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Your Views: Dont cast your vote based on majority fears
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I like and respect Ted Oglesby, consider him my friend. His long career in Northeast Georgia journalism is filled with well-deserved honor and recognition. So it is with great respect that I differ with Ted's column of Nov. 25.

First, Ted wrote that "it never has turned out well when the president's party also has a majority in both House and Senate for the Senate majority to be filibuster-proof." "Never" is always a dangerous word, for history often shows otherwise.

One example: the legendary Civil Rights Act of 1964, which put African-Americans and women on the road to greater participation in the political and economic life of America, could not have been passed and then signed into law by a great champion of civil rights, Democratic President Lyndon Johnson, without the U.S. Senate's ability to overcome a filibuster. Likewise, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 could not have been enacted without a filibuster being defeated in the Senate.

Ted's column went on to contend that "the principal reason" for Republicans to "turn out" to vote, presumably against Democrat Jim Martin, in the runoff for the U.S. Senate seat is to deny the Democrats a "filibuster-proof Senate." If that "reason" is valid, then Georgians are supposed to give up their right to elect the senator that they think would best represent Georgians in the Senate.

In other words, voters in other states, who have presumably already elected the senators they think best represent them, have, by putting the Senate on the brink of having 60 Democratic senators, denied to Georgia's voters the same right to elect a senator best representing Georgians.

Truth is, Georgians next week have the same prerogative as other American voters: to vote for the senatorial candidate they think will best represent them in the Senate, on all issues, including the economy, jobs, health care and the many other "kitchen table" issues that directly and daily impact the lives of Georgians and all Americans.

If a "filibuster-proof Senate" is seated in January, it will be all Americans, not just Georgians, who will have created that Senate. And history shows that such a Senate may just pass landmark legislation that benefits all Americans.

Wyc Orr
Gainesville

Sheriff keeping Hall safe by enforcing law
Responding to David Kennedy's Nov. 24 guest opinion: You really did a lot of spinning in your article concerning the big word, "demagogy." I had to check Webster's for the definition.

Your bottom line was "selling out your country for your own personal gain is treasonous." Why do we continue to support people who knowingly mislead us? You state that "particularly destructive demagogy from those who chose to invade Iraq." Now this would have us readers believe that you think President George W. Bush and most of his administration were committing treason.

Then you wrote, "we see it (destructive demagogy) from those who continue to insist that we immediately withdraw from Iraq." Now this would have us as readers believe that you believe that the incoming administration already is committing treason.

I do feel more secure now that you gave me the facts that no terrorists enter the U.S. illegally crossing our Southern border. How can you be so sure?

Now saying that our sheriff is committing treason when he enforces the 287(g) program by arresting illegal aliens really forces me to believe that with your guest opinion, you are criticizing our great political leaders for your own personal gain.

You wrote that Julie Myers, our previous assistant secretary of the Department of Homeland Security said: "If the people who wanted to come out of the shadows could, we could focus on those who don't want to come out and are a threat to national security and public safety (and then you added rather that wasting resources waging a war on landscapers and dishwashers)."

Myers actually stated: "If the people who wanted to come out of the shadows could, we could focus on those who don't want to." (Harvard Law Record of March 13).

Myers took questions from the audience that were both friendly and critical on the question of 287(g) agreements, which authorize local police to perform some federal immigration functions. She disagreed that their expansion was problematic, stressing that ICE is expanding the program slowly and extensively training local police departments.

Never mind the fact that our great leader, Hall County Sheriff Steve Cronic, assisted in the arrest of four illegal aliens who brought millions of dollars of undocumented drugs to a warehouse on Chandler Highway here in our home county.

God bless our politicians in the United States, Georgia and Hall County. God bless our sheriff. As our Gov. Sonny once stated, "Pray for Rain." Now pray for the ICE.

Dave Coxe
Flowery Branch