Letters to the Editor: Democrats shouldn’t register as Republicans. Do this instead.
Bad idea
I just finished reading the column by Teri Carter regarding changing one’s political registration in order to sabotage the opposing party. I have no objection to people registering however they want. I was a Democrat from 1961-1980, an Independent from 1981-2000 and a Republican from 2001-2021. Evidently, I keep getting smarter as I age.
Let’s see, since the election of Gov. Flem Sampson in 1927, the Democrats have won every election for governor except for four. And, until very recently, even when they didn’t have the governor’s office, they have always had control of the state legislature. Now, after screwing up our state so badly that we were reduced to saying “thank God for West Virginia,” the general public has decided to try the other guys. No, no, no, says Ms. Carter, let’s sabotage the party now in power and get everything back into our clutches. By registering Republican and helping nominate the weakest possible candidate, we’ll really screw up our state and people will flock back to us.
Joe Mercer, Lexington
Bad idea, part II
Teri Carter’s plan for Democrats to vote Republican is the worst advice I’ve ever heard.
First, it proves the Republican narrative that Democrats are sinister and conniving. If I’m going to be honest, I understand this stereotype. As a progressive, it frustrates me how much the Democratic establishment spends “strategizing” instead of canvassing policy information. It looks bad and doesn’t express the party goals.
Secondly, this emboldens Republican conspiracies of election fraud. Even though “party raiding” isn’t a new thing, it sounds like the fraud accusations which led to the Capitol insurrection. And again, it makes us look dishonest.
And finally, it guarantees Democrats will lose progressive candidates during our primaries. Charles Booker nearly beat Amy McGrath in the 2020 senatorial primary with a sliver of the funding. I knew centrist Democrats voting for him over McGrath. But this aforementioned “strategizing” convinced cynical Democrats he was “too progressive”.
Truth is, poor, rural Kentuckians want to fix healthcare, eliminate debt, and protect our land. The problem is right-wing propaganda going unchallenged.
Instead of telling Democrats to be Republican, Teri Carter should ask us to reach out to our Republican friends and family to discuss actual policies which can improve this world.
Bronson O’Quinn, Lexington
Debt ceiling deal
Sen. Mitch McConnell, being ever so vigilant about the fiscal responsibility of this nation, has reluctantly agreed to raise the debt limit in order to keep the country from going into default on its debt. McConnell fails to mention that it is necessary to raise the debt limit not by what President Joe Biden and Democrats have done but is instead necessary to raise the limit for expenses he and Republicans ran up during the Donald Trump years. The $6.7 trillion added to the national debt during the Trump administration fails to get a whimper from McConnell.
Bob A. Sutton, Springfield
Two of a kind
Apparently Mark Zuckerberg has little difficulty in prioritizing Facebook profits with little regard for results which erode personal and social values as well as prey on the vulnerable. Perhaps someone can tell me how the same thinking and actions do not also characterize Sen. Mitch McConnell’s approach to how governmental decisions should be made. It appears selfishness is winning the day.
Charles Myers, Lexington
No to Facebook
I cannot believe how we as a society have sold out to technology. I do not use Facebook. I do not need or rely on others’ opinions of myself to get through a single day. I cherish a quiet moment, listening to the quiet wind as I fall asleep. I awake in the morning and want to go back to sleep. I remember my days in the country with my grandparents; oh how I would love to go back to sleep!
Tara Hopkins, Lexington
Stand up
Leading by example is the true mark of leadership. That’s why it is paramount that all coaches, teachers, first responders, and all other church and community leaders need to be vaccinated and to publicly proclaim their vaccine status. How many more of us must die in order to get this point across. Too many times we hear about someone of real importance in the state dying of COVID unvaccinated. If any of these people infected others, not only would their deaths be sad, but the unintended consequence of their personal choice would have belied the very things they’ve been heralded for. Real character requires making selfless choices that support the health and welfare of the entire community.
I wonder what kind of country we really have if we are guided by the notion of individual freedom when weighed against the collective health and well-being of us all.
Dale Benson, Midway
‘Left’ racist
If you believe that Blacks are too lazy to vote on Election Day so we need multiple days of polling privileges ...
If you believe that Blacks are not smart enough to apply for an absentee ballot so “mail in” voting is needed ...
If you believe that Blacks don’t have enough sense to get a picture ID, such as a driver’s license to present at polling stations ...
If you believe that illegal immigrants should vote in American elections ...
Then you are insulting African Americans and need to ditch your condescending rhetoric toward them. They are not on your plantation. The Left and radical outlets (that would be the Herald-Leader) continue to shift blame to conservatives who know that people of all colors have a lot of sense and are perfectly capable of going to the polls on Election Day or sending in a traceable absentee ballot.
You are the true racists.
Wayne Burns, Lexington
True ‘charade’
When Scott Nickell, a Southland Christian Church pastor, referred to the mitigation practices being used to stop the spread of COVID-19 he got one major thing wrong. The only charade is that he is posing as a “man of God” and espousing stopping masks, testing, and tracing in our schools. Obviously he doesn’t care about his fellow human beings and their children. Perhaps after enough of them have succumbed to COVID-19 and that is reflected in the money that is collected at his church he will change his dangerous and totally inappropriate thinking.
Sara Houston Wellnitz, Lexington
Senate doubts
I wonder if we really need a U.S. Senate. U.S. Sens. Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema suggest maybe not.
Why was the Senate created? To serve as a mosh pit for superheated egos, or to be a filibustering hobble of the majority imposed by the minority of the day, or just to give scantily populated West Virginia the same voice as teeming California? Or was it to legislate for the common good? Whatever the answer, the Senate in effect is often in the hands of whoever can grab the wheel.
Maybe it’s time we did something about this and made some changes.
Will Sutter, Lexington
Decline coming
Today, as an empire nation, we are so critically divided internally. If “United we stand, divided we fall”, then a fall is likely, eventually.
Every past mighty empire has fallen. If it happens to us, it will be the self-inflicted end of America’s great 224-year experiment in democracy.
After Donald Trump lost the 2020 presidential election, he incited the infamous Jan. 6 insurrection on Capitol Hill. I hope that planned, staged happening will not be a precursor to future peril.
I don’t like to be pessimistic, but with all the bitter division that’s going on in our country today, I am pessimistic. We fool ourselves if we believe we are a “God’s most-favored nation.”
Paul L. Whiteley Sr., Louisville
Police role
I remember several years ago before the Black Lives Matter movement began when police departments all over America were complaining about being underpaid and underfunded. They also complained about their departments being grossly understaffed. After the Black Lives Matter protests ended and new policing reforms were being implemented all over the country, putting an end to the centuries old and commonly practiced system of racial profiling, I remember watching police captains on the news saying things like the sky is going to fall and criminals will take over entire cities if racial profiling is made illegal, if they are no longer permitted to use excessive force when they deem it necessary, and if police departments make wearing body cameras mandatory for all officers.
The opposite happened. Turns out our nation’s police departments were a huge part of the problem. There were too many of them. We can see that now because all of those police quit nationwide within the past several years and there is no rush to replace them all or hire new ones. And neighborhoods are actually more peaceful now without all of those cruisers continuously driving through looking for trouble. Or trying to start it.
Yolanda Averette, Lexington
Tough on gangs
It is imperative that we as a community do not attempt to restrict or otherwise hinder law abiding gun owners. The issue lies in the unlawful use of firearms. I grew up on the East End of Lexington and I can tell you that several gangs have made themselves known in our section. The most prevalent is the 530 gang closely followed by street gangs from Cardinal Valley who recruit young teens, primarily MS-13 and its offshoot the 13th Street Crew. The Ambrose and the Sureños gangs have also shown up. They are using children to further their goals. Children are viewed as expendable because they serve less jail time and are often not charged as adults in violent crimes or drug related offenses. This needs to change. Our prosecutors in Lexington need to join forces to make an example to the gang members that they find. This is our city and we should take it back from the street thugs preying on the innocent kids in the community.
Nikolas Coleman, Lexington
Armenian killings
A recent letter to the editor seemed to remember the wrong victims. Writing about the bitter Turk/Armenian history, the writer failed to mention the more than one million Armenians who died at the hands of the Turks before and during World War I. Historians from many different countries (but not Turkey) have acknowledged this genocide, and dozens of nations (the United States included) have rightfully recognized the genocide and displacement that the Turks committed upon the Armenians. The children orphaned by these killings were given to Muslim families and forcibly converted. Before the massacres, there were about two million Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire. By 1922 there were only 388,000.
Turkey’s German allies watched these events with great interest, and even participated. As they learned later that the world was largely disinterested in this awful criminality, they used these lessons to begin their own plans for the Holocaust.
Esther Murphy, Lexington