RE: Those damned election signs (Oct. 20, 2010)

I couldn’t agree more that those dreaded election signs are nothing if not impolite and ugly to the passers-by, but I have to wonder why they don’t convey a sense of warmth and invitation; possibly, it’s because they have a purpose. Weeds are useless, but I do not think election signs can be placed in the same category. I might not like the signs; I might think they’re ugly as they attempt to scream their slogans at me, but maybe I need to be screamed at. Maybe what the signs are meant to do is get to me, make me turn around and look because the name sitting there is one willing to make a change in a world that desperately needs it. I don’t think we’re meant to be comforted. The names on those “damned elections signs” are not asking to make a change; they’re declaring that they will, but only if we act and vote.

*Sincerely,
Laura Veroba

Re: If you don’t vote, don’t complain (Oct. 27, 2010*)

I must express my limited agreement with your article forbidding those who choose not to vote from communicating their displeasure. Perhaps the great George Carlin said it best:

“I believe if you vote, you have no right to complain. People like to twist that around, they say ‘If you don’t vote, you have no right to complain,’ but where’s the logic in that? If you vote, and you elect dishonest, incompetent people, and they get into office and screw everything up, you are responsible for what they have done. You caused the problem. You voted them in. You have no right to complain. I, on the other hand, who did not vote — who, in fact, did not even leave the house on Election Day — am in no way responsible for what these people have done and have every right to complain as loud as I want about the mess that you created that I had nothing to do with.”

With this note in mind, I shall admit I still partook in this year festivities by submitting a ballot for my candidate of choice.

*Sincerely,
Chad Kipling

RE: Pro-life demo gives religion a bad name, says minister (Oct. 27, 2010)*

While I was happy and grateful to see an article that used relevant quotes from a pro-life point of view, I was disappointed at the comments made by Minister Yates. To say that the 40 Days For Life campaign is inaccurate because it is one-sided is absurd. The whole point of any demonstration or protest is to promote one side of an issue — be it pro-life, pro-choice, against war, against fogging, or for gay men to be allowed to donate blood (as we have seen at University Center by signs outside the most recent donor clinic).

The inaccuracy is actually in framing the debate around a women doing what she wants with her own body. That is not what is at issue — I do not know any pro-life person who disagrees with that. What is at issue is whether or not a woman can do what she wants with the body of another person. The body that is being aborted has to be human according to the law of biogenesis. It has a DNA code distinct from the mother, and that DNA code includes sex: male or female, thus man or woman. Abortion thus forces a choice onto another woman (or man), and what is worse yet, that choice is death — unless you happen to survive the abortion procedure, as Gianna Jessen, who spoke recently in Winnipeg, did when her mother went in for an abortion at seven and a half months pregnant. She can rightfully say that another person’s choice thankfully did not kill her, but that is not the case for thousands upon thousands of others every year. Unfortunately for the pro-choice side, saying women have the right to harm other persons’ bodies does not have the same ring to it.

Cody Gabrielson
Faculty of arts student, major in philosophy, minor in Catholic studies