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God's place in a united Europe
From: Keith Johnston, Eaton Hill, Baslow, Bakewell. THE Easter festival has reminded us that this is a Christian country.
I for one was pleased to read the views of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, and of the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, about the abortion law, and would like to read
more of their views on politics, but Tony Blair does not think that religion and politics go together.
In our ever-closer union in Europe, this is a fundamental point to be considered when we vote on the Constitution. Is God to be relegated and humanism to take over?
In the preamble, the first phrase is "drawing inspiration from the cultural, religious and humanist inheritance of Europe", and in the final draft, there was a specific reference to humanism as the ethical basis of the European Union, while a request from the Pope for
a reference to our Christian heritage was turned
down.
Humanism puts man and his rights at the centre, rejecting God. All problems can be resolved by reason and compromise. Systems of morality and ethics can be developed through mutual agreement, and all people will willingly follow them because they are reasonable.
One can see it at work in the European Union, with its Charter of Fundamental Rights, and its unending stream of laws, regulations and decisions of the courts affecting all aspects of our lives.
It was there, too, in the rejection of an Italian commissioner who was a devout Catholic.
Many British people, with political and social traditions based on Christian and other God-centred religions, will never be happy if we are to be united more closely in that sort of Europe.
The chilling facts about euthanasia
From Dr Mark Houghton, Crimicar Drive, Fulwood, Sheffield.
THE Dutch experience on euthanasia, referred to in Sheena Hastings' feature (Yorkshire Post, March 22), is chilling.
Even before euthanasia was legalised in Holland in 1994, their own Ministry of Justice concluded that more than 1,000 of the 3,000 euthanasia deaths were involuntary.
That means they were killed without the patients' permission.
Case reports include a child killed for no other reason than it possessed abnormal genitalia.
The Nazi Holocaust of the Second World War had humble beginnings in the nursing homes of 1930s' Germany.
Dr Leo Alexander, a psychiatrist with the Office for War Crimes at Nuremberg, described a subtle shift in emphasis among doctors.
"It started with the attitude, basic in the euthanasia movement, that there is such a thing as a life not worthy to be lived," he said.
When the Germans changed their law, the whole process was accelerated.
Do we really want a change in the law?
With an election coming up, potential MPs should declare their hand so we know how to vote.
Accepting responsibility
From: AP Kirk, Swanage Close, Teesside.
It's laudable of New Labour to want to abolish child poverty but how many, notably uneducated, irrational fools, most of whom can only be described as imbeciles, breed and swarm with the same dire environmental and economic consequences as do locusts?
Why is it such idiots think they have the right to children because if they can't provide for their well-being, and hence improve their lot, then they shouldn't produce. If ever the truth were outed, which it seldom if ever is, it would emerge that they only produce kids for their own selfish ends, notably to fraudulently acquire social housing and other benefits which they would otherwise be denied.
The trouble today is irresponsible kids are producing kids, and reckless if not downright criminal irresponsibility is being unduly rewarded, with only the responsible citizens are made to suffer (financially).
Turned off by TV music
From: PC Lodge, The Green, Goathland, Whitby.
I HAVE read with interest the many letters which you have published from readers complaining about the wholly inappropriate and completely unnecessary background music which spoils so many television programmes.
We have no objection to soft, unobtrusive background music which is completely suitable in certain situations.
However, the beat music and puerile songs accompanying so many documentary programmes, including travel, wildlife and gardening, is now so intrusive that the enjoyment of these programmes is completely ruined.
As a prime example, Alan Titchmarsh's recent programme Royal Gardener on BBC2 caused so much annoyance that we were obliged to switch it off.
I venture to suggest that the programme controllers are completely out of touch with the feelings of the viewers of such programmes.
Parking row
From: Marilyn Crawshaw, Middlethorpe Grove, Dringhouses, York.
I WAS disgusted to read in your report, "Rail Museum upset disabled" (Yorkshire Post, March 15), that the National Railway Museum allowed wedding cars to block disabled parking spaces.
There were no re-direction signs to alternative car parking spaces, and, presumably, these spaces were at a further distance from the museum entrance – hardly a reasonable alternative for people with mobility impairments.
The suggestion that disabled visitors could use free spaces in the non-disabled zone ignored the difficulty many disabled people experience when struggling into or out of a car that's in a narrow space.
The lack of awareness shown by the museum is staggering. The days should be long gone where disabled facilities can be cast aside so readily and disabled people treated with such disrespect.
There are no circumstances that would justify excluding or even inconveniencing disabled people in this way, and especially not in order to accommodate a commercial event.
Fair comment
From: BH Sheridan, Redmires Road, Sheffield.
FURTHER to the excellent letters of Rev Gillian Cooke and Geoffrey Bryant on Christian fundamentalism, specifically attitudes to homosexual clergy (March 16), it is notable that Mr Bryant articulates what must worry compassionate Christians about certain chapters and verse of Leviticus and Deuteronomy.
He stops short of ridicule, unlike some gay websites which have lampooned those sections of the Old Testament hilariously. We should, however, be wary of treating religious tyranny with levity.
The Rev Gillian Cooke cites the persecution of Galileo for revealing, it transpired, a scientific truth. That he was right merely adds weight to her argument; he should have been entitled to his opinion, right or wrong.
The New York Times reports that a biology teacher in Birmingham, Alabama, has abandoned the idea of teaching the theory of evolution for fear of upsetting her principal.
Other science teachers are reported to be treading carefully in an America whose government, many fear, may be planning to establish a religious state.
Socialist ills
From: CB Booth, Smeathalls Farm, Knottingley.
your correspondent, J C Penn, (Letters, March 21) asks for advice on what to vote, being a lifelong socialist. I am afraid he's going to have to accept that he has been wrong all his life.
Socialism is a rotten idea which simply does not work. The USSR had it in extreme form for more than 70 years, and ended up an economic basket case.
Similarly, China, India and earlier, such countries as Brazil and a host of African states, performed very badly until the socialist shackles were removed.
The US and Canada have always done well for their people. Neither has ever had a socialist government.
Tony Blair realised all this, and therefore ditched most (though not all) socialist dogma, to get elected.
Conservative Capitalism has its faults, but all the other systems are worse, and doomed to failure, because people (and nations) do better when trying to improve their lot without undue state interference.
Gordon's give and take...
From: C Thompson, Wighill Lane, Tadcaster.
SHORTLY after Gordon Brown announced a 200 council tax rebate for all pensioner households, notice of a proposed re-evaluation of my property for council tax purposes arrived through my letterbox.
It does not surprise me to discover that what the Chancellor gives with one hand, he will find a way of clawing back with the other. What does surprise and disappoint me is the evident lack of guile on the part of a smooth operator like Gordon.
Surely this information should not hit the public domain until after the election?
Shop front
From: John Pashley, Westcliffe Avenue, Baildon, Shipley.
RE your comment "Talking shop" (March 21), 25 years ago, in Tokyo, I saw a large sports-shoe shop called The Athlete's Foot. Honest, I did!
Then, of course, all Dandy readers will know that the barber's shop was owned by a Mr Dan Druff.
Room for change
From: Rosie Mason, Dawson House, Kirkstall Brewery, Broad Lane, Leeds.
TODAY'S society holds such a wide variety of religion and culture, all exceptionally individual, but it shames me that there are still people who cannot accept the differences.
Just the other day, abuse was shouted across the street at an Indian woman in front of me wearing a head-scarf.
Commercial markets hold so much choice, all influenced by different ethnic groups, fashion and food while the media all incorporate different religious ideas and practices.
In spite of this, people still remain narrow-minded. I believe that their views link back to poor training at school.
I am ashamed at my lack of knowledge of other religions. We should notice our errors and change this for our future adults.
No middle way
From: John Hodgson, Capel Avenue, Peacehaven, East Sussex.
THERE is much talk from the Lib Dems that they will be the main opposition party after the next General Election.
Yet if you look at the electoral map since the end of the Second World War, the Tories have been in power for 35 years, Labour 27 and the Lib Dems/Liberals precisely zero.
The Tories are currently undergoing a period of self-purification and policy reformulation similar to that which Labour went through in the 1980s and 1990s.
Remember those days?
Political commentators predicted confidently that Labour was finished and would never be in power again. Yet the end result was the two Labour landslides of 1997 and 2001.
In the British model of politics there will always be the Tories on the Right and Labour on the Left. All the other parties are an irrelevance.
Why won't Labour provide sites for gipsies?
From: Jeffrey Burrows, Jackson Lane, Thornhill, Dewsbury.
I READ Kevin McNamara's article on gipsies (Yorkshire Post, March 24), with interest.
I have been writing to my local MP Ann Taylor, a Labour colleague of Mr McNamara's, for the past seven years on this issue.
I suggested that the Labour Party should provide sites so that gipsy children would be able to go to school instead of been moved on by the bailiffs.
Despite all my letters, the Labour Party did nothing and allowed anarchy to continue. They had no sympathy for the gipsies whatsoever.
If Mr McNamara wants to compare the Conservatives to the Gestapo, he wants to look at his own party first.
To me, it is very insulting to Michael Howard. All Mr Howard is saying is that gipsies should obey the laws of England, like everybody else.
If the Labour Party had provided sufficient sites, this problem would no longer exist.
Can Mr McNamara tell us why the Labour Party didn't provide sites?
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Saturday 11 February 2012
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