Exactly Why Is Nuclear Power More Harmful?

Editor, Times-Dispatch

What? People are protesting Dominion Virginia Power's addition of a new nuclear unit at Lake Anna on the grounds of stopping "a greater harm"? Nuclear power has for the past 50 years been the safest industry this county has ever had -- as opposed to the hundreds of coal miners' deaths during that period supplying coal-burning utilities.

One wonders what this group's real agenda is.

Corbin Dixon. Staunton.

Property Rights Supersede Recreation

Editor, Times-Dispatch:

I react to the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries (DGIF) study on hunting with hounds.

Virginia is properly concerned with property rights in this study, but gives far too much importance to a recreation, hunting. That's precisely the dichotomy: the rights of property, which should be protected vigorously, and the right to a particular recreation, which should not.

Taken further, protecting a recreation at the expense of protecting property or, for that matter, the recreations of others simultaneously, means granting the right to drive an ATV on someone's lawn, or skateboard on someone's driveway, or snowmobile on hiking trails. Recreations of any kind do not trump property, and action taken under color of law may well violate constitutional protections.

Hunting is not for subsistence any longer, nor is it very popular. At the foxhunting level, it is the preserve of an elite community with garb, gear, and social pretensions, and at the deer/bear/bird/coon level, it is a video game, played with pickup trucks, tracking collars and GPS, and Budweiser.

Responsible hunters may well hunt for food or to do what they believe must be done to protect the species being hunted, but they are not the ones who prompted the need for this study, and I daresay their numbers are few in comparison to property owners.

The question that the study should pose is: Why elevate recreation over property in the first place?

Donald C. Marro. The Plains.

History of Slavery Echoes in Abortion

Editor, Times-Dispatch:

Like the Holocaust Museum, the American I Am exhibit is good to remind us not to repeat history. But man is doomed to repeat history, though not ever in the exact same way.

For instance, I quote Jesse Jackson in a 1977 article in the National Right to Life Committee report: "There are those who argue that the right to privacy is of a higher order than the right to life . . . that was the premise of slavery. You could not protect the existence or treatment of slaves on the plantation because that was private and therefore outside your rights to be concerned. What happens to the mind of a person, and the moral fabric of a nation, that accepts the aborting of the life of a baby without pang of conscience? What kind of person and . . . society will we have 20 years hence if life can be taken so casually? It is that question . . . of our attitude, our value system, and our mind-set with regard to the nature and worth of life itself that is the central question confronting mankind. Failure to answer that question affirmatively may leave us with a hell right here on Earth."

A large percentage of abortions are done on unmarried black women. How many Jesse Jacksons have been aborted? Black leaders who support abortion (including Barack Obama), as well as any pro-abortionists, are really akin to the slaveholders they hate. They're so deceived.

Judy Visco. Chesterfield.

If You Have Children, Flee From the City

Editor, Times-Dispatch:

If you have young children and you live in the City of Richmond, the single most important thing that you can do for the welfare of your children is to move.

Seven years ago, when we lived in Richmond, we looked ahead to the education of our daughter. The prospect was grim. We had lived in the city for 12 years and had hoped that the schools would improve. What we saw was bureaucratic inertia, political incompetence, and a value system where family values were nowhere to be found. I was at a meeting where a Richmond Renaissance representative said that what the city wanted was young dual-income residents. He said if you have children, move to Kings Charter. We moved.

The recent obstacles to the creation of the Patrick Henry charter school show that there is little hope for families with children in the City of Richmond.

Terry Raney. Beaverdam.