Voice Of The People

SOUDER IS IGNORANT OF IMPORTANT FACTS

To the editor:

I read with interest the letters sent by citizens supporting Rep.
Mark Souder. I have to comment on some things said about him and his
supposed "representation."

I have seen Mr. Souder make comments that make me embarrassed to be
from Indiana. My most vivid memory was years ago in the federal
investigations regarding Waco, Texas, and the Branch Davidian cult.
Mr. Souder actually said, on national TV, that if we went in to stop
David Koresh because of the allegations of child abuse and incest,
shouldn't we also go after places like Kentucky and Georgia where
these things happen all the time? This prompted an angry response
from the representatives of those states and made me cringe to think
we had such an ignorant man to represent Indiana.

More recently, I read an article in the paper by Mr. Souder regarding
terrorism and its similarities to the war on drugs; specifically,
where he mentioned new strains of potent marijuana from Canada which
he said were "as dangerous as cocaine." No one familiar with the
pharmacology of these drugs would make such an uninformed remark. To
compare the two, with the exception of their legal status, as
anything similar is simply wrong. To suggest that marijuana, at any
potency, could be anywhere near as dangerous as cocaine only serves
to foster the misinformation spread by a failed drug war.

In another instance, Mr. Souder was speaking at Saint Francis College
and was asked by the Students for a Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP) group
to explain his authoring of laws which deny federal aid to students
convicted of drug offenses. To do this unfairly targets poor students
and minorities, and denies what troubled students need most - their
education. Does it really make sense to deny a higher education to a
student convicted for smoking marijuana and not someone who broke
into a house and held people at gunpoint? Mark Souder defended his
bill, saying that he agrees that people trying to turn their lives
around need an education and the Clinton administration interpreted
his bill to include all students who have ever been convicted of a
drug offense (instead of only students who are convicted during the
loan period, his original intent). Seems that his bill should have
been written less ambiguously or even better, not at all.

In recent letters it has been suggested that Paul Helmke did nothing
good for Fort Wayne, turning a blind eye and letting
sexually-orientated businesses come into the area. Make no mistake,
these businesses exploit only one group of people: men and their
wallets. There is nothing wrong with these businesses, there is just
a lot of controversy caused by conservatives pushing their version of
morality and dealing with fears about their own sexuality. Besides,
sexually-oriented businesses are nothing new to Fort Wayne.

Mark Souder is using the politics of convenience and the language of
doublespeak to hide his own ignorance of important facts. I'm voting
for Paul Helmke, less because he has all the answers but more than
that, he isn't Mark Souder.

Jon Blackman

Kendallville