response to “Opposition mounts in reaction to Arizona’s immigration law” [News, April 30].

I am fortunate to be married to a beautiful, dark-skinned lady who is a U.S. citizen of European descent. We love going to Sun City Grand, Ariz., each winter for a month or two.

My question for Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer is this: If my wife runs into a golf cart and the “Gestapo” show up, should she carry her passport or passport card every time she leaves her home? The next thing Arizona would do is give out patches that dark-skinned U.S. citizens would wear when they leave their home. The Star of David unfortunately was used once.

— Tom McArt, Edmonds

Peg employers hiring undocumented immigrants

For all the heated controversy about illegal immigration, the debate should really shift to the real culprit: employers who hire undocumented immigrants.

Congress mandated that all employers must check and verify the Social Security numbers of all new hires. Where is the enforcement? Why would undocumented workers risk crossing our borders if they knew they could not hurdle this employment roadblock?

Corporate America, with free-trade agreements, has successfully shrouded the issue in a fog of deception and through its political power. Yes, we have a nationwide unemployment rate of more than 10 percent and it is easy to get angry and blame all those “illegals” who are taking away a good portion of those fantastic, minimally paid jobs at fast-food joints, picking agriculture, mowing lawns and cleaning hotel rooms.

Higher-paying jobs have fled outside our borders at the great cost of keeping Americans employed manufacturing goods. The cost to hire someone in India, China, etc. is a tenth of the cost to assemble and produce many of the more expensive and technical gadgets we are consumed with these days.

— Timm Stone, Lake Tapps

Caretakers already trying to cope with cuts

I am responding to The Times editorial “Raise license fees on adult-family homes” [Opinion, April 30].

Many Adult-family homes for the disabled, such as the one my 32-year-old son resides in, have had a 4 percent across-the-board cut in Medicaid compensation this year.

On top of that, the state Department of Developmental Disabilities has cleverly changed the assessment formula on the how it compensates for care. Suddenly, the compensation to our caretaker for the same level of care for my son and five other residents was drastically cut. There was no new fee or tax, but a loss of about $2,000 per month in cash flow to our caretaker.

Now The Times is calling for a $900 increase in licensing fees at the same time our adult-family home is projecting a $24,000 cut per year in income. It does not sound like Olympia got outmaneuvered after all.

With that kind of savings, the state could afford to increase its oversight on poorly run adult-family homes. While well-meaning, The Times did not do its homework and unfortunately, our disabled will be the ones who suffer from it.

— Ken Kerr, Normandy Park

Paying oversight costs in assisted-living arrangements drastically different

Thanks for the editorial concerning state oversight costs for assisted living and nursing homes monitored by the state. It is too bad adult-family homes only pay 4 percent of their oversight costs while boarding homes and nursing homes pay nearly 80 percent.

The Times did not mention or investigate what these costs actually are. If it had, we would see that adult-family homes receive significantly less in payments — most patients are usually on Medicare —than these of other types of homes, while still being required to provide similar staffing levels. Perhaps we could investigate a little more to see why these differences exist.

— Rich Zywiak, Spokane

Eliminating low-traffic services a blow we can take

Editor, The Times:

Rather than threatening the usual deep cuts to police, courts and public health [“County sales tax could go up,” page one, April 29, 2010], I have a novel approach to King County’s budget woes.

The proposed increase in the sales tax would generate $47 million to the county and $32 million to the cities for a total of $79 million. Sound Transit and Metro Transit already receive 1.8 percent of the sales tax, which should equate to $711 million in subsidies.

I don’t know about you, but I value the police, courts and public health considerably more than subsidizing a transit system I don’t use. I suggest our fearless leaders get real and increase the fares on the various bus routes to cover the shortage, or get real innovative and thin the ranks of the county work force and maybe even reduce their lavish benefit program.

— Robert Fluke, Woodinville

Tough cuts part of Constantine’s career

This is King County Executive Dow Constantine’s version of water torture — dribble, dribble, dribble until you are choked broke.

He offers false choices: We pay more or he lays off law-enforcement personnel. A made-to-order guilt option. It is blatant political manipulation to always use fire, police and rescue services as the budget victim.

Let’s take a hard look at other cost-cutting choices, such as delaying a renovation or replacement project, eliminating the nice-to-have West Seattle passenger ferry or rescinding a part of the pay increases for county employees.

How about living within your current budget, just like the rest of us have to do?

— Tom Ruszala, Seattle

What happened to Constantine’s no-tax promise?

Although he pledged not to raise taxes in a recession during his campaign, here we have it. Dow Constantine wants to raise the sales tax five months after his election.

When I buy something for $1, I am going to be taxed 9.7 percent. Where do I get the .7 cents? That is impossible, so I am actually going to pay 10 cents.

Sure, it makes a difference if I am buying something for $30,000 —it is going to cost me an extra $90 in taxes. But would I care if I could afford to spend $30,000? Constantine displays a graph showing the “projected” gap between county expenses and revenue for the next 20 years. How ridiculous is that? Need I remind him it was just a few short years ago the state of Washington enjoyed a surplus? What happened to it?

Those in the political fish bowl say increase taxes. That is all they know because they cannot think outside the fish bowl, as long as it does not affect their benefits.

I hate to say it, but, when the elections in November comes, I am voting straight Republican —something I have never done. That is my way of protesting the passage of more taxes on the people in the state of Washington, passed simply by Democrats in a time when millions of working-class folks need anything but that.

It is time for politicians to stick by their agenda and pledge to the voting public and stop taking the easy way out.

— Richard Lambert, Auburn

Fundamentally useful inventions could have prevented accident

“Oil-platform explosion illustrated risks of Gulf of Mexico drilling” [News, April 28] describes a “nightmare scenario” and questions whether a “level of perfection” could be achieved for such deep-water drilling.

Instead, our firm has proposed and patented, the Subterranean Electric Drilling Machine™ that is designed to drill laterally 20 miles. Much longer distances could be achieved so, such oil reservoirs in the Gulf of Mexico could be reached from shore or from shallow rigs. That would prevent such deep-water disasters.

Machines could also drill underground from outside the boundaries of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil reservoirs. But this machine is not being developed primarily because of the opportunity costs associated with firms such as Goldman Sachs spending excessive time and energy on “synthetic collateral debt obligations” and similar nonsense.

Other local firms such as Intellectual Ventures of Bellevue also seek to pioneer inventions that are fundamentally useful. It would be interesting to determine if they have been similarly adversely affected by the ongoing nonsense on Wall Street.

Using funds for real investment purposes would again unleash the inventive genius of this nation that will produce many unforeseen benefits.

— W. Banning Vail, president of Smart Drilling and Completion Inc., Bothell

Read more…

We’re all fish in the sea, so don’t let anyone off the hook

I am distressed “Support signature privacy” [Opinion, April 18]. The issues are not as clear-cut as they were made.

Is intimidation always a bad thing, such as when some rabid hatemonger encourages the death of the president of the United States? Who gets the right to make the dividing line between protecting privacy and revealing bigotry? Who believes the votes of our members of Congress should be kept secret?

Is it fair to hide behind a mask of anonymity when a life of another and/or a principle of fairness is at stake?

I hold privacy in great respect on a personal level. Your religion and mine are no one else’s business; nor is my sex life or how I run my life when I am not invading the rights of others.

I mind my own business. Is the running of our country’s laws and regulations not my business?

In this case, legitimate rights, according to our Constitution, are being denied to some of our citizens by those who wish to remain secretive, who are not courageous enough to hold a personal belief of which they are convinced of its rightness for all our citizens. Obviously, Referendum 71 has not settled the issue for many who wish to challenge the rightness of a hateful vendetta, which is being and has been fought out internationally for many years.

Should sponsors be the only ones not protected by privacy? Why let them off the hook?

— William Houston, Port Townsend

Same hits, different day

Reading “Graffiti Vandals Cost Public Millions” left me thinking: Here is the manifestation of the definition of insanity, doing the same thing over and over while expecting a different result. Why would any taxpayer want his or her money spent on such a “program”?

It has been proved time and again that a reactive stance does not begin to approach solving the problem. A proactive program has been proved over time to be the most cost-effective, long-term solution that would reduce graffiti and improve the quality of life for our citizens.

I am a taxpayer, property owner raising a family in Seattle. I hate seeing waste and mismanagement. I know the intention is there, but the delivery is misguided.

— Laurie Rasmussen, Goodbye Graffiti, Seattle

‘Might is right’ not the way

This is a response to “Veil ban overreaches [Opinion, April 16].

If the French government bans the burqa, it will impinge on the freedom of a group of women to practice their religion as they feel fit.

Each person’s interpretation of religion is different. The understanding of that diversity of thought and conscience established inalienable rights in modern civilization. One of those rights is the right to practice your faith as you feel fit, not as someone else in authority feels fit.

We cannot in this day and age and in a liberal, secular country such as France afford to have “might is right” as the underlying law of the land. The banning of the burqa is taking political might and hedging it against a basic human right.

If the French wish to integrate the burqa-clad women into their society, then alienating them by depriving them of public services will hardly achieve the desired results. You cannot take away peoples basic human rights and expect that they will embrace you after that. You are dealing with women, not robots.

— Manahil Shahnawaz, Pakistan

School lunch reform step in the right direction

Experts accurately assert that childhood obesity puts millions of American kids on a path toward disease and premature death. The latest alarm comes from military leaders who maintain that many young Americans are too obese to serve in the armed forces [“Are schools a national security threat?,” News, April 20].

While more-nutritious school lunches are a step in the right direction, Congress also should regulate the retail industry, which promotes unhealthy eating habits by retail redlining African American and Hispanic neighborhoods. National supermarket chains often avoid locating large stores in black communities, thereby reducing food options and penalizing people for their pigment.

In addition, Congress should address slotting fees that encourage convenience stores to stock shelves with the worst possible foods, such as candy and chips, in return for higher profits for their parent companies.

Like drug dealers, convenience stores push poison into the mouths of too many American kids. Congress must act now.

— Gary L. Flowers, executive director and CEO of Black Leadership Forum Inc., Washington D.C.

Funding has to come from somewhere

Editor, The Times:

This is a response to “Proposed state income tax will stymie job creation” [Opinion, April 25].

Let’s be honest. People who earn $40,000 to $80,000 per year pay a much higher tax rate than people who earn $100,000 or more and up. With a sales-tax rate of virtually 10 percent, lower-income earners pay on virtually their entire pay check because they spend nearly all of their earnings each year.

I know they do not pay taxes on groceries, but that is about the only break they get. Washington state has one of the most regressive tax systems in the country. An income tax on high earners would somewhat even that out.

I disagree that small-business owners would be especially be hurt by this tax and would not have funds to reinvest in their companies. If they reinvest money in their businesses, it is no longer net income and therefore not taxable.

The citizens of our fine state want better schools, roads, etc. But they do not seem to want to fund these things. The money has to come from somewhere. Granted, there are still many things that could and should be cut, but there is a limit to that.

Two things that could be done right now are to eliminate the state printing plant and outlaw studded tires in Western Washington.

Studded tires add millions to cost of upkeep on our roads and they are necessary only a day or two each year. The state printing plant should have been closed years ago; most of the states surrounding Washington figured that out and eliminated them a long time ago.

— John Porter, Kirkland

With higher incomes come social obligation to pay fair share in taxes

Thank you Bill Gates Sr. for proposing a state income tax. The tax situation in this state is both unfair and unjust.

The sales tax is most regressive, requiring poor people to spend a greater percentage of their income than their better-off fellow citizens. Property taxes are way too high and the existence of the B&O tax is outrageous.

A state income tax is the only fair way to go.

My wife and I are retired and live on a pension, Social Security and some investment income.

My neighbor lives in a similar house and we both pay the same amount in property taxes. Three people live there: husband, wife and an adult child. All of them work. On the whole, they have three times the income we do, yet we pay the same taxes. They pay more sales tax than we do, but not by much.

People with higher incomes have a social obligation to pay their fair share in taxes, and that means an income tax.

— Walker Blincoe, Seattle

Thank you, Bill

A gentleman and a scholar, is Bill Gates Sr., as he signs Initiative 1077, which would target the earnings of Washington citizens and roll back property taxes on property owners and small businesses. I wish him much success as he and other proponents gather signatures.

I have introduced the income tax many times, always with the reduction of other taxes. Education and health-care forces could use $1 billion a year to bolster their needs. Thank you, Bill.

— Former Rep. Georgette Valle, Burien

Bill’s bills, bills

Too many people will think this income tax proposal is great —let the rich pay without recognizing the trickle-down effect.

Since Bill Gates Sr. is probably one of the wealthy who would have to pay the tax, it would seem on the surface that this would be a good idea.

Think again. The proof is the federal income tax that was for high earners only when it began 96 years ago with a cap of 7 percent. Does any average American fall into this category today? I think not.

This proposal is not acceptable. Do not vote for it.

— Roberta Tarr, Clinton

Give us your estate

If Bill Gates Sr. wants to give back, he is free to send in a check and donate his estate.

It is seductive to get the masses riled up to vote against the rich to take their money and send it to Ron Sim’s Unionized Army. But if we think 20 years ahead, the tax would be on everybody.

The other thing to consider is that state income taxes rely on submission of federal tax returns to state employees who would naturally study each one of us and ponder how to get a little more. How much about yourself do you want Olympia state employees to know: Your income, your Social Security number, your debt?

— Joe Wall, Seattle

Drilling not so thrilling

This is a response to “Oil-platform explosion illustrates risks of Gulf of Mexico drilling,” News, April 28. In the last month, seven workers were killed by an explosion in an oil refinery in Anacortes, 29 coal miners were killed in an explosion in a coal mine in West Virginia and, on Earth Day, a dozen or so workers died when on oil rig off the Gulf Coast exploded and sank into the ocean.

None of these tragedies would have occurred if our country had switched to safe and clean energy sources. Now, several days after the sinking of the oil rig, people seem surprised to learn that oil is leaking out of the rig into the ocean.

Drilling for oil in the ocean would always pollute the aquatic environment. Tankers carrying oil always run the risk of capsizing and killing enormous amounts of fish, sea mammals, sea flora and seabirds.

President Obama has reopened ecologically fragile areas for oil drilling, threatening extinction of polar bears, whales and other species. The Senate needs to pass the Clean Energy bill before more tragedies occur.

— Janalee Roy, Tacoma

When state plays with profits, citizens lose

An organization called Modernize Washington has filed paperwork for an initiative that seeks to end the state’s monopoly on selling and distributing alcohol and tobacco products [“State’s control of liquor may be challenged,” NWSaturday, April 17].

These products have been proved dangerous to the health of citizens; alcohol-related traffic fatalities continue to mount. Rather than promoting and peddling these dangerous products, the Washington State Liquor Control Board (LCB) should proactively discourage their use.

The 1933 Steele Act (Washington State Liquor Act) authorized the state to create the LCB to regulate the sale and distribution of alcohol during the problematic, post-Prohibition era. What has evolved is a large bureaucratic entity that is apparently more concerned about profit than the health and safety of citizens. State liquor stores number in the hundreds and the LCB website once boasted of generating more than $140 million in profit annually.

The necessity is now obsolete; only 18 states still have LCBs. Regulatory responsibility should be remanded back to legislative committees that would oversee a scaled-down commission, with funds redistributed to the counties for enforcement.

It is not likely that our Legislature, with its proven insatiable desire to raise taxes, would do anything to end its cash cow monopoly.

— Kerry Watkins, Everett

Safety from harassment starts with exposing R-71 signers

In today’s letters section, one writer mentions the “gay agenda.” [“Privacy protects people from harassment and intimidation,” Northwest Voices, April 28.]

I have noticed those who bring up the “gay agenda” are always a little vague on what exactly the “gay agenda” is. I would like to clear that up.

The “gay agenda” is a home, a family, a job and two cars in the garage. It sounds a lot like the American dream, doesn’t it?

The same writer also said, “The central nugget here is safety from harassment.” I could not agree more and we could take a small step toward that ideal by exposing the harassers who signed Referendum 71.

— Howard Hance, Snohomish

Hate mongering

Although he is a Republican, I support state Attorney General Rob McKenna on his stand in the Supreme Court regarding openness of the names on the R-71 Petition protest.

I have yet to hear —in my 82 years —of anyone being harassed because of what he or she signed on a petition.

In my view, the ne’er-do-wells who organized the petition (there were three), all of which had deplorable records concerning their marriages and finances, know they are wrong in further protesting human rights. They are hypocrites of the worst caliber.

Why are there protests regarding human rights for gay couples, in this case, their “marriage”? Does that take anything away from us? Will we have to support many unwanted children or spend dollars we do not have on police, domestic violence offenders and murders? Does it hurt us to let them share property and personal things in a will or otherwise? You know and I know it does not; the name of their game is hate mongering.

— Leonard Larson, Seattle

Managed by managers, glad to see him go

This is a response to “Seattle parks chief to resign May 10” [NWTuesday, April 27].

I am not a fan of Parks Superintendent Tim Gallagher and I am happy to see him go.

While he was away on various park expeditions, he left his team of managers to bungle a restoration site on an unstable slope above a sensitive wetland near my home in the northeast section of Ravenna Park.

My husband and I tried on repeated occasions to reach Gallagher and arrange a meeting with officials to discuss this mutual concern. After being ignored, I learned the best way to get the park managers’ attention: block their enormous dump truck from dropping a load of fill in their ill-fated and negligent attempt to restore an unstable slope.

That worked briefly, until mid-April, when they next gave us short notice to remove a retaining wall at the site — one even the Department of Planning and Development would have red- tagged.

To get their attention again, we had to light up the phone lines at Mayor Mike McGinn’s office to ask their assistance for a stay. Not one person was in the office on that Monday afternoon to take our phone calls.

While Gallagher was in Australia discussing the health of our parks, he failed to see they were already on life support and his staff was all on furlough at home. This is a pathetic failure of leadership and gives me no reassurance we could expect them to prevent a failure of the steep slope next to our home.

— Jennifer Kennard, Seattle

Would not want Meade to pull me over

Editor, The Times:

Does anyone else feel nervous by Troy Meade’s statement, “I’m going back to work”? [“Everett cop acquitted,” page one, April 27.]

I imagined being pulled over by this officer for speeding or some other infraction. Upon seeing the name “Meade” next to his badge, I would immediately be stricken with debilitating fear. It is not that I do not believe or trust the jury that decided he is not guilty of murder or manslaughter; I fully realize that not being there that night, I cannot possibly know what happened.

For all it’s worth, cops sometimes have a thankless job, showing up at God-knows-what situation with God-knows-what kind of people and being expected to resolve any situation. But there was another officer there that night. He questioned the use of such force and wondered what had happened, “that he missed” to bring the situation to require such an “extreme level of force.” Meade’s tactics were rightfully questioned during the trial —about why he could not take two simple steps back to safety from the car that might or might not have hit him.

Meade does not have the judgment required to be an effective police officer, to remain in service on the streets. He may have resolved the situation that night, but it was only clearly with use of such force —the most force possible —while other options were still available. If he was in such fear for his life that he fired no fewer than seven bullets at the subject’s head, then if he is not guilty of manslaughter or murder; he is guilty of very poor judgment and emotional instability in a crisis situation.

If he is to remain an officer, Meade should be placed behind a desk in perpetuity.

— Paul Synowiec, Seattle

‘Bad cops deserve the same justice as bad civilians’

I am absolutely sickened by Troy Meade’s acquittal; those jury members have a lifetime of burden on their shoulders.

Drinking and driving is a serious issue and surely Niles Merservey did not respond or act properly. He was drunk. That being said, is that cause to pump him full of bullets?

Merservey’s car was boxed between a fence, a retaining wall and a police car when Meade used his Taser. Acquitting this man was a horrible verdict. Could you imagine getting pulled over by this man?

I would not stop for him. He is a hothead with inadequate resolve for such a position. In an area that has seen police officers getting ambushed and killed by lunatics, verdicts such as these unfortunately fuel the fire. Bad cops deserve the same justice as bad civilians. Some people I guess are above the law, which is crying shame. If I were Officer Steven Klocker, the honest cop, I would find an honest police force somewhere outside of lovely Everett.

— David Gates, Issaquah

Remember the soapboxes?

I disagree with the argument for making petition signatures secret in “Support signature privacy” [Bruce Ramsey column, Opinion, April 28]. Far more citizens would be affected by any referendum than sign it. The people affected deserve better than the equivalent of a stink bomb being lobbed into a public square from an undisclosed location, which is what appears to be happening more frequently.

Anonymity destroys public discourse, by definition. Look no further than the comments posted anonymously —or virtually so —on Seattle Times stories or columns. When people stood on soapboxes, there was a real person literally standing up for his or her point of view, not hiding behind an invisible cloak with an electronically disguised voice.

Laws have real impacts on real people. When changes to them are proposed, we deserve no less than a public discussion of them, starting with who wants them and why.

A common-sense definition of privacy is that you have a right to do what you want so long as it does not bother anyone else. Proposing to change laws that would affect other people is a public act, not a private one. It is as simple as that.

— Christian Saether, Seattle

Privacy protects people from harassment and intimidation

On one hand, state Attorney General Rob McKenna presents a compelling case for openness in government and points out that there is no current law protecting the petition signers’ identities. But as I see it, the current debate is not really about transparency in government — that is a side issue. The central nugget here is safety from harassment. That is why there was enough energy to get the U.S. Supreme Court to consider it.

The Bopp legal team, on behalf of Protect Marriage Washington, makes a compelling case for keeping petition signers signatures confidential. As we see in the current controversy, activists for gays and lesbians seek to advance their political agenda by the threat of harassment and intimidation.

If the Supreme Court decides that name and address information cannot be protected, the unfortunate response would be a public reluctance to sign any petition. My concern is that in the future, worthy issues, such as voter-approved R-71, might never come before the voters for consideration.

I believe petition signatures ought to fall under the same protection as voter ballot data and be sealed. The Legislature can and should exempt petition and initiative signatures from the public record.

— Paul Heins, Redmond

Steve Largent: No reason to reverse existing regulatory model

The op-ed on April 28 [“Reclassify broadband to keep the Internet a democratic medium,” Opinion] completely ignored the facts of today’s wireless industry.

Quite simply, there are no reasons why the Federal Communications Commission should consider reversing the light regulatory model started by the Clinton administration and continued by President Obama. The classification of broadband as an “information service” and not in the same category as the plain monopolistic telephone industry was a good and sensible policy.

I have repeatedly asked: What is the problem that we need to address with potentially dangerous regulation? This light touch has been —and continues to be —a tremendous success. It has resulted in the United States leading the world in wireless technology. Americans are using their devices more and paying less than almost anyone else.

• We have more third-generation (3G) subscribers than any other nation.
• All of the state-of-the-art handsets are launched first in the United States.
• Consumers could choose from almost 250,000 apps, up from fewer than a 100 a few years ago.

The U.S. wireless industry has invested more money last year in its networks than Germany, France the United Kingdom, Italy and Spain combined.

As Former President Bill Clinton’s FCC Chairman William Kennard said in a 2006 op-ed, “Policymakers should rise above the Net-neutrality debate and focus on what America truly requires from the Internet: getting affordable broadband access to those who need it.” CTIA and the wireless industry could not agree more.

— Steve Largent, president and CEO, CTIA-The Wireless Association, Washington, D.C.

Time to cut expenses and listen to parks visitors

With the resignation of parks supervisor Tim Gallagher [“Seattle parks chief to resign May 10,” NWTuesday, April 27], I hope we get a new chief who would take the parks department’s shaky budget into account and do his or her best to reign in these extravagant and often unnecessary expenses.

In defending the vast amounts of money spent on his trips, Gallagher said “learning from other cities is key to keeping a parks department vital and relevant.” I disagree; learning from the people who pay for all this and the people who care about the parks is more important — and it is hard to learn if you will not listen.

— Nancy Pennington, co-founder of Friends of Woodland Park Zoo Elephants, Seattle

Don’t take the road less taken; apply for citizenship

This is a response to “Arizona’s unhelpful law invites racial profiling” [Opinion, April 27].

It is my belief that if you were born here or followed due process to enter this country, then you are entitled to certain rights as a citizen with appropriate documentation.

All Arizona officials are is saying is “no”NO to being responsible for people entering illegally. That “no”NO includes having to provide benefits, medical and otherwise, to people who did not follow the law. Nothing more.

I spent 12 years of my life defending this country’s rights — . Ffreedom of speech, the right to bear arms and, the right to vote. It galls me as a veteran to see that what I worked hard for just given away to people who can not follow a simple law.

If you really REALLY want to be here, go through the same process anyone else from another country has to go through. Paying someone $$$$$ just to cross a border to have your baby or to find a way to put moneydollars into the family’s pocket (regardless of what country….I dont care if it is Iran, to be honest) is not the way to do things.

To the With so many people whothat are citizens here and that are out of work, grow up and grab those jobs that are being given to the illegal immigrants. You have the ability to work your way up — just do it…..JUST DO IT.

For the illegal immigrants: Y, you entered our country without the proper documentation. Do not expect me to subsidize your life with my tax dollars. I promise you, I will not be voting for ANY incumbents.

— Barb Hoerr, Everett

Racial profiling begone, check everyone’s citizenship

Since Tthe Seattle Times claimsto be so fearful of “racial profiling” in Arizona, I propose a simple solution to racial profiling in Arizona. Have any and all government officials dealing with the public — (from the police to educators the educational system and everyone , and all in between — ) ascertain the citizenship of every member of the public they have official dealings with. Check 100 percent % of people the police have dealings with and the r. Racial profiling problem will be gone.

— Philip Peterson, Puyallup

Feeding ‘big government’ to grow border protection

You canno’t have it both ways. First, I read that “big government” is bad for this country. Then I read that a key rationale for the new Arizona iImmigration lLaw is “because the federal government failed to do its part in protecting our borders.”

How “big” would the federal government need to be in order to continually patrol almost 2,000 miles of border between the United States and Mexico? Very, very big.

— Toni Parson, Woodinville