Friday's letters: Government distrust, loss of autonomy, love thy neighbor, more
Sarasota way of life threatened
Sarasota has become a national poster child for those who say the government can’t be trusted with guiding the response to a pandemic – in schools or in hospitals.
Vituperative School Board meetings have made national news. Sarasota Memorial Hospital faces a new slate of board candidates who think they can be trusted to do away with governmental oversight of public health.
What's with us?
More: How to send a letter to the editor
In 1975, anticipating undisciplined growth, Sarasota was the first Florida county to promulgate a comprehensive land-use plan. This past February, our county commission gave mega-developers Rex Jensen and Pat Neal carte blanche to write a new section of the Comp Plan.
Neal now seeks the breathtaking power to put 5,000 homes east of Sarasota, where existing zoning allows for 717 homes.
This would end the rural life of Old Miakka, yet it's framed not as the taking of a 172-year-old community, but rather as a “right” inherent in a developer's private ownership.
Privatizing public health, education and planning radically undermines collective, shared norms. Our imperfect democratic institutions deserve protection from those who’d profit from their extinction.
Our public schools and public hospital, and our comprehensive planning, cannot be for sale.
Tom Matrullo, Lake Sarasota
No ‘empowerment’ in loss of choice
The writer of the Aug. 3 guest column, “A post-Roe America could lead to real empowerment for women,” misses the entire point of protecting abortion rights.
Pregnancy is not about diapers and wipes, nor does it have a thing to do with being married or unmarried. Ending an unwanted pregnancy is about a woman making a choice as to whether she wants to raise a child.
Assuming that ending legal abortion “could” lead to “real empowerment” is absurd.
Women are not “scared and turned off by the thought of raising a child,” as the columnist suggested. They simply want to make the decision for themselves without the government and the people in power trying to tell them what they can do with their own autonomy.
What America does or does not do is irrelevant to a woman when she is pregnant. Not every woman wants to be a mother, just like not every woman wants to be a linguist.
And that is her decision.
Joyce Fuller, Sarasota
Veterans won’t teach students how to riot
A recent letter writer believes a veteran is only capable of teaching rifle cleaning. I served in the Navy, Coast Guard and Air National Guard. Upon retiring, I earned and paid for a master’s in art and a teaching degree.
Some professors spend their careers taking a class or teaching one. One professor taught a class on how to interview and get a job, although he had never applied for one other than teaching. He didn’t have a clue what employers look for or need.
If you get a job, your employer will teach you what he wants you to know. So don’t worry. He needs you as much as you need him.
Veterans, taught by veteran instructors, run a worldwide operation larger than some countries’ economies. They know how to teach, so don’t worry about your children.
Veterans will not teach children liberal “woke” nonsense, or how to protest, riot or walk out on speakers they don’t agree with. Nor will they teach children how to beg working families to pay off their student debt.
They will do just fine.
Larry J. Tracy, Sarasota
Independents need to get in the game
More than 40% of U.S. voters now identify as independent due to distaste for radical left and right politics. By doing so, moderates have left the field to complain from the sidelines. They forfeit to players they do not support.
If you are an independent, get in the game. Join a party, support the moderates and vote in the primary and general elections. Do not let the loud calls of “RINO” or “DINO,” or whatever, bully you off the playing field.
Be a radical activist moderate. Suit up and play. The game needs you.
Ted Samuel, Venice
What’s wrong with 'love thy neighbor'?
Regarding an Aug. 3 letter about a “movement in the Republican Party known as Christian nationalism,” all I can say is the following:
What’s so wrong with love thy neighbor as you love yourself, treat other people like you want to be treated, forgive 70 times 7, care for the poor, don’t lie, don’t steal, don’t cheat, don’t have sex with your neighbor’s wife (“Christian nationalists resemble Taliban”)?
Maybe those Founding Fathers were onto something when they invented the world’s greatest nation. No one forces anyone to believe anything. But it would certainly be better than what we have now.
John M. Alexander, Sarasota
This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Growing distrust of government in Sarasota; no choice, no autonomy
