With our freedoms come responsibilities

I am in shock. Less than a month had passed since the Sandy Hook Elementary School murders, and one of the top grossing movies (gross is an operative word) has been “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” in 3-D. A result of the murders has been high-profile national attention directed toward violence in America, and Americans turn around and pour precious resources into something like this? Seriously?

Instead of wasting a couple of hours or so along with the money dumped down the drain, wouldn’t the time have been better spent doing something to improve someone’s life? So many people have gone around saying that the victims need to be memorialized and never forgotten. I submit that turning around and making a movie like this the No. 1 movie for a week is a signal that the Sandy Hook and other victims of violence are to be disrespected instead of honored.

By now, someone may be thinking, “I have the freedom to see whatever movie I want!” Obviously, you do. What we have lost along the way, however, that alongside freedom is responsibility. The loss of personal responsibility is leading us in a direction far removed from our founders’ intentions. Understand that exercising a freedom to do what you want at the potential expense of others is selfishness. Right now, we are engaged at the national level on how to respond to the violence prevalent in our culture, and a significant number of citizens decide to make a chainsaw massacre movie their No. 1 choice of entertainment.

There is a solution to the shocking violence that threatens to tear apart the fabric of our society. Instead of flocking to a movie theater to catch the latest in gore and debauchery, flock to a church to learn about the love of Jesus Christ. Do that, and maybe we will still have a chance.

Charles A. Layne, Bunker Hill

How the government can save tax money

Let’s get rid of Congress and the House of Representatives. There’s no reason for paying these high-price people. After all, President Obama says he doesn’t need them — that he’ll do as he pleases anyway.

Let’s stop all foreign aid. Most of the countries don’t like us anyway. You can’t bribe countries into liking each other. They have hated each other back in biblical times and always will. If Israel needs help, then we must stand by it till the end.

I’ve been a hunter and gun owner for well over 50 years, and I’m smart enough to know the more guns in proper, legal gun owners’ hands, the less crime there will be. If you don’t believe me, check out the Internet. You’ll find that countries that have strict gun control have more crime per capita.

If we put God back in our lives, we wouldn’t have to worry about crime. Our government was first based on God and the Bible. What has happened, people?

I live in the county. It has to be me who protects my family. The police do a wonderful job, but they can’t be everywhere. In most calls, they are investigating the crime, not catching the thug.

One last thing: I listened to Obama say he had to do something about guns before one more child is killed. I feel for all the friends and families of anyone who’s murdered. But I didn’t hear anything said about the more than 100-a-day babies that are murdered in this country.

Most young people can’t see how much things are changing in this country. Our government will mess things up so bad that only God can fix them — and oh, believe me, God will.

Robert Smith, Russiaville

Before sending stuff to landfill, ‘repurpose’

Recycling is a good idea for the times and a part of our future. A form of recycling, also a good idea, is reusing discarded items for their intended use or for another entirely unrelated purpose — “repurposing.”

We listed an old entertainment center on the Internet for sale in the hope that someone else could put it to good use. It sold the next day with no price haggling. Hard to believe that someone would be so happy to see an old entertainment center, but the buyer appeared to have found a bit of gold. The oak entertainment center of pressed wood was nothing special but still looked good. The lady said she wouldn’t be using it for her TV; she would remodel it into a play kitchen for her granddaughter.

For the sink and counter top: cut a hole in the TV area, drop in a large dog bowl and install a small faucet. For the oven: make the bottom storage area look like a place to bake. Call the right-hand storage area the “refrigerator” and the left-hand storage area the “pantry.”

What a great idea — an entertainment center repurposed for hours of fun.

Repurposing is a great idea; we should all give it a hard look before sending stuff off to the landfills. Uncle Sam might also take a hard look at repurposing when deciding what to do with our hard-earned tax dollars and American jobs. The possibilities to repurpose are limitless, close to the numerous changes experienced during the Industrial Revolution which improved the lives of many of our ancestors, not just a few who felt they were more deserving.

However, that’s another story that our fine politicians will write — or not.

Larry Brooks, Kokomo