In response to your call for “compassionate limits” with regard to immigration (the second item in the May 5 editorial, “Unfinished Business”): no matter how high the limits, how long the fences, how fierce the sharks or fast the coyotes, no matter how endless the desert, workers will supply the demand for cheap, unfair wages without benefits. Where there is no demand, there will be no supply. Whether they are called illegals, aliens, felons, or freedom fighters, people in need of feeding their families will make the attempt to go where their labor is demanded.
In order to stop the flow of undocumented workers in the US, we must curb the demand for illegal workers. Then, the fences, border patrols, “minute men,” and restrictive laws would all be unnecessary. Steep fines and electronic verification systems might discourage employers from shirking their responsibilities and encourage them to pay both citizens and residents living wages and benefits.
Bill Spirito
Wollaston
Trifecta!
Readers of the first item in your May 5 editorial, detailing Senator Kennedy’s tawdry involvement in a backroom deal to kill Cape Wind, would be well served knowing about the senator’s calls for much-needed legislative reform after years of Republican abuses. And that Mr. Kennedy supports a provision that would change the rules for this project after four years and counting of public-interest review, despite saying during the filibuster debate last year that “every child knows that you don’t change the rules in the middle of the game.” And that he has fought tooth and nail from day one against this country’s most important renewable-energy project, despite being a self-proclaimed supporter of renewable energy.
The good senator’s stunning trifecta in rank hypocrisy shows he will do anything to protect his precious view from windmills miles off the coast, including leaving ordinary Americans ever more tied to ever more expensive foreign oil.
Erik Gehring
Roslindale
The business of politics
I am LDS [a Latter-day Saint], and all my doctors are Jewish. I selected them based on their medical merits, not on their religious beliefs (see “Mitt Can’t Pull a JFK,” May 12). Likewise, I think a majority of voters are going to vote for Mitt if he gets the GOP nomination: they will think more about the economy, health care, and national security at the voting booth than about whether they agree with LDS doctrine.
Imagine having a president who looks at public-policy issues with the brains, creativity, and determination of a successful CEO! How refreshing would that be? I remember reading that the IRS has a 20 percent error rate. Private-sector credit-card companies have a one percent error rate. If they had a 20 percent error rate, they wouldn’t be in business. We need more private-sector expertise in the public sector!
As for all the religious issues you raise in your recent article, I want you to know that I feel my religion has made me a better student, professional, wife, mother, neighbor, and citizen. I invite you to attend church in the LDS Belmont Chapel with Mitt and his family.
Rosemarie Briggs
North Potomac, MD
Corrections:
“Mitt Can’t Pull a JFK” (May 12) incorrectly stated that Joseph Smith, Mormonism’s founder, explained the Mormon ban on ordaining black men as God’s will. While revelation reported by Smith was later used to justify the ban, Smith’s own position on the issue was ambiguous.
