Letters to the Editor

Readers write: Letters to the editor, Nov. 19, 2014

Get your history right:

Grant didn't own slaves

"Liberal revisionist history." What a crock. I do believe that if the Republican masters did not publish talking points for their Republican "water boys," they would all become mutes.

Jim Dore (Letters, Nov. 14) needs to stop getting his history lessons from Wikipedia. For him and all the other people who think Grant supported slavery or owned slaves — Grant did neither. His father-in-law owned slaves, Grant did not. If he did, prove it. Because the word of one revisionist writer published in 2001 proves nothing. Even the suggestions that Grant may have worked a couple of his father-in-law's slaves on the land that his father-in-law gave to his wife, Julia, is in dispute and in no way translates to Grant owning slaves. He and his family lived in a crude one-room log cabin on land given to him and his wife. Where would he have gotten the money to buy a slave? From the sale of the firewood that he sold on the streets of St. Louis in order to feed his family, because no one would hire him? Or is that more "liberal revisionist history."

Dwight McGee

Eagle River

Obamacare ends policies

that needed to be gone

Before Obamacare, health insurance companies could deny coverage for preexisting conditions; cancel policies when excessive (or not) medical expenses were incurred either annually or otherwise; and charge whatever the market would bear for premiums and allocate any portion of the premiums for non-medical (administrative) costs.

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Obamacare prohibits the above coverage and cancellation policies and requires health insurance companies to spend 80 percent of the premiums on medical care. From reading Mr. Jenkins' article (ADN, Nov. 16), it appears that the United States will only be saved from Obamacare by driving "a stake through its cold, socialist heart." And then what? Do the recently elected Republicans really believe that dismantling Obamacare and returning to the policies that made the efficacy of our health care system rank 46 out of 48 countries while costing the second highest of any country is in the best interests of millions of Americans?

William Maxey

Anchorage

Enough with the war

Mr. Larry Slone (Letters, Nov. 16) implies that the individual Southern Civil War soldier felt that he was fighting for the institution of slavery, merely because slavery was a factor in the war. By this standard, I must assume that Northern soldiers realized they were fighting for northern textile mill owners and industrialists, because maintaining a cheap source of non-imported cotton was a factor in the war.

I refuse to fight this war any longer — we tried it once and it didn't work out all that well!

Don Neal

Anchorage

Other nations ended slavery more peacefully

Patrick Knowles says that slavery had to end to save the union. History shows that slavery ended in all Western nations within a short historical span of time. However, only with the United States did its end come with the expenditure of hundreds of thousands of the lives of the nation's citizens. In all other Western nations, slavery ended relatively peacefully, usually through compensated emancipation. Only because of the utter failure of the political leadership of the United States at the time was such a cost required to end slavery in the United States.

Abraham Lincoln failed to uphold his oath of office, which says to preserve and protect the Constitution, and not one word about preserving the Union. It has been tellingly observed that, because the South failed to win its second war for independence, we are all now slaves to an unchecked federal government, not bound by any constitution. The victors write the history; it doesn't side with them.

Dean Cox

Eagle River

Thanks for interview

I wanted to thank you all for the illuminating interview with tattoo artist Isidra Castro that you ran in this past Sunday's issue of "We Alaskans."

I'm from a different generation, and to me the idea of permanently marking my skin with ink holds about as much appeal as a recreational root canal. But I enjoyed reading the article, which I found to be insightful. It's clear that Ms. Castro is both thoughtful and well-grounded, and it's nice that she got a chance to explain her art and her motives in her own words.

Wade Hampton Miller

Chugiak

The views expressed here are the writers' own and are not necessarily endorsed by Alaska Dispatch News, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a letter for consideration, email letters@adn.com, or click here to submit via any web browser. Submitting a letter to the editor constitutes granting permission for it to be edited for clarity, accuracy and brevity. Send longer works of opinion to commentary@alaskadispatch.com.

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