Letters to the Editor: Is the police union's president in denial?
Is police union head in denial or
is he in need of a civics lesson?
Re: May 9 article, "Austin voters overwhelmingly say yes to marijuana, no-knock warrant ballot measure."
After the no-knock measure passed overwhelmingly, Ken Casaday, president of the Austin Police Association remarked, “We don’t believe that will affect us. The city of Austin cannot tell the police chief how to run his department when it comes to safety, and we fully expect to continue to do search warrants … . I don’t think this will affect anything.”
Seems Casaday is either in denial of the vote passed or ignorant of his department’s placement on the City of Austin’s organizational chart and needs a simple civics lesson. I was a city of Austin employee for almost 25 years and know all department directors answer to assistant city managers, which report to the city manager. The city manager reports to the city council and my review of the current COA organizational chart clearly shows that the city council reports to the residents of the city of Austin.
Mark Medley, Del Valle
As was the case with prohibition,
outlawing abortion will never work
The 1973 Roe v. Wade decision was a compromise by the Supreme Court, knowing full well that no compromise would be perfect. The compromise worked for decades and would continue to work if extremists on both sides would accept compromise, which is never. The draft ruling of today’s Supreme Court is a colossal error in reasoning. It is not like Chief Justice John Roberts said, “call[ing] balls and strikes.” Think about that their analogy: changing a call 50 years after the event is asinine in baseball and equally destructive for legal precedent.
Like prohibition, outlawing abortion will never work. After a century of agitation prohibition succeeded in 1920, and after learning the hard way, ended in 1933. Expect something similar here.
As a country, we must ask ourselves, should extremists of any ilk govern our state and country? No! Never support political extremists or our country will cease to exist. Mark these words.
Don Batory, Austin
If you value preserving democracy,
vote in overwhelming numbers
The time has come to face reality. Our fellow citizens, along with many politicians who should know better, have ingested the Kool-Aid and are rapidly pushing us toward fascism. If anyone has any doubts about that I challenge you to read the playbook history of the fascist takeovers of Germany and Italy.
The portion of the population racing to end democracy is apparently well beyond persuasion so I speak to the remaining majority. If you value issues like gun safety, voting rights, truth, privacy, immigration resolutions (rather than cheap stunts), and above all the preservation of our democracy, there can only be one choice: Vote in overwhelming numbers!
Determine which of your voting options believe in the right we as citizens are expecting and demanding to maintain our democracy, and vote accordingly. It can — and is — happening here.
Lyle Davidson, Austin
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Austin American-Statesman Letters to the Editor: May 20, 2022
