Letters: Readers discuss U.S. drug appetite, billionaires’ good and Trump’s ethics
In the numbers
Here’s an idea for honoring Martin Luther King Jr. with a street: Pick a numbered road. Stop picking streets, avenues and boulevards that have significance in the history of Kansas City.
How about 39th Street?
- Christine Foutts, Lee’s Summit
We’re the cause
Monday’s editorial “Hawley is right about drugs from Mexico” (7A) was fine, well thought-out and well-written. But why is it that no one ever talks about the rest of the story?
Who is buying all these illegal drugs? Americans.
Who is forcing them to buy the drugs? No one.
Who is forcing them to use them? No one.
American citizens are funding the illegal drug market. If there were no demand, there would be no supply. How about some editorials about that?
- Barbara Young, Independence
The job creators
I don’t know if I have read a more anti-American commentary than Farhad Manjoo’s Nov. 8 “Don’t just sigh, ‘OK boomer.’ Take on the rich.” (9A)
He states that we should abolish billionaires and “demolish the rich who run the world today.” Best I can tell, billionaires gave thousands of journalists their jobs in newsrooms. So if we abolish billionaires, people who work at Bloomberg News and The Washington Post, as well as Amazon and Whole Foods, could be out of jobs.
I once watched a billionaire say on TV that when he dies, he has instructed his family to give away all his money. What is wrong with that?
- Alan Allio, Olathe
Self-preservation
The author of a Nov. 1 letter to the editor objected to doctors who turn away families who do not vaccinate their children. (8A) I was the first pediatrician in the Kansas City area to fire families who refuse to vaccinate their children.
The most important reason is that we have unimmunized babies and immune-compromised children and adults sitting in our waiting rooms. Unvaccinated children are a terrible risk to those innocents who count on our protection.
Another reason for firing ignorant people like them from my practice: If you won’t take my advice on the single most important thing I do to promote individual and public health, why should I bother with you?
You don’t deserve the passionate, intelligent and highly educated care that I deliver.
Lastly, if I did allow unvaccinated children in my office, you would probably be the first to sue me for being negligent if your grandchild got measles in my waiting room and was brain damaged for life.
- Charles F. Cockerell, Blue Springs
Old warnings
Since 1893, the U.S. Senate has read George Washington’s Farewell Address on the first president’s birthday. We need to take a roll call to make sure both Missouri senators are in attendance.
Washington said the Constitution “is sacredly obligatory upon all.” In contrast, President Donald Trump has denounced its “phony emoluments clause,” which bars public officials from taking gifts from foreign governments.
Washington said the system of political parties “opens the door to foreign influence and corruption.” We have seen many Trump associates plead guilty to taking gifts from Russian President Vladimir Putin’s cronies, resulting in reduced U.S. influence in Syria, Ukraine and NATO.
Washington counseled that “those entrusted with (the government’s) administration (should) confine themselves within their respective constitutional spheres.” White House staff should put a towel over Washington’s portrait when Trump speaks from the East Room calling our legislative and judicial branches “the deep state.”
Washington predicted government officials would “seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual” and turn “this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.” Trump seems to respect Putin’s Russian success.
Washington made it clear it is our responsibility to perpetuate the Constitution. I fear it is in the wrong hands.
- David H. Smith, Albany, Missouri
And that’s all?
After reading the Nov. 8 story “Trump fined for misuse of charity foundation,” (2A) I wondered why no one was going to jail. Having been on several 501(c)(3) boards, I know it is against the law to use a foundation’s money for personal use. It is also the board’s responsibility to make sure no illegal acts occur.
So President Donald Trump uses money from his foundation to buy a portrait of himself, and all that happens is he is told to give money to charity? And his children (who are adults, by the way) simply have to undergo training for running a foundation? Unbelievable.
- Susie Rawlings, Leawood