Ending the elitism of abuse
June 19, 2012 4:52PM
Updated: July 21, 2012 6:03AM
I believe the most ordinary man can make a difference. He just has to believe he can, and then get his posterior in gear.
Martin Luther King Jr. did believe in the humanistic ethics of an individual’s rights. Along with those rights, he encouraged personal responsibility in a society already morphed by behavioral dysfunction.
Donald Torrence of Joliet claims there is an “elitist attitude” by Romney or Republicans that dehumanizes (letters, May 24).
Contraire, in line with King, it is the individuals themselves, and a passive indifference, that allows others to manipulate them into a conformity of dehumanization. It could be said, we the lesser elitists, are hard working like those of wealth, just poorer.
Sadly, the humanistic ethic of cooperation and inter-connectedness, and the love as expressed biblically, cannot be achieved until individuals stop living in a self-imposed “me-ism” world, viewing individuals as an inconvenience to be controlled, or a commodity means to an end … the elitism of abuse.
Our democratic Illinois-held Legislature, continues to implement ongoing cost-cutting factors for hundreds of thousands Medicaid recipients in food stamps deductions, sometimes offset by increased Social Security benefits, decreases in medical, prescription drugs and health insurance payments.
Unfair? Democrat Gov. Pat Quinn agrees with his legislators — satiable spending has to stop, as he signed another cost-cutting bill into law in order to save the $2.7 billion Medicaid program draining state coffers, along with pension and other programs.
Like Mitt Romney and the Republicans, democratic legislators at the state and federal levels realize tough cuts are in order before the price of America’s greatness cannot be redeemed from moral and financial bankruptcy.
There is something that is scarcer — the ability to recognize ability capable of running the business of quality governance at the lowest taxpayer cost possible
Carolyn Hill
New Lenox
It’s Crest Hill’s fault
No offense, Mayor Soliman, but your statement of being disappointed that you will no longer be receiving tax money from the strip mall on Weber and Division is hard to believe (“Diocese a revenue loss for Crest Hill,” Common Sense, June 5).
The property has been standing vacant — and blocked — for years. The road on the north side was built wrong, isn’t that correct?
As I understand, it was four feet too narrow. So, instead of Crest Hill compromising with the builder of the road — or just paying to fix it, thereby allowing for businesses to move in — the city left it stand vacant for years.
Now, someone wants to buy it and you oppose. I also oppose, but for different reasons, which are irrelevant ... But, to make it look like this problem has been a direct result of the bad economy resulting in no one willing to build in there, is stretching the truth very thin. Part of the truth is no one cared, because you were receiving tax money anyway, so why fix the road?
Dianne Schreiber
Crest Hill
