We owe debt to Founders for guaranteeing our rights

Mr. Kessinger, for your article on the Founding Fathers, I commend you for proving once again your ability to argue in defense of unconscionably ridiculous positions (“”Who cares what the Founding Fathers thought?””, April 10, 2009). However disjointed and individually flawed your tenets and arguments may be, you persevere. The frequency of erroneous, unproven or irrational statements in your essay approaches the limit of continuous, and yet you relentlessly pursue your ultimate goal: a sensible conclusion.

In your conclusion, you state what I assume to be your main point: “”But it’s time we took them (the Founding Fathers) down a few pegs by abandoning the pretense that morality somehow depends on what a group of men two hundred years ago thought.”” If I ignore that your statement is incredibly imprecise and borders on meaning nothing at all, I would respond that I personally don’t know anyone who bases their morality on the Founding Fathers, and therefore I find your point, if indeed you had one, irrelevant. Or if you meant that we shouldn’t pay as much attention to their writings, then we need to create a new country, since their writings define and guide our country. I seriously doubt, though, that you actually knew what you meant by your conclusion.

Nevertheless, you continue with your proof: “”The mere fact that the Constitution has had to be amended at all beyond the Bill of Rights is evidence that they didn’t get everything right.”” Yet the mere fact that the Constitution can be amended, and includes methods for doing so, Mr. Kessinger, is evidence that the Founding Fathers did get it right, and it also proves that they had more wisdom and humility than you can ever hope for in your lifetime. It would behoove you to show at least a little thankfulness to those who gave you your First Amendment right, which allows you to publish such an arrogant and nonsensical essay.

In closing, I find it fascinating that you made perfectly clear in a previous article your love of Charles Darwin’s ideas and writings, and yet somehow you reject the notion that we can know anything about the Founding Fathers. Certainly there exist more writings, traditions, and personal stories passed down regarding the Founding Fathers and their ideas than there are for Mr. Darwin and his. So which is it, Mr. Kessinger? Can we know about people in the past, or can’t we? Or does it, perhaps, depend on whether we like what they have to say?

Michael A Schaffner

systems engineering freshman

Students should not have to pay for leaders’ mistakes

Today, more than ever, it’s important to remember that actions still speak louder than words.

President Robert Shelton is proposing an “”economic recovery surcharge”” to student tuition. This, after declaring that President Obama’s stimulus money to Arizona is temporary, and that the cuts to the budget “”that we have had to take to our state appropriation this year are permanent”” and that “”we expect additional permanent cuts”” (http://www.president.arizona.edu/prescomm_more.cfm?f_ID=102), is the action that we should associate with any of his or the rest of the Arizona government’s leadership when we hear their declarations of the value of education.

Many Americans have been outraged at the bank bailouts. We should be even more outraged that education funds have been exhausted so much that that our “”leaders”” now have to tax students’ education to recoup funds lost during this economic crisis.

Christopher Floess

German studies senior