The following is what our readers sounded off about this week:
Who needs a pawn shop?
To the person who wrote in to "Open a pawn shop," I wouldn't want that in the St. Charles and Tri-Cities area. We've got enough bars that don't even belong here. I don't care for it. Downtown St. Charles, we don't even go in the evening. The pawn shop? That belongs in Chicago. Keep that out of the Tri-Cities.
More praise for Stan Oke
I'm calling about Saturday's Sound Off, and the very nice statement by the lady about the kindness of Stan Oke and how he had been taking care of her and her husband's cars and taking care of members of the community. And I thought, I'm not sure if you'd be up for two atta-boys one week after the other, but for those who may not remember, Stan Oke was a school board member in Batavia for many, many years, and for my 25 years around here, he was the most responsive school board member we've ever had. He listened to the people. And he also was interested in the quality of education and the cost of education. He was a true public servant, besides being a sensitive businessman. I wanted to pass that on about one of Batavia's residents, Stan Oke.
Get rid of guns
I was reading in the paper again about people sounding off. Don't they realize that guns are the quickest and fastest way to kill people? Of course, and that's why we need to get rid of them. Guns are the ones that are killing all the people. Let's get rid of them.
Stop defending the guns
Once again, the gun grabbers, on cue, drag out irrelevant statistics, while cloaking themselves in the Second Amendment. The issue here is not about banning anything that results in death or eliminating evil, but all about effectively constraining those things that people use to purposely kill or harm other people. Comparing items with an exceptional need and daily use, such as autos, planes and food, whose only deaths are accidental, to an item of absolute non-necessity, whose deaths generally result from premeditation and intent, is tortured logic at best. As to our founding fathers, if you believe that their wisdom and perceptions apply equally today as they did over 200 years ago, then you should all be happy with muskets and ban the rest.
Their greedy paws
All governments, federal, state, municipal and the public employees unions, their enablers, seem to think that the taxpayers are nothing more than a large honey pot that their greedy paws can be dipped into, any time they need more money to buy more votes to further the welfare society. My question is, why do we continue to vote in the same tax-and-spend politicians over and over and over?
It's time to cut
If American citizens really think that a crisis was averted, they'd better think again. Look in your pocket this year because you're getting anywhere from an $800 to a $1,300 tax increase, meaning that you are going to have $800 to $1,300 less in your pocket. Obama says he's not going to compromise or deal with the federal government, and yet they didn't cut any spending at all and we've got a $14 trillion debt limit that has been reached and needs to be redone in the next month. Actually, it should have been done by Dec. 31. And that's going to raise our taxes even more. Our government is not paying our bills. It's dictating to us what we can and cannot do, and it's not doing its job. I say the middle class needs to go on strike. We need to tell our government that they work for us, not the other way around, and we need to tell them we're not paying any more taxes until they cut, cut, cut, cut, cut.
Free stuff, paid by taxpayers
I hear this constant term, entitlements, by many liberal organizations. It's a nice-sounding word, but it really means "free stuff, paid for by us taxpayers."
Term limits needed
What a sad commentary on our political system, when Congress takes a well-intended relief bill for hurricane victims and stuffs it with pork. This lunacy must stop. We are long overdue in this country for term limits for Congress.
Why support abortions?
All of America cried on Dec. 14, when so many innocent lives were tragically ended. President Obama said it was the worst day of his presidency. So, I am wondering why President Obama so strongly supports abortions, which also sadly takes the life of an innocent child.
• You can sound off, as well, by calling our Sound Off line at 630-845-5240 or by sending an e-mail to soundoff@kcchronicle.com. Calls must be limited to 1 minute or less.
