Wednesday, June 8, 2005

Letters to the editor

Praise for Pargas

Editor:

In response to David Marquez' letter (El Defensor Chieftain, May 21), Councilman Ernest Pargas is no one's puppet, as this letter said in so many words. Pargas knows exactly who he is and where he is coming from. Ernest thinks for himself.

Ernest is a graduate of Leadership New Mexico, president of SCOPE and a member of the Socorro Health Substance Abuse Council. He also started the random drug testing program.

Ernest is a longtime employee of Smith's grocery store. He was also a professional boxer. Ernest is a devoted, loving father as well.

Ernest Pargas has accomplished much in his young life, besides being a highly regarded city councilman.

As for cage fighting, it is only for those 18 years of age and above. Unlike cage fighting, the city council meetings are for everyone of any age, who may be interested in the city government. Everyone is invited!

People who keep up with Socorro's city government know that Councilman Pargas is a decent man, who does his bet to do a good job in whatever he undertakes.

The nasty attacks made upon Mr. Pargas were untrue! Ditto to what Marquez said of my daughter (Vivian McAlexander)!

Christina McAlexander

Socorro

Comic relief

Editor:

I'm an old Socorro girl, living in Washington state now. I read the online version of your paper each Wednesday and Saturday. I want to thank you for the comic relief I get with each letter about and by Gary Jaramillo. It never fails, each time someone writes a letter about him or his behavior, the next issue, without fail, publishes his rebuttal. The last rebuttal (May 28) was hilarious. I could almost picture him gritting his teeth as he typed it, attempting to seem humbled and grateful.

How I wish I could view the council meetings. Actually, I do respect what he's trying to do to effect change that he feels needs to occur, but he does seem to be alone in his endeavors. Coming off as angry and spiteful is only going to reinforce that solitary state. People do not respond well to anger and intimidation; it only causes them to push back. That is obviously what has happened here.

I wish him well, but hope he can lighten up because, despite his best intentions, he is coming off like a fool, whether he is one or not.

Kim Darwin

Seattle, Wash.

The privacy issue

Editor:

Leon Miler's piece entitled "Rules of the Court" raises a number of issues that are central to many of disagreements among Americans. It is a valuable letter because it offers people, such as myself, an opportunity to express my dissent.

I want to address some of the points he makes:

He asks " ... whether the Constitution can perpetually change meaning to suit whatever the mood of the time is, or whether it is pretty much fixed and adequate as written."

I think Mr. Miler's choice of the word "mood" is unfortunate. If we look back over some of the changes which were noble and an enhancement of democracy, amendments following the Civil War that did away with slavery — the 13th and 15th amendments — and the amendment that granted women the right to vote — the 19th Amendment — were, in most people's judgments sound reasons to modify the constitution. I would say that our national values — rather than "mood" shifted — and we put these values into being via the amendment process.

Miler says "The constitution isn't that complicated of a document, nor is it so difficult to understand."

Although I am not an attorney, I disagree.

The 2nd Amendment, which relates to the right of persons to bear arms, is interpreted by those who champion the right of individuals to have guns with no restrictions in a way that suits their objectives — even though the likelihood is that those who wrote this amendment had no such objective in mind, and probably were thinking about militias, when they drafted it. This amendment was poorly crafted, and it is, indeed, difficult to understand and Americans will still be debating its meaning in the foreseeable future. That is where courts become so valuable, because they must interpret it. And volumes have been written on this topic.

Miler demeans the "right to privacy" and speaks of it as part of the "cultural wars". You could say that the disagreement over slavery was a "cultural war" — to use his term — and it brought about the Civil War in which hundreds of thousands of Americans died, which lead to the abolishment of slavery.

I happen to value the right of privacy — but I certainly hope it won't take a civil war to decide it. What Miler glosses over are the tremendous disagreements among Americans with regard to a woman's right to choose, which is one of the central issues with regard to abortion. This isn't simply a "cultural war." The roots of this disagreement are central and deep-seated amongst people of good faith — on both sides of the issue. It won't be resolved through vituperation or invective.

In fact, it isn't clear how, in a political sense it can ever be resolved — simply because it is not a political or religious issue — it is, in fact, a philosophical issue. Which, in my judgment, is tantamount to saying it can't be resolved rationally.

Finally, Miler alludes to the matter of the courts. The issue of the Supreme Court nominees, which the Democrats and some Republicans object to, has discussed in great detail in the press and on TV.

The one point I would make in this regard is this: This problem has arisen for only one reason — President Bush has departed from the practice of choosing supreme court nominees who are in the mainstream and is trying to load the courts with judges with records that clearly deeply trouble many Americans — regardless of political affiliation. That is what is being overlooked.

So there is no need to discuss the power and views of judges in these matters, because such debates are entirely irrelevant and simply becloud what is really a very simple issue.

Steve Grossman

Socorro

More straight talk?

Editor:

After I (the anonymous "reader" mentioned in your first editorial regarding Steve Pearce's plagiarism) noticed that one of his "Straight Talk" columns was plagiarized and communicated the fact via a letter to you, Pearce's press secretary Jim Burns admitted to the word theft and resigned shortly thereafter. (Another column plagiarized by him also came to light. See dchieftain.com.) Pearce apologized and said he was unaware of the plagiarism. According to Pearce's spokesman, Burns had been working for Pearce only since January.

Now it appears that if Pearce's previous press secretary, Ricardo Bernal, had not already left his employ, Pearce would have had to call for his resignation as well. Most of the text of a Dec. 16, 2004, press release — with Bernal given as the contact on Pearce's web page — called "Pearce Says U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan Should resign" is taken from an article published the previous day and written by Nile Gardiner. The latter article is at www.heritage.org, and it is entitled "The White House Should Call on Kofi Annan To Resign."

In Pearce's press release, it is claimed that "Pearce characterized Annan as becoming 'a symbol of the U.N.'s culture of arrogance, secrecy, mismanagement, weakness, and impotence, and it is time for a new figure at the helm ...'"

At heritage.org, the Gardiner text reads that "Annan has become a symbol of the UN's culture of arrogance, secrecy, mismanagement, weakness, and impotence, and it is time for a new figure at the helm ..."

And so on.

It seems that Pearce either condones such plagiarism or has had really bad luck in his choice of press secretaries — twice. (Read background on this issue at dchieftain.com and at defendnm.org.) In addition, the wording of the press release clearly implies that Pearce publicly spoke aloud the (numerous) parts of the text that are in quotes. If Pearce did not do so, there is an inherent dishonesty in the article quite apart from the question of plagiarism.

I actually discovered the plagiarism by Pearce's previous press secretary very soon after the first El Defensor Chieftain editorial on the issue, but my e-mail communicating the new facts to the you — which could, in theory, have been published in the same issue where Pearce was said to have apologized — failed in the transmission, as you know. Because that e-mail was precipitous and lacked detail, I determined to proceed more cautiously and verify a few facts, such as dates, etc. The above paragraphs are the result. Inexplicably, similar letters to the Albuquerque Journal and other papers in New Mexico, were not published.

I say "inexplicably," because the issue was considered sufficiently important by the established media to have merited an Associated Press article that was reproduced or paraphrased on a national scale. A person was forced to resign, losing his means of support and compromising his career. If plagiarism in the Steve Pearce office is the rule and not the exception — a point of view this new information would tend to support — then the implication that Jim Burns was sacrificed in order to take the heat off of Pearce, leaps instantly to mind. Furthermore, there are ethical issues with regard to the ghost-writing of public statements that were not addressed by the resignation of Jim Burns. (Again, please read my article on the ethical issues at defendnm.org.)

Jan Deininger

Socorro

Is it a right?

Editor,

I read Mr. Miler's recent letter to the editor with great interest. Specifically the part that read: "Just as surely as the Supreme Court's Dred Scott ruling in 1857 doomed the country to the Civil War, so has the Supreme Court's 'discovery' of a constitutional right to privacy."

Does Mr. Miler think the right to privacy is a bad thing?

In April 2005, the Washington Times interviewed Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas.

Responding to a question about activist judges, Mr. Delay said, "The reason the judiciary has been able to impose a separation of church and state that's nowhere in the Constitution is that Congress didn't stop them ... The reason we had a right to privacy is because Congress didn't stop them."

Does Mr. DeLay think the right to privacy is a bad thing? I'm seeing a pattern here.

In 1965, the Supreme Court heard a case called Griswold vs. Connecticut. In 1961, Estelle Griswold, a family planning clinic director, was convicted of providing contraceptives (birth control) to married couples. Connecticut law prohibited any person from using or aiding and abetting the use of any drug, medicinal article or instrument for the purpose of preventing conception.

The case was appealed to the Supreme Court. The Connecticut law was overturned as unconstitutional. In the process, the Supreme Court affirmed that married couples have the right to privacy. In the majority decision, Justice Douglas wrote: "Would we allow the police to search the sacred precincts of marital bedrooms for telltale signs of the use of contraceptives? The very idea is repulsive to the notions of privacy surrounding the marriage relationship."

Justice Goldburg wrote: "Although the Constitution does not speak in so many words of the right of privacy in marriage, I cannot believe that it offers these fundamental rights no protection. The fact that no particular provision of the Constitution explicitly forbids the State from disrupting the traditional relation of the family ... surely does not show that the Government was meant to have the power to do so."

Imagine that. Supreme Court Justices who believed the American people were entitled to privacy. Were these radical, activist justices? Some people think so. Many people believe, because marital privacy is not specifically mentioned in the Constitution, it is not a right. You decide. Was Griswold vs. Connecticut an act of judicial activism? Do we have a right to privacy?

This is a question we should all be concerned about. Privacy is a basic right most of us take for granted. The right to marital privacy is not specifically mentioned in the Constitution. Does this mean we have no right to privacy within our marriages?

Make no mistake, the end game in this judicial battle is not merely overturning Roe vs. Wade. Roe vs. Wade could be considered a second base hit. The home run is overturning Griswold vs. Connecticut.

Those of us who value our right to privacy need to be paying close attention. Our right to privacy, and birth control, may be one Supreme Court Justice away from being gone forever.

Shawn LaBrier

Socorro

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