Marin IJ Readers’ Forum for July 3, 2022

Apparent values of recent court decisions troubling

Well, well, what have we here? Apparently, it is a Supreme Court that is OK with criminalizing a woman’s right to choose what she can and will do with her body. At the same time, these “loving folks” say it is OK for people (who will most likely be men) to carry firearms.

From my perspective, it looks like women must carry children that they either can’t care for or in spite of knowing they will not be good parents. Then, when the little ones get big enough to go to school, we will send them where they can be victims of open-carry gun laws to be easily murdered in a future school massacre. I find these apparent values to be extremely frustrating.

I surmise there are must more than a few men who don’t agree with a woman being a whole citizen. Remember women have only had the right to vote since August 18, 1920. At least the majority of leaders on the West Coast are saying sane things on this topic.

— Sally Seymour, San Rafael

Marin should ignore state housing mandate

None of the articles and editorials reporting on housing quotas as mandated by the state ever seem to go into detail as to what would actually happen if we said no.

Money would be lost from Sacramento, no doubt, as punishment, but how much are we talking about? If the money comes in the form of a tax from Marin residents to the state, what if the county leaders and the leaders of our small towns were to pull off an old-fashioned tax revolt and keep that money?

It wouldn’t be the first tax revolt this country has ever seen. An escrow account to store our tax money could be set up by our clever lawyers, for local use and control. We could even end up better off than we were before. We might have to tighten our belts, like not hiring so many high-priced, out-of-town consultants. But we can live within our means.

I live by the law of the universe that says something can really be messed with just once.

— Sandy White, Woodacre

It is time to eliminate guns, 2nd Amendment

In his letter to the editor entitled “Don’t distort meaning of Second Amendment,” Hank Zucker has hit the nail on the head.

In David Kaplan’s book “The Most Dangerous Branch,” the author quotes former President Richard Nixon after he appointed Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger:

“The conservative chief justice … called the (Second Amendment) an anachronism, created at a time that a state militia, ‘like a rifle and powder horn, was as much a part of life as the automobile is today,’” Nixon said of Burger. “(Burger) fumed that the Second Amendment had been “the subject of one of the greatest pieces of fraud — I repeat the word ‘fraud’ — on the American public by special interest groups that I have ever seen in my lifetime. … If the militia, which was going to be the state army, was going to be ‘well regulated,’ why shouldn’t (teenagers) be regulated in the use of arms the way an automobile is regulated?”

The campaign contributions of the gun companies to Congress members are nothing short of bribes. They work contrary to the will of the people. The people want guns regulated. In a civilized society in the 21st century there is no need for people to carry guns.

It is time to repeal and replace the Second Amendment and eliminate the vast majority of guns across the country.

— Toby Marion, Tiburon

Tale of how state was named needs more detail

I am writing in response to the recently published Marin Voice commentary by Carol McKee Marque (“The mythical queen behind state name has been through it all,” June 27).

I think it is a wonderful idea to honor and portray the mythical Black Amazonian Queen Calafia on California’s state seal and elsewhere if the state is actually named after her. But I think McKee Marque fell short of proving it really is named after the character.

Instead of providing evidence, the commentary goes off into a confused, confusing and possibly wrong assertion of how the state was named. Black lives do matter, even when presented with the laudable intention of highlighting centuries-long endemic racism. However, distortion of history hurts rather than helps the cause.

— Bill O’Connell, San Rafael