Readers write (April 26): Guantanamo, voter identification, the role of government, the North Side, stadiums

"Gitmo detainees get a Twin Cities defense" (April 22) omitted the reason these prisoners are being held at Guantanamo in the first place.

Just as the rich use offshore tax shelters to limit their taxes, our government has used offshore prisons -- and those in many other countries -- in an attempt to limit legal protections such as habeas corpus.

Guantanamo was created to evade the law; that is its disgrace.

CHUCK TURCHICK, MINNEAPOLIS

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In response to all of the folks issuing opinions about whether a photo ID should be required when voting, I ask, "Should you not have a photo ID anyway?" I read a letter from an election judge who states that there isn't a problem and another from a concerned citizen whose father is immobile due to Parkinson's.

To the election judge: Perhaps in your small world, it isn't a problem. But how do you know? Do you know the face of every name on your voters list?

In my experience, I could hand my voter registration card to any guy on the street and ask him to go vote for me. He'd walk into the voting establishment, present the card and confirm "his name," and he'd be handed a form to vote.

In my voting history, no check to make sure that I'm actually me (for example, photo ID) has ever been done. That, fellow citizens, is cause for alarm.

NICHOLAS KILDUFF, CHAMPLIN

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A year ago, my 92-year-old parents moved from Iowa to the Twin Cities to be near family. Several months later, we started the process of obtaining picture IDs.

None of this process is free, so seniors and nondrivers on limited income will have to come up with dollars to pay for the IDs as well as the extra paperwork if needed. We started the paperwork in August but did not receive the IDs in time to vote.

Sadly, I believe that picture IDs are a way to disenfranchise more legal voters than prevent fraudulent ones.

KAY KRAMER, ST. ANTHONY

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We have asked our government to protect us from terrorists, thus causing it to engage in war. We ask it to provide us with sustenance, protection and relief whenever a strong wind blows or a river overflows.

At the same time it is somehow to provide us all with jobs and a low level of unemployment. Oh, and even though it is faced with higher expenses for defense, medical, etc., we demand it to reduce staff and its source of revenue.

If private industries such as oil refineries during times of high oil prices, food producers in times of killing frosts or drought, or pharmaceutical companies experiencing high research and development costs were to reduce their source of revenue during these crises, they would end up in the same predicament as our government. Instead, they raise their prices to compensate for their costs.

Yet there are those who insist that government should further reduce its source of revenue. Isn't this somewhat incongruent?

RICHARD RASER, SAVAGE

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People living on the North Side often have a right to be angry, such as when promises of a much-needed large library fall through because people are more worried about the stadium and convention center downtown.

Or when I see the annual Holiday on 44th event, which brings 500 or more residents together in the dead of winter despite never having received funding by the city as similar events do.

The relatively new coffee shop 42nd Avenue Station, at the corner of N. 42nd St. and Lyndale Avenue, is becoming a real hot spot thanks to another visionary entrepreneur and longtime North Side resident, Bobby Rice. So many local residents are working hard behind the scenes and get little or no recognition.

If people want to know more about the area, they should have their groups get on the North Side historical bus tour by contacting Susan Breedlove. They could also visit a meeting of the Camden Historical Society on the second Saturdays of the month at the Methodist Church on 44th Street N. and Fremont Avenue.

People of the North Side, arise and make more demands of your political leaders. Support North Side businesses so more tax base for the inner city can be had.

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A letter writer had me considering his call for kindness to sports fans and community support of new stadiums until he got to the part where he admitted that following sports was an "escapist drama."

Once we all admit that this is what modern sport has become, the answer as to who should pay for new stadiums becomes crystal-clear. Taxpayers who are already under a heavy burden should not have to pay for anything that is merely escapist drama.

CINDY ROHDE, ZIMMERMAN, MINN.

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