Support for alternative ideas

According to a recent USA Today poll, 76 percent of Americans want Libertarian candidate Gov. Gary Johnson and Green candidate Dr. Jill Stein in the presidential debates. Considering the historically low opinion of the Republican and Democratic nominees, this shouldn’t be a surprise.

However, alternative ideas are silenced until a reporter asks Colin Kaepernick why he didn’t stand during the national anthem. I applaud the 49ers QB for using his position to speak out, but he’s not running for any office and probably doesn’t have any solutions as good as Stein’s Green New Deal or experience at solving issues like Johnson.

Perhaps Kaepernick and his colleagues can mention the unfairness of a debate commission run by the two parties who also control the media and agree to stand for the anthem only if there are four-person debates.

Geoff Cleveland

Denver

An anthem paid for in blood

David Baker’s Aug. 31 “Kaepernick’s act hurt no one” misses the mark by the usual PC mile by asserting it’s the right of the 49er quarterback to remain seated during the playing of our national anthem. Baker notes as a veteran he understands the American flag’s meaning, being a symbol of freedom, therefore no demands are made on anyone to stand for the anthem. While true, there’s a matter just as important as “rights” – and that’s respect.

Foreign dignitaries and visitors come to this country and, though not required to salute or hold their hand over their hearts, they stand during our national anthem out of respect.

Kaepernick has no respect for the country that provides him the opportunity to play a national pastime that pays him well, at the expense of the American people, and the nation whose anthem he seemingly so disrespects.

Countless veterans have done far more, sacrificed far more, for Kaepernick’s “rights” and would be more than happy to stand for our national anthem, if only they could. In the future, maybe Kaepernick will bear that in mind when he decides to “bench warm” during an anthem paid for in blood.

Michael Mingee

Colorado Springs

Advertisement hard to fathom

I have been a subscriber to The Gazette since the late 1970s when we moved to the Springs. I don’t always agree with what is written in The Gazette, but I believe in free speech and feel both sides should be heard.

But, advertisements are a different story. I realize that ads are a major source of income for the paper, but when they cross the line of good taste or what is socially wrong, I feel the paper has an obligation to refuse to run them.

The Sept. 2 Gazette featured an ad on the front page promoting a “family machine gun shoot.” I feel it is not only disgusting but morally wrong. With all the killings in the country (472 people shot and 90 killed in August in Chicago, Page 13 of the edition), putting such an ad in the paper is hard to fathom.

I request that you rethink your advertisement policy to reflect what is morally right. I look to the paper to set a standard for the public.

Continue to give both sides of issues, but refuse to accept advertisements that promote such morally disgusting ads as that which appeared on the front page.

Gary Walraven

Colorado Springs

Health care a service, not a right

The “viability” of ColoradoCare can hardly be debated based on current studies and because it is a microcosm of ObamaCare, which is tanking just as conservatives warned at its onset. Even if ColoradoCare could be shown to be viable, it is not the government’s job to provide health care to anyone except military veterans and government officials. Health care is a service provided by those who have a desire to care for others and make a profit on it, something the government can’t do. The health of a free population depends on the personal actions of said population. The government isn’t granted the right to run our personal lives, though it is doing its hardest to do so. Ultimately, the failure of ObamaCare and the desired ColoradoCare is based on the fact that healthy people don’t want to be forced to pay for sick people.

The private insurance market is the best way for everyone to pay for health care. The government should only provide regulations that do not allow the health industry to gouge people’s wallets or refuse service to those with “pre-conditions.” The government wants us wholly dependent on it, i.e., a socialist society, which breeds contempt for others. It is best to take personal responsibility and depend on the government for as little as possible.

Joseph Ford

Colorado Springs

Plan sounds like a bad dream

Re: the “report” in Sunday’s Gazette on Amendment 69 – do you call that reporting? Instead of analysis of the funding, accountability and control of this massive stab at a single-payer system, we get columns of blather, primarily from advocates of the scheme.

Step back and look at Amendment 69 and see that it is based on assumptions that would make Nancy Pelosi – of “we must pass it to see what’s in it” fame – blush. Aside from the miserable track record of government mandated health care, the outcome of the presidential election will have a huge impact on the underlying financial assumptions of the plan.

Amendment 69 creates a 21-member committee, not subject to voter recall, having enormous power to dispense heath care and to mandate Colorado taxpayer funding. That is the story, and it sounds like a bad dream.

Jack Lundberg

Colorado Springs

Constitution difficult to amend

I want to comment on a recent article that Jakob Rodgers and Megan Schrader wrote on Amendment 69. This amendment to the state constitution would provide single-payer health insurance for Colorado. It was a well-balanced and researched article on a complicated issue. My problem with 69 is that it then becomes part of our constitution, and once anything becomes part of our constitution, it is very difficult to amend or delete.

Health care policy is an evolving and complex public issue that needs constant review as our state and national health care programs invent new ways of offering treatment to diseases and technical advances for our citizens.

While there is disagreement over the Affordable Health Care Act, the act is not in the federal constitution but in federal law thereby allowing Congress to make changes when needed. As a former chair of the Colorado State Legislature Health and Human Services Committee and former Colorado State Insurance commissioner, I am opposing Amendment 69.

Marcy Morrison

Manitou Springs