Plenty of good opinions

Your recent Opinion Page, Nov. 2, published a wealth of thought-provoking subjects including a reader's letter and two columnists. An excellent message was sent by Tom Jones in his letter about free speech and common decency, “... Freedom of speech is not license to say anything you want. Common decency should prevail.” Plus much more, including his hope the U.S. Supreme Court will rule favorably in the Westboro Baptist Church free speech case. Right on!

Columnist Ruben Navarrette's column on immigration and deportation problems explains fairly the ever-increasing difficulties dealing with the hundreds of thousands (millions) of illegal immigrants crossing our borders in recent times as well as those who have raised law abiding families in the U.S. going back for years. He relates that of the 392,000 deported last year, more than 50 percent had been convicted of criminal offenses.

The cold fact: for every illegal immigrant deported, American people hire three more and the situation only gets worse. Evidently, the $50 million in fines levied against U.S. employers in the last two years isn't sending the message.

Columnist Kiran Ansari, a recent naturalized citizen, writes of her first voting ballot ever: “Voting is not just my right as an American citizen it is also my duty as a Muslim.” She covers a lot of ground in her ‘eternal optimism' subjects of the column, thoroughly researches each candidate she might vote for, whether afraid of being seen with a Muslim, their stand on immigration reform, racial profiling, ending wars. She's excited that Muslim youths are knocking on doors in the Muslim community to help get out the vote and “reap the benefits of civic engagement.”

She edits the Islamic paper, Chicago Crescent, among other duties. Her column really begs a response.

F.E. Lind

Huntley