Mailbag: Blessing of cheating scandal? Early intervention

Show me a politician tangled up in corruption or a business person who has bent the rules, cooked the books, manipulated expense reports, fudged on production standards or otherwise buried the truth, and I will show you someone who cheated in school and got away with it.

The parents of the children involved in the Corona del Mar High School cheating scandal, no matter the level of their culpability, have a unique opportunity to do the right thing. Be a parent and teach your kids something that neither an attorney nor the school board — nor for that matter an Ivy League, blue-chip school — can teach them: accountability and responsibility.

Rather than trying to avoid punishment based on some minor point, reinforce the message that breaking rules is not without consequence. In the long run, this could be the cheapest lesson these young people and their families will ever receive.

Otherwise, these children might find themselves needing legal counsel for much bigger issues later in life.

Nancy Carpenter

Newport Beach

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Hoag deal doesn’t quash concerns

Re. “Attorney general, Hoag Hospital reach accord on abortion,” (April 4): Despite the agreement, Hoag Hospital continues to ban legal, elective abortions.

Now we are asked to believe Hoag officials when they say they will not be bound by other strictures that the hospital’s new partner, a Catholic hospital chain, places on such issues as end-of-life provisions, but given the history, I don’t know why we should.

John Patrick Ormsbee

Newport Beach

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Support unpasteurized products

Please support Assembly Bill 2505, which would give California’s small family farms a legal means for putting their raw milk to use instead of throwing it away.

If free Americans want to acquire raw dairy products, as our forefathers consumed, we should be free to do so. We do not fight to force the ignorant consumers of pasteurized, homogenized products to improve their health by joining us. They are free to make their own — incorrect, as some of us believe — choice.

Mark Burcaw

Newport Beach

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High court ruling stomps on Constitution

While I strongly believe in the fundamental rights of our Constitution, I was astounded and cannot believe the absolute absurdity and misdirection of those select members of the Supreme Court in voting an interpretation that money equals free speech.

This clearly discounts our Constitution’s basic premise that people should be treated with equality and grants only 1% of the wealthiest full oligarchical powers of influence.

This blatant slap in the face of Americans by so-called justices ignores the consequence of such plutocratic ideology — those with extreme wealth being able to squelch the collective voices of those with less money. Money undeniably equals power, thereby removing the equality of votes of individuals.

Therefore, the costly but widespread promulgation of the self-aggrandizing, libelous and misleading ads that are promoted as facts destroys our democracy.

Sheila Blades

San Juan Capistrano