Letters: Readers discuss Trump’s mistreatment, rights versus privileges and our health
Unfair to Trump
Wednesday’s front-page story, “States confront practical dilemmas on reopening,” did not report the facts regarding President Donald Trump and the governors.
In his Tuesday news conference, Trump stated that the governors are responsible for controlling their states’ recoveries and that the federal government is there to help. He said that more than once. There is no conflict with the governors on this account, but that’s not what the story suggested.
A very few governors — such as New York’s Andrew Cuomo, who seems to be bucking for a spot on Joe Biden’s ticket — criticize the president regardless of the facts. I am surprised The Star printed this story without any caveats. The same seems to pertain to letter writers who criticize the president for the timing of his reaction to the coronavirus. Everything he has done is open to public record.
Check the facts and you’ll find his actions are often wrongly criticized as unwarranted and even racist.
- David Napoli, Gladstone
Follow the leaders
We will know when it is safe to reopen the economy when all the members of Congress return to the floors of their respective chambers to do the people’s business.
Until then, I’ll keep my social distance.
- Bud Nolker, Leawood
Trust the facts
President Donald Trump is again pursuing a dangerous timeline for reopening the economy. Our capacity to have a robust testing and contact-tracing program like South Korea’s is nowhere close to sufficient. Worse, Missouri Gov. Mike Parson is signaling his eagerness to go with Trump’s sociopathic plan to trade lives for the economy.
People of Kansas City, you may be our last hope for a sane pandemic response plan rooted in the facts of infectious disease rather than political ideology. I implore you, together with our county public health officials and hopefully those in St. Louis, to continue to seek the expertise of people such as Dr. Anthony Fauci and to resist Trump and Parson, for all our sake.
Although my education was in microbiology and immunology, I am also a Christian who is appalled by the inhumane, Malthusian calculus of Republican politicians deceitfully promoting the false narrative that we can get our economy back by engaging in blatant human sacrifice.
I will pray for all our local, state and national leaders to have the strength to remain steadfast in protecting our well-being even as powerful officials plot to the contrary.
- Ernest Phillips, Kansas City
To the courts?
Mayor Quinton Lucas announced this morning an extension of our stay-at-home order from April 24 to May 15.
The governor of Kansas rewrote her executive order limiting gatherings to 10 people or fewer to rescind the exemption for places of worship. The Kansas Legislative Coordinating Council overturned the order because it infringed on the right of the people to peaceably assemble and it abridged their religious liberty. The Kansas Supreme Court issued an emergency ruling in favor of the governor.
Across the nation, at least two pastors have been arrested because they continued to have worship services. In one Louisiana church, there were reportedly 1,000 people in attendance on Easter.
If any of these cases, or maybe a class action suit, makes its way to the Supreme Court, the core issue will be whether our freedoms are really inalienable, God-given rights or privileges the government bestows and can rescind when it considers necessary.
I think all Americans should be praying about that court decision. It may take years for such a case to work its way through the system, but now is the time to pray.
- Mike Sands, Kansas City
Wrong connection
The COVID-19 pandemic crisis dramatically reveals the folly of tying health insurance to employment.
Federal Reserve economists predict 47 million workers could lose their jobs by June 30. For many among those millions, the loss of employment tragically results in the loss of health coverage for them and their families.
Despite the warnings of epidemiologists, America was ill prepared for this pandemic. But did anyone anticipate the harm caused by the link between health insurance and employment?
There is no practical, logical or moral reason for health insurance to be tied to one’s job.
Martin Luther King Jr. was correct: “Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health is the most shocking and the most inhuman because it often results in physical death.”
- Mary Lindsay, Kansas City