Importance of being united

Winning spirit

Regarding “Even when Texans win, they lose,” (Dec. 19): As an original season ticket holder for the Houston Texans, I could not disagree more with Brian Smith and others who seem to lament the Texans playing together as a team and winning against Jacksonville. Winning is more about putting players on the field who develop a lasting winning spirit than about securing a specific position in the upcoming draft, especially when there is no consensus No. 1 pick who could possibly turn the Texans into contenders.

Fan support is important to the development of the Texans' future. I personally enjoyed watching the remaining players and COVID substitutes putting it together to get a team win last Sunday. An effort like we saw Sunday is what will build a team for the future. Tanking it is for short-term and long-term losers.

Kelly Frels, Houston

More perfect union

Regarding “Opinion: Why should we care about what happens in Kentucky?” (Dec. 22): John M. Crisp is right on target laying out the baneful effects of states' rights, often asserted to preserve racist wrongs, but one statement in his column was demonstrably false after 1787: “The Founders thought of our nation as a confederation of independent states whose mutual obligations were limited.” Grover Norquist wanted a federal government small enough to be drowned in a bathtub.

We had that under the Articles of Confederation, and we damn near drowned. The framers of our Constitution were determined to correct this weakness and set out to do so. During the debates, Gouverneur Morris of New York stated, “We cannot annihilate the States, but we may perhaps take out the teeth of the serpents.” The first draft of the preamble read: “We the people of the states,” rattling all 13 off by name. The final draft read: “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union … do ordain and establish this Constitution.” Among its purposes of this more perfect union were to “promote the general Welfare,” presumably also that of Kentucky in the wake of a tornado, or the health of our population in a pandemic.

Walter D. Kamphoefner, Bryan