Letters to the Editor

Democrats and vote fraud Bruce Tinsley’s Mallard Fillmore cartoon on Wednesday (Culture, et cetera) about a Washington State woman who registered her dog to vote — the Associated Press story indicates that she actually voted three times in his name — illustrates a very important issue as we approach the 2008 national elections. That issue is election fraud and the different approach to it of the two major parties.

There are many good reasons for voting against Democrats, but this one stands out for its clarity and simplicity. This issue tells the voter all he needs to know about which party to support. While continuing their seven-year whine that “Bush stole the 2000 election” by “stealing” Florida (the major media recount demonstrated otherwise), Democrats follow policies designed to make it as difficult as possible to assure honest elections.

Two specific examples:

(1) The so-called motor-voter laws that make voter registration as easy and unsecure as possible

(2) The voter-identification laws, which assure that the person presenting himself at the polls to vote is the person who has registered.

On each of these two voter-fraud issues, the Democrats overwhelmingly come down on the side of lax security, the Republicans on the side of solid security.

Despite the pathetic argument that they are only attempting to support unfettered election participation by certain groups — as it happens, groups that overwhelmingly support Democrats — the motive for the Democrats’ approach to election fraud is clear: the Democrats have profited from and hope to continue profiting from votes cast by fraud. That is reason enough to vote against them.

WILBURN L. MOORE

Vienna

Slandering Islam

The column “The path to …?” (Commentary, July 3) by Frank Gaffney Jr. contained a message full of hate against Muslims and Islam. He called Shariah a fascist legal code, the Islamic Center/Mosque in Washington a place for disseminating intolerant Islamofascist ideology and the Organization of the Islamic Conference an organization sympathetic to jihadists.

Apparently, President Bush’s visit to the mosque on the occasion of its 50th anniversary infuriated Mr. Gaffney and led him to write such distortions and misinformation. He overlooked the facts of history and fairness. It was under the Islamic Shariah that European Jews lived their golden age of freedom and prosperity in Spain and the Ottoman Empire. Shariah code is essentially based upon the Koranic rules “no compulsion in religion” and “you have your religion and I have mine.”

Mr. Bush was not the first American president to visit the Islamic Center/Mosque in Washington. Fifty years ago, President Eisenhower dedicated the Islamic Center and reminded the world that civilization owes to the Islamic world some of its most important achievements. The Washington mosque is a place of worship to the one God that the Muslims worship and they call him the God of the world, not of Muslims alone. The message of universality and equality is central in the Islamic doctrine.

The Organization of the Islamic Conference is a regional organization of governments, exactly like the Organization of American States (OAS) or the African Union (AU) or the Arab League (LAS) or the European Union (EU). The only difference is that the OIC is not based on ethnicity, nationalism or geography, but on shared common values. That is why you find among its member countries from four continents, such as Albania and Turkey, Egypt and Tunisia, Malaysia and Indonesia, Senegal, Mozambique and Guyana. Through its Islamic Development Bank, the organization has undertaken a great number of projects.

Contrary to Mr. Gaffney’s column, the OIC is a governmental organization with a membership of 57 countries, almost all of which have cordial and cooperative relations with the United States. By visiting the Islamic Center/Mosque Washington and announcing his intention to appoint a permanent envoy to the OIC, Mr. Bush has taken a good step in the right direction. It is a good investment to gain the hearts and minds of the Muslim world through dialogue and mutual understanding.

MAHA AKEEL

Managing editor

Journal Information Department

Organization of the Islamic Conference

Saudi Arabia

Health-care troubles

Decades of experience have shown that guaranteeing good, affordable health care in America is not about having a free, competitive health insurance marketplace. Rather, it is our free marketplace that has led to spiraling health-care costs and tens of millions of uninsured, underinsured and at-risk insured Americans (“Reforming health care,” Op-Ed, July 9). Exclusive reliance on private insurance has also led the United States to rank 37th in the world in health-care quality.

Americans across the ideological divide want a guarantee of good, affordable health care that gives them a choice of private doctors and hospitals across the country. In fact, people with Medicare choose their public insurance option 4-to-1 over private insurance and the public insurance costs the government less money.

If those in Congress and the administration were not so beholden to ideology and the big insurance companies, working Americans would not be forced to go without the choice of a public insurance option that guarantees them access to the care they need.

DIANE ARCHER

Founder

Medicare Rights Center

New York City

Ike’s example, Bush’s failure

Many defenders of America’s sovereignty look back with nostalgia toward President Eisenhower (“Eisenhower and illegals,” Op-Ed, Friday). He was a president for whom protecting the nation was the top priority.

In comparison, recent American presidents of both parties have believed they are virtual executive officers of the new world order, in which the United States provides political leadership and free police protection for much of the planet. It’s an expensive proposition for taxpaying citizens, however, who see their infrastructure and living standards crumbling as a result.

American borders and sovereignty are substantially rejected by these presidents, who respond to growing corporate power over government. Big Business sees democratic nations with informed citizens as burdensome impediments to profits. Middle-class constituencies of product safety and workplace fairness are particularly troublesome to ruling elites, who prefer exploitable foreigners with no cultural expectation of competence.

President Bush is the worst so far. He has endangered the nation perilously by insisting on open borders for his business cronies while al Qaeda has been regrouping. Muslim immigration is still permitted as if it were the most normal thing in the world. Immigration wasn’t meant to be a suicide pact — was it?

Away from the Beltway, Americans want a leader who will represent their interests first, rather than spend their money on elite-sponsored globalist proposals like water projects in Africa and a missile shield for Europe. But among the top-tier candidates, all appear to be willing corporate servants in the billion-dollar presidential campaign.

DANA GARCIA

Berkeley, Calif.