Producers of violent video games should be sanctioned Re: “Scalia wrong, Thomas right on violent video games,” & ” ‘Mortal Kombat’ and the First Amendment,” June 30
In response to the two op-eds by Cal Thomas and Ken Klukowski criticizing the U.S. Supreme Court’s approval of selling flagrantly violent video games to minor children, I must ask why anything not OK for children is OK for adults. Is there no absolute standard of universal morality that applies to us all, regardless of age?
Parents and other adults in positions of authority have a special obligation to set the best moral example to minor children. Rarely do children listen to what their elders say, but they watch closely and follow what they do. If it takes a village to raise morally responsible, model-citizen children to adulthood, then we should not even be permitting the manufacture of such violent video games in the first place.
It is the adults with the warped and crooked minds that produce such entertainment perversities who should be the primary objects of strong public sanction and disapprobation.
Lawrence K. Marsh
Gaithersburg
Voter IDs are necessary to protect democracy
Re: “Senators concerned by photo ID requirement to vote,” June 29
Pete Yost raises a question on a point that makes or breaks democracies. It is appalling that members of the U.S. Senate would insist that photo IDs not be required for voting.
With 11 million-plus illegal aliens in the country, not to ask for identification and proof of U.S. nationality to elect candidates to high government office is a dereliction of duty, a travesty of justice and a threat to national security.
The states have the responsibility to deliver such IDs, and voters the obligation to acquire them. The rest of the world unconditionally requires voters to produce government-issued IDs. Why not the United States? Or maybe the right question to ask is whether the Democrats would benefit from the vote of undocumented people?
Michael Gloukhov
Fairfax
Only competition will improve Postal Service
Re: “Postal Service needs comprehensive reforms,” June 27
Rep. Darrell Issa is right to be concerned about the fate of the post office, but his response is far too typical of politicians across the country. He advocates for more bureaucracy and more government micromanagement, as if the problems inherent in government-run monopolies are not enough government.
Mail service will not be improved by a “controlling authority empowered to make all financial decisions.” Rather, mail service will be improved by competition, the market forces that provide all other goods and services in a free society.
The Constitution might allow Congress to set up a post office, but nowhere does it grant it an exclusive monopoly on first-class mail. Only by ending the Postal Service monopoly will Issa get the “accountability to consumers” he wants.
David Bier
Arlington
