By File/carlos Barria/pool Via Ap,From Our Post and Courier Readers

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I suggest that the South Carolina Department of Transportation divide its areas of responsibility and poll residents to see what signage and other remedies are needed. To state the obvious, master planning was deficient in predicting the needs of communities with the additional migration of new residents. My concern is for the safety and overall quality of life for all who live and work in the beautiful Charleston area.

DONNA LEISTER

Summerville

God-given rights

I read online that U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., recently expressed the same perspective that I share concerning God-given rights and was ridiculed by Republicans. The Republican argument was based on the words expressed in the Declaration of Independence. We all know those words, which include “We hold these truths to be self-evident.”

How are they self-evident?

The words that follow are all assumptions based on religious thought. The defense of God-given rights conflicts with established laws that seek to restrict those rights based on religious beliefs, in foreign countries as well as our own. In our country, much debate is ongoing regarding the shift toward Christian nationalist beliefs, which contradict the constitutional prohibition on restricting religious beliefs and even freedom of expression. That shift, I believe, is self-evident.

The dialogue of “agree to disagree” is no longer a path to compromise. Instead, it has become “prove me wrong.” That concept is witnessed on both sides of the political spectrum. Today, the attempts to consolidate power through gerrymandering, combined with a Supreme Court that appears, at times, to base judicial review on ideology rather than law, show that the Declaration of Independence’s inalienable rights are no more self-evident now than they were then.