The heading you put on my letter about voting against politicians who feel that everyone needs an assault rifle was misleading (June 27). Nowhere did I suggest a bias against guns or “gun defenders.” I referred specifically to assault weapons, which no private citizen should have the right to own.
Politicians who feel that everyone should have the right to weapons of mass destruction pay no attention to the rights of all people to live their lives in relative safety.
The Uvalde tragedy puts lie to the NRA’s favorite motto “A good guy with a gun is the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun,” since a group of law enforcement officers, armed with guns and ballistic shields, were afraid to face an 18-year-old armed with an AR-15. This bunch of “good guys” allowed 19 children and their teachers to be slaughtered, while they thought about what to do.
The Monitor, like the NRA and Second Amendment hardliners, equates the banning of assault weaponry with the banning of all guns. I believe it is wrong to accuse a person of wanting to ban all guns when it is assault weaponry, and only assault weaponry, that makes it possible to murder lots of people and destroy lots of families with one fell swoop. I do not advocate banning all guns and neither do most people who are opposed to the private ownership of assault weapons.
I believe the lives of innocent children should always supersede the “right” to own weapons that were created for war, not for private citizens. It is so hypocritical that many of the same “Christian” politicians who think abortion is wrong apparently think that horrific murders of elementary kids in their classrooms are just an unfortunate, but necessary, part of the right to bear assault rifles.
Cory Raymond
McAllen
Trump
trumped
Donald Trump was “trumped” over COVID-19. I don’t blame him, though. He, like me and millions of other Americans, was raised to believe our medical community.
Most Americans could not have conceived that their medical leaders of today are, in my opinion, enemies of America. But they are! They are in bed with “big Pharma” and Klaus Schwab’s World Economic Forum that is promoting a one-world government.
I believe the medical community lied to us. I believe they knew from the beginning that the “vaccines” were not effective. Now they are promoting booster after booster after booster.
Dr. Deborah Birx served as the White House coronavirus response coordinator under President Donald Trump. Dr. Birx recently testified before Congress that they had “hope” that the vaccines would work. That isn’t what they told us. They told us they would work.
I don’t blame anyone who has taken the “jab.” How could they have known the medical community was lying to them?
Darrell Williams Sr.
McAllen
In this
together
Only a fool would take issue with calling people to be hard-working and largely take care of themselves. Only rocks are self-sufficient, whereas human beings rely on each other for health and happiness. No one makes anything of themselves without help from the good Lord and fellow citizens. Asserting the opposite, however articulate, is simply a tribute to good prose, but not to common sense, logic or the truth.
As for “sponging,” unfortunately, it is widespread. Someone once asked, “How can a person on food stamps afford to pay for extensive tattoos?” Good question. But “sponging” off the government is not limited to those living under a poverty-level income. It happens at every level of society, and the very wealthy have the biggest sponges. Corporate America does it at the highest levels — witness Amazon paying no taxes. And during tax season nearly all of us diligently strive to pay fewer taxes, and whine about those we do pay. Corporations in primary industries produce raw materials and energy products with little concern for the environmental costs to other citizens and the rest of humanity.
Developers want growth to continue and accelerate, even though water supplies are disappearing and elected governments support that growth with tax abatements and guarantees of low-cost water regardless of the obvious catastrophe coming when the rivers and wells run dry.
The world is a sick puppy. One reason is that we exalt excessive wealth; one way of thinking is “no limits on a person amassing incredible wealth. The fewer rules the better.” We even allow corporations and the very richest to write the laws that will protect them from taxation. Big business always wants less regulation, and also a bailout when they run their companies into the ground. So who has the biggest sponge?
If you take the global view, millions in Sudan (and elsewhere) face starvation because of factors they can’t control. Rations have been cut in half, which means certain death for many more. A World Food Program representative said, “We are taking from the hungry to feed the starving.”
Yet the “self-sufficiency” worshippers hold to their creed that “it’s their own fault,” and starving mothers and children should be more self-sufficient and take charge of their own lives.
It is often said that we are a “Christian” nation. Yet somehow, attitudes, beliefs and behaviors more akin to the anti-Christ are being championed by well-spoken and well-written people seeking power.
We’re all in this together, like survivors in a rowboat. The question is, do you want to survive? and are we willing to help each other make it back to shore?
Robert Ramirez
McAllen
Writers
critiqued
This is to enlighten Ms. Coronado and Mr. Longoria, who are conservatives and Trump lovers writing to The Monitor very often to condemn asylum seekers. They want to deny education and federal assistance, knowing well that both programs are available to those who apply and qualify. The vast majority of those families don’t apply or qualify. They only wish to work.
Let me remind both those individuals that farmers and ranchers for decades have exploited immigrants’ labor from citrus to cattle to all farm products. Cheap labor with cheap wages.
Just as important, compared to farmers’ welfare that pays billions of dollars subsidizing their products, food stamps and education are barely 0.72% of the federal budget.
The biggest of federal expenditures compared to the meager dollars spent on immigrants is the military budget. If they were to compare the dollars spent on, for example, a single military exercise it’s a billion to one.
Both immigration and the military are of national security. Obviously, those two writers are consistently wrong and immoral. Human lives are irreplaceable, weapons are dead weight. Metal cannot be ingested and humans must be tolerated.
Therefore, I don’t condemn people for trying to make a better life for themselves. I’ve experienced the war in Vietnam and believe me the military waste is there. The best resource is always the human.
Stop and consider immigrants for the contribution they render here, the education, the economy, and yes the military as soldiers. Christians practice morals and compassion. And may these two love their country and accept Joe Biden as their president. Reject the big lie.
Oscar Garza
Palmview
