Judging immigrants; abortion choice; arrest video; climate change gag

Judging immigrants

We live in a city where immigrants are plentiful.

The vast majority are law-abiding people who are working in jobs most Americans would not do — lawn maintenance, roofing, construction, road work, etc.

Day workers stand on street corners waiting to be offered work. The children are well-behaved and eager to learn English.

Yes, some are not law-abiding and commit crimes, and they need to be deported.

Let us judge not by group, but by individual. When we judge by group, we are no better than those who sought to wipe out an entire race.

When we judge by individual, we are better off as a society.

Abortion choice

Cynthia M. Allen’s Friday column, “The critics are wrong: Being pro-life is more than being pro-birth,” implies that being pro-life is holier than being pro-choice.

On the contrary, the pro-choice view is more compassionate (and thus more holy) for the family involved.

It lets the family, minister and doctor decide what is the right path for a young girl with a unwelcome pregnancy.

Pro-lifers seem to think “an acorn is an oak tree.” Before 20 weeks, the pregnancy is not a person.

At my last Planned Parenthood luncheon, at my table were five ordained ministers and four ordained elders. The pro-life view is not holier than pro-choice.

Arrest video

The last three sentences of Bud Kennedy’s tirade show his contempt for those who are white, but mainly white cops — whom the media portray very badly every moment they can. (“In Craig case, what started at City Hall needed to end there,” Friday)

Do I agree with the actions either Officer William Martin or Jacqueline Craig and her daughters exhibited? No.

But along with Bud and 99.99 percent of Fort Worth, we were not there to observe it from first call through its entirety.

Kennedy seems to think the videos shot during the confrontation cover everything. They don’t, and those in authority who do have the facts made the decisions.

I suggest Kennedy go on ride-alongs with Fort Worth police. Maybe he’ll gain real perspective on what officers encounter every day.

Climate change gag

Scientists around our nation are deeply concerned about the gag order that has been placed on the EPA and other government services, in particular those related to climate change (“Scientists get political after government gag order and climate change reversal,” Star-Telegram.com, Jan. 25).

To think that years of the unglamorous hard work of scientific research might be scrubbed away from the public is very disconcerting.

These actions reveal echoes of some of our darkest dystopian novels, and they should cause a sense of alarm with regard to free speech and free thought.

Science is not a conspiracy theory; scientists do not “take sides.” They simply do the research that moves us toward better knowledge and reasoning.

Many of the golden years of this nation’s history involve the advancement of our scientific achievement.

This story was originally published February 1, 2017 at 5:55 PM with the headline "Judging immigrants; abortion choice; arrest video; climate change gag."