The West has long lived comfortably with the assurance that we will never again see the feudal practice of a king claiming new land as a legal right of conquest.
In 1066, for example, when William the Conqueror crossed the channel and took England, he nullified all previous legal landholding, and allocated every town and farm in all of England instead to his generals and favorites as their own hereditary fiefs.
Now, today, in Ukraine, Mr. Putin is serving clear notice that he is asserting a right of conquest by grinding Ukrainian buildings, culture and people into the dust of the earth. He has plans to rebuild the nation in his own image, likely granting his generals and favorites brand new lands of their own.
Chattel slavery was yet another right of conquest, and most recently, was sourced in black Africa. Today, according to reports, ownership of human bodies and minds is a white phenomenon sourced in Eastern Europe. Many thousands of Ukrainians are being deported to Russia where they will work in concentration camps for their new owner, laboring without civil or human rights.
Democracy, prosperity and human rights take work, the kind of work that Americans and Europeans seem no longer willing or even capable of accomplishing.
Kimball Shinkoskey
Woods Cross
Trump defense
draws response
Mr. Bill Hudson makes a claim that Donald Trump kept nuclear weapons away from Iran (Letters, April 7). In fact, Mr. Trump pulled the U.S. out of the Iran nuclear deal in 2018. Since then, Tehran has resumed its enrichment of uranium, restarted research and advanced centrifuge and expanded its nuclear fuel stockpile, cutting in half the time it would need to produce weapon grade-fuel to build a nuclear bomb.
Furthermore, Mr. Hudson claims that Mr. Trump added tariffs to correct the trade imbalance. I wonder if he ever stops to think about who actually pays for those tariffs. Is it the everyday American consumer who buys all those imports?
Also, he claims that Mr. Trump communicated with his adversaries. What communication?
He also claims an economy boom until COVID hit. First, he inherited a robust economy from Barack Obama; second, it was his mishandling of COVID that we are still feeling the effects of.
He also claims to have pride In America. Was that pride also during the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol?
He also talks about a gallon of gas being less than $2 that today is at $4. He might surprised to find out that no U.S. president has anything to do with how much we pay at the pump.
What you should ask yourself is: Why Mr. Trump has been the only president in U.S. history to leave office with fewer jobs than when he came in. When Trump came in America had 145.6 million jobs. When he left we had 142.6 million. That’s 3 million jobs lost under him. Unemployment soared to an 80-year high. He has the worst jobs record since Herbert Hoover.
Mr. Hudson claims that Trump never tried to defund the police. Neither has Joe Biden; never has, never will.
Also, if Trump is such a great American, why did he try to overthrow the government on Jan. 6?
Real patriots don’t attack America.
That is the problem when people see through rose-colored glasses.
Jesus Rodriguez
Elsa
