Letters for March 27: Convention won’t put your rights at risk

Rights not at risk

I am writing about the grossly misleading March 20 article in the Journal Sentinel titled “Wisconsin legislators put constitutional rights at risk.”

The writer, Karen Hobert Flynn, has many of her purported facts very wrong. She mixes references to Article V in the U.S. Constitution with a “constitutional convention.” Nowhere in Article V does it authorize anyone “to rewrite the U.S. Constitution.”

Article V authorizes states to work together to propose amendments. Any amendment proposal coming out of such an effort could never become part of the Constitution until, and unless, it is ratified by three-fourths of the states (38). Flynn’s suggestion that an Article V convention would lead to loss of rights, or other outlandish results, is simply unjustified fear-mongering.

With our national debt at nearly $20 trillion, most thinking Americans understand that fiscal sanity must be injected into our nation’s governmental system. Three cheers to state Sen. Chris Kapenga for leading Wisconsin toward joining the effort to propose a balanced budget amendment.

Stuart MacPhail
Denver, Colo.

Bring back writing

I’d like to respond to Marshall Lev Dermer’s column, (“Let’s figure out how to teach our students to write again,” Opinions, March 15).

As a sophomore in high school, I completely agree with his proposal to bring back handwriting, but I also feel that it should be done in a different way. Dermer explains that efficient writing should be taught in college, but I disagree. If proper writing can be taught to youths now, then why wait until college?

We can all agree that knowing how to write is a prime element in the English language, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Writing requires a specific thought process and skill that should be developed in the early years of a child. During my elementary years, I was developing these skills, but when we switched to typing on a computer half-way through the year, I lost the skills and benefits I developed with writing by hand.

This can be simply fixed by going back to “the old fashioned way.” So by teaching children in their early years the skills colleges look for, a child can mature his or her ability to write. It also has been proven in tests that writing on paper vs. computer will increase memory and spelling skills.

This issue isn’t just about me; it’s about my generation and the youths who will have to submit college applications. How are we going to be accepted into colleges when the majority can’t even write proper sentences?

Kelly Kuenzi
Milwaukee

Please email your letters to jsedit@ jrn.com, or mail them to Letters to the editor, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, P.O. Box 371, Milwaukee, Wis. 53201-0371. Letters are generally limited to 200 words and are subject to editing.