Winston-Salem Journal LTE's TU 12/27/11

Violated for life

From 1929 to 1974, the state forced approximately 7,600 citizens to undergo sterilization. Roughly 40 percent were non-white (a far larger percentage than the non-white share of the population) and about 85 percent were women, according to The New York Times. North Carolina was, apparently, one of 32 states with such programs and, while these efforts may have been originally well intentioned forays into social engineering, the program was wrong in 1929 when it began, wrong in 1974 when it was ended and is wrong today.

By any 20th-century moral standard, forced sterilization is a violation of a citizen's human rights, and by any democratic standard should be considered a violation of a citizen's civil rights. Also, since sterilization is not reversible, the victims' rights have been violated for life.

While the state has officially apologized, to date these victims have not received compensation. Gov. Bev Perdue, commendably, has appointed a task force that will recommend fair compensation in the coming months. We should all support the work of the group and encourage our government to very substantially and fairly compensate all living victims of this misguided program. It is the least we can do, despite our state's ongoing budget problems.

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KENNETH R. OSTBERG

Winston-Salem

Changing the ordinance

The Winston-Salem City Council had no right on Dec. 19 to suddenly try to change the current city ordinance governing free speech and public assembly on the City Hall grounds without notifying the public and allowing public input. This was a blatant attempt to shut down an Occupy Winston-Salem meeting.

Occupy Winston-Salem was totally within the law and current ordinances to hold a public meeting on City Hall grounds and was not impeding traffic, blocking sidewalks, littering or causing trouble to anyone. Whatever one's views, one should be allowed to express them without fear or intimidation.

This city is not just "too buttoned-down for protests" as suggested by columnist Scott Sexton ("Change eyed in assembly rule," Dec. 20): I suggest that it's held captive by the 1 percent. In my opinion, if the bank across the street from City Hall had held a meeting on the City Hall grounds, the city council would have canceled its meeting and rushed out to embrace them all, with cameras whirring.

I am saddened and alarmed by the character beginning to be shown by this city.

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DIANNE P. HOBBS

Winston-Salem

On the other hand

What if President Obama has done everything right?

His vilified health-care-reform law, which historically navigated every Republican bottleneck, actually terminated refusal of coverage for pre-existent conditions. Do repeal-minded Republicans really want to regress to that? Dear Republicans did not recoil from government-mandated car insurance, although that promoted the general welfare, or socialism.

Obama's Wall Street overhaul actually stopped evils that expedited the recession. His two-state Israel/Palestinian proposal actually would alleviate that tragic impasse. His jobs bill would have created myriad jobs as a consequence of massive road, bridge and school repair. His Libyan policy protected a large percentage of civilians.

He is bringing our overextended troops home from Iraq this year .

Then consider what restrained Obama did not do, like take away the right of every Tennessee teenager to an automatic assault rifle (in case a communist hides under the bed).

Obama has above all shown he can handle the complicated presidency — rationally, humanely — when many Southerners thought a black man incapable of such.

Last summer, columnist Cal Thomas concluded the solution to national crisis was to vote Republican, forgetting the country tried that in 2010. And what did it beget? Rep. Paul Ryan, Rep. Eric Cantor and a "job-creating" N.C. General Assembly crusading against education.

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CYCLONE COVEY

Winston-Salem

Makes sense

How interesting! A bipartisan group of House representatives just rejected an amendment to the Stop Online Piracy Act that would have affected pornography. As the Associated Press explained it, "By enforcing the intellectual property rights of porn producers, [Rep. Steve] King's office argued, the [Department of Justice] would be able to take down many websites that post porn illegally."

In other words, supporting legitimate pornography will halt illegal pornography and keep it from proliferating. As a result, there will be less pornography on the Internet.

I know it sounds funny, but it actually makes sense. It made sense to most of the conservatives on the House Judiciary Committee.

This same reasoning would also make sense when applied to Planned Parenthood: Defending and funding the organization prevents more abortions than it provides by allowing women to access information, health services and birth control.

Too bad conservatives don't know how to extrapolate.

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LINDA PATRICK

Winston-Salem