Netlets for Wednesday, Sept. 10

A call to the parties I am sorry that the Democrats and the Republicans have such a low opinion of my ability to discern the differences between the candidates that they believe I will vote for one because he is black or the other because there is a woman on the ticket.

I want to know where their party and their candidates stand on the issues of the day. I want to examine their records. I am not swayed by "feel good" rhetoric.

Tell me where you stand on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Show me how you will keep our planet from going up in flames or under water from global warming. Persuade me that you can achieve consensus among the various constituencies. Do you believe in and support the entire Constitution of the United States of America including the Bill of Rights? I will vote for the candidate whose campaign positions are not directly opposite their record of achievement. I do not know who that candidate is today. I will be looking forward to straight answers to hard questions, even if the answer is "I don't know, but I am studying it."

FRANCES J. STACHOUR, BLOOMINGTON

Going into a box and coming out I'm surprised not to have seen more reaction in recent days to the central metaphor used by Sen. John McCain in his acceptance speech last Thursday. The idea of entering a box and emerging without an ego brought to mind experiences touted once upon a time by Wilhelm Reich and Timothy Leary. (As did his choice of Sarah Palin as a running mate, by the way.)

I suppose the connection he was hoping we'd make was with Jesus' entering his tomb and emerging alive three days later. The problem with this idea is that if Jesus Christ had emerged at the Republican National Convention he'd have been laughed out of the place as a community organizer.

BILL VIETH, ST. PAUL

This security-above-all principle has been used to justify all kinds of government abuses from detainee mistreatment, to terrorist and protester dragnetting, to domestic spying.

The tenet is lazy and unfair in its lack of nuance; it's ineffective (even counter-effective) because by demonizing groups of people under our security dragnets, we demonize ourselves in the eyes of those who witness our lawless immorality; and it's simply an affront to our love of freedom.

We seem to once again believe, with historical amnesia, that security and power beget freedom. One need not look to the former Soviet states for evidence of this fallacy, we can heed the admonitions of our own statesmen: Ben Franklin famously warned of the competing nature of security and freedom and clearly favored the latter; Dwight Eisenhower, too, warned of the dangers to our freedom posed by the "military-industrial complex."

We are rapidly transforming from a country that uses its power to defend its freedoms into one that uses its power to the detriment of its freedoms. These days, whenever we are witness to constitutional abuses and the excess of government might, we hear the same refrain: "We kept you safe, didn't we?" It's time we demanded more than that.

BEN SEYMOUR, MINNEAPOLIS

STEVE WEYANDT, ST. PAUL

EDITOR'S NOTE: The video can be seen at http://www.startribune.com/politics/27969359.html?elr=KArksUUUU

March on the RNC, eat at the Grill Two friends and I participated in the Labor Day March on the Republican National Convention. None of us is a radical, and we were engaged in a respectful, peaceful protest. We range in age from 54 to 64. Two of us were wearing "March on the RNC" T-shirts. After the march, we ate at the St. Paul Hotel Grill.

The restaurant staff was efficient and friendly. We ate, paid our bill, and left the Grill without incident. While two of us were in the women's room, the third waited in the small hallway nearby. A man who said he represented the hotel came up and told her to leave. She questioned why, and he would only say that the hotel manager instructed him to tell her to go. When my other companion and I came out of the women's room, this man also told us to leave. The manager was standing within earshot. When I explained to him that we were Grill customers, he said he knew this, but now it was time for us to go. He refused to explain why.

Our conclusion is that we were told to leave because we were visibly peace protesters. That morning on Minnesota Public Radio, Mayor Chris Coleman welcomed both GOP delegates and peace protesters to St. Paul, further stating how important free speech and freedom of expression are. Could this possibly mean that, regardless of our political beliefs, age, race, religion, gender, sexual preference, etc., we should all have access to places like the St. Paul Hotel? Apparently, the manager of the St. Paul Hotel wasn't listening to the mayor's greeting or to the peace protesters chant: "This is what democracy looks like!"

MARY LOGELAND, MINNEAPOLIS; BUSINESS OWNER

Still miffed about the aggressive police presence We felt the puffed-up, inflated testosterone of the Minneapolis police even in our peaceful, green-friendly neighborhood by the Mississippi. Nightly we had to endure helicopters flying over our homes as if we were harboring terrorists. Many more police squads than usual would slow and stare at us 50-somethings taking our evening heart-friendly walks on West River Parkway.

I personally was lunged at by a lady security officer on Nicollet Mall while answering an angry RNC-er who instigated a verbal spar about my political shirt. As my father used to say, "If you walk around with a chip on your shoulder, someone is going to knock it off for you."

Take heed law enforcement of Minneapolis and St. Paul. You are as much to blame as the people you accused (in real time as well as preemptively) for the trouble that came down during the RNC. And to the mayors of Minneapolis and St. Paul, shame on you both for allowing this "police occupation" to go on in our progressive cities.