Parents need to parent, Metzger hasn't changed and Mondays' letter is misinformation

The letters section is getting quite interesting. Those in the November 17 issue are great! I take exception to the viewpoint of Michael Sanders. To suggest that getting drunk, etc. is having fun is very misguided and is the wrong message to be giving to young people. Children (a 14-year-old is still a child) need to be taught a sense of values and controlled when they are minors to avoid such self-destructive behavior. There are a great many wholesome activities that young people can happily participate in as they grow up. The letter by Mr. Paul Guerra is excellent. Parents need to “parent.”

Tom Metzger hasn’t changed. I know he has no interest in a colorblind society, which we all should be striving to create. Mason Weaver is a realist and part of that is recognizing opportunities. Tom calls it “trading on White guilt.” Why shouldn’t he? We have a free enterprise system where individuals are encouraged to capitalize on opportunities as they see them. Mason is telling his people to stop whining and “go for it,” for which I applaud him. Mason is working to create equality. Tom is interested in separation of the races.

The letter by Jon and Anna Monday is misinformation served on a Socialist platter. The most egregious is the statement that the infant mortality rate in the United States is ten times that of Japan. The (rounded) figures for 2003 are seven and three (per 1,000 births), respectively. That is just over twice on a percentage basis. For the higher US number to have any statistical value it is necessary to fully establish the cause of those deaths. Although I do not have that information, I am very confident that they are not the result of poor healthcare but rather the result of a destructive lifestyle of the mother.

The average life expectancy (data for 2000) was three years more in Japan than in the US. Again, it cannot be attributed to poor healthcare without a complete analysis of the cause of death. It is common knowledge that obesity shortens a person’s life and it is also known that there is much more obesity in the US than Japan (and most any other country), so it is reasonable to assume that our sedentary and obese lifestyle is a major contributor to that difference in longevity. We live in an imperfect world. Our healthcare system could be better. An improvement would be Medical Savings Accounts for less government involvement; not more.