12/20 Letters: The push to confirm Harris election shows off hypocrisy of NC GOP.

The GOP doesn’t care about preserving even an appearance of impartiality nor an intent to seek a just result in the 9th District election (“NC GOP wants board to certify 9th district election,” Dec. 18). It’s plain the election is tainted by fraud. Neither candidate should be certified until the fraud has been investigated and a determination of the issues is completed after full due process.

In calling for a premature certification, the GOP is shamelessly placing partisan advantage over our democracy. Do the preservation and strengthening of our political institutions mean nothing to them?

A screaming necessity in both our nation and our state is a clarion call for transparency and integrity in our elections. Both political parties should be doing their utmost to promote fairness, transparency, and accuracy, and to show our citizens a commitment to a clean electoral process.

Will the GOP stand behind and take profit from a blatant sham?

James J. Hugenschmidt

Asheville

Respect our laws

I read with great interest the article “The Confederacy lives in NC Law. Why respect that?” (Dec. 13) by Eric L. Muller. The short answer is that we should respect our laws, our Confederate ancestors and the grand principles and causes for which they fought! Muller’s lack of respect and his shallow understanding of history is made very clear by his reference to the conflict as the “Civil War” instead of the more accurate names of “War Between the States” or the “War for Southern Independence.”

I take great exception to the professor’s uninformed references to the gravesite of Annie Carter Lee, which was formerly located in Warren County. I was honored to have served as attorney for the Lee family in the successful move of the gravesite to the Lee Chapel at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Va.. North Carolina did not protect the grave of Annie Carter Lee, and the grave was vandalized on several occasions.

It is not hard to respect the law. It is an honor to respect the Confederacy and the grave of Annie Carter Lee, the precious daughter of General Robert E. Lee.

Larry E. Norman

Louisburg

Cool factor

Regarding “State officials scramble for answers after Apple shuns NC in expansion plan” (Dec. 14): North Carolina and Raleigh leaders should stop prostrating themselves before West Coast cyber barons. Wise up. They are using our proposals to up the ante for their true targets. Raleigh was never in the Apple conversation. We Raleighites must stop this madness before politicians give Dix Park to some Silicon Valley billionaire.

As for that ever-elusive “cool factor,” North Carolina had one until a few years ago: our wide and deep film industry, which was killed by some deep thinkers in the legislature who mistakenly thought that movie tax incentives are a partisan issue. All North Carolinians benefited from those productions; just ask someone in Western North Carolina tourism about payoffs from “Last of the Mohicans,” which are still accruing a quarter century later.

Now Georgia and Louisiana are laughing all the way to the bank after highjacking our film production. North Carolina will never sit at the cool kids’ table without its movie business.

Randall Rickman

Raleigh

Compounded abuse

In the article about church sex abuse it mentions that some sexually abused young women have been made to apologize to the congregation along with their abuser (“Sex abuse alleged in fundamental Baptist churches, including in NC,” Dec. 16). This is sick. It’s like asking a gazelle to apologize for being eaten by a lion. It’s no wonder that many people have and are leaving organized religion. People are finding out that sometimes it’s easier to find one’s spiritual center without being yoked to dogma and doctrine.

Robert H Mulder

Raleigh

Community loss

It is sad and disrupting when budget conditions lead to the loss of the much needed 50-year-old Ten Ten fire station. Neighbors protested and a legislator introduced a local bill to save it. Do those neighbors connect the dots that when politicians promise not to raise taxes it may result in such a loss? Fire stations, among other essentials, are what our taxes pay for. They can’t have it both ways. Cutting taxes sounds good, but when it comes to providing services like fire stations, equipment and fire fighters, it takes tax money to pay for it.

Eleanor Kinnaird

Chapel Hill

Artist’s take

As an amateur artist, I can see a solution to the Silent Sam melodrama. Make him part of a tableau of the War Between The States. Sit a Union soldier beside him with sign:saying: “Brothers no longer at war but brothers now at peace! God Bless America!”

Judy Lamanna

Raleigh

This story was originally published December 19, 2018 at 6:29 PM.