Letters are posted as we receive them during the week, and before they are printed in the paper, so check back frequently to see new letters. If you'd like to send a letter to the editor, use this postmarks submission form, or email your letter directly to mail@austinchronicle.com. Thanks for your patience.

Dear Editor,
    The only moral reason we exist is to defend the dignity of humanity by fighting and defeating evil. Through the toil of history, this reality has slowly and painfully become clear. Prosperity produced by postmodern individual liberty established – specifically – in America and Europe has made this obvious. To be sure, the last 200 years of ever-increasing well-being has required identifying tyrannical evil and vanquishing it in order for liberty to thrive.
    In recent decades there have been serious efforts to deny this reality. Why this is basically goes to an astoundingly complex and yet crystal-clear existential battle between objective reason and subjective emotion. Hubris, envy, and addiction to power empowered by the clique of morally unintelligible populism are the forces of emotion – leftism. Reason precisely translates to open evaluation without personal bias empowering those pathologies – American conservatism. If emotion prevails so will tyranny, enslavement, and misery – allowing evil. Conversely, reason enables liberty and prosperity to soar – giving power to human dignity.
    Barack Obama and the Democratic Party are misguided but committed leftist populists striving to cement their rule over all by replacing individual liberty with all-encompassing fiat government. Their most egregious attempt is to incorporate under federal central command all providers of health care for all Americans. They understand this is the most stealthy velvet-chains and immediate way to place us all under their authority. From that vantage they wield the ultimate hammer to destroy individual liberty – slavery by taxation and its necessary policing force (not to mention sub-par insensitive government health care).
    We’ve had a reprieve. Federal Judge Clyce Roger Vinson ruled Jan. 31 that the ObamaCare health care takeover is unconstitutional. He even cited James Madison. Vinson is indeed assisting the protectors of dignity and the enemies of evil – liberty and America!

Dear Editor,
    Thank you for your great article about Texas redistricting [“Painting by Numbers,” News, Jan. 28]. As a relatively new resident of Austin, I greatly appreciated the background. I knew state Democrats had gone to my home state (Oklahoma), but I had forgotten why. I am saddened that such desperate recourse is no longer an option.
    I would be curious to know the logic in "flatly" shaped districts, in any portion of the country. In a state such as Texas, with such a wide variety of geography, culture, and economy, it seems even stranger. With the unfocused eye, even districts 11, 19, and 13 are bafflingly complex. What happened to circles and squares?
    To me, it would seem more logical, if long-distance representation is necessary, then it should probably match up against interstate and major highway routes, as districts 2, 15, 26, 27, and 28 do.
   I don't understand how a logical person or group of people could come up with districts 10, 14, 17, 19. The insertion of District 6 through such a bottleneck is embarrassing, and to expect people in suburban Fort Worth to voice their concerns to the same person as those in rural East Texas seems inefficient and wasteful. District 5's cell division looks as though a spore is floating away.
    I only took one class in geometry. Perhaps the current Legislature should brush up and let people who are near one another vote together. I know it's more complicated than that, but why?

Dear Editor,
    Re: “Avert Your Eyes” [News, Jan. 28]: Does Rick Perry realize that fewer (not that this bill will empirically lead to that) abortions will mean more kids to kick off CHIP and more public schools to not fund? Probably. Way to go, Texas. Can't this guy be president already so he can stop making a difference?

Dear Editor,
    Is it just me? I don't get the adoration of Sam Beam, Iron & Wine [“Loaded Dice,” Music, Jan. 28]. With so many really talented local musicians here in Austin deserving of press, to continue to praise this guru of mediocrity is puzzling. His banal poetry reminds me of the bad '70s pop band Bread on steroids, yet he continues to get covered as if he is the Second Coming of Jeebus. I don't know – I guess I'm getting old, but I find the orgasmic adulation of this guy and his bad pop poetry just too much. Like I said – I guess it's just me.

   [Editor Louis Black responds: I've long found the argument that by praising one artist somehow the praise for other artists is being limited rather puzzling. In the case of Iron & Wine setting this equation as too much for the former while not enough for the "many really talented local musicians here in Austin …" is especially perplexing. Much of the praise is in the national and international press, which was doing so long before I&W moved to town. Consequently, it's not just an understatement but completely misleading to suggest that coverage of other Austin acts would increase if they were to shift focus from I&W.]

Dear Sir,
    I am opposed to the Austin ISD plan to build a bus depot in our neighborhood at 7200 Bluff Springs Rd. due to serious safety concerns about how increased vehicular traffic will place our children at risk. The project is scheduled to have 150-175 school buses plus 225 employee vehicles making approximately 600 bus trips and 450 employee trips a day to and from this site.
    There are two neighborhood schools, Langford and Perez elementaries, that are within a mile of this proposed project location. I fail to understand the logic of this site due to its proximity to these neighborhood schools, where children in the vicinity are required to walk to school. Being elementary children they are small and unpredictable, which makes the increased traffic created by this project, particularly that of high profile vehicles such as school buses, a particular danger to them.
    Additionally, this will substantially increase traffic on already congested residential streets. There are more desirable sites for this bus depot that are far away from neighborhood schools and on more substantial roads with better infrastructure to support this type of vehicular traffic. There is plenty of available land and better street infrastructure on East Slaughter Lane for example. This site is less than two miles south of the currently proposed location.
    For the safety of our children, I beg the assistance of anyone in our community who is able to help our neighborhood as we fight this project, our children's lives are at risk if you don't. Please, nothing is worth more than the life of a child, and your support can mean the difference between saving them or losing this fight and AISD placing our children at risk with this project.
    We are battling a huge entity – AISD – and we are mere citizens, but with your help we can make a difference. Will you help us, please, help protect our children?