Letters

Like This? Click to Recommend It

Editor
Northern Virginia Daily

Sir:

What are our representatives thinking? Aren't they listening? Aren't they seeing the need? Aren't they realizing how broken the health-care system is and who is really running the show?

Why is it just fine to go into debt to support wars "helping" people who don't want our help? Why don't our representatives see the strength in numbers? Get everyone on the system and it lowers the cost for everyone.

With everyone covered and paying a reasonable premium, the system will be self-supporting and the insurance companies will still make a reasonable profit with no addition to the deficit.

They aren't listening because they don't want to give up their lucrative "payoffs" from the racketeers who are really running the country and raking in huge profits while the rest of us struggle to support their lifestyles.

What is right and fair and just should not be decided by people who are paid off or people who are shouting the loudest. We are sinking, America, and no matter how hard Barack Obama tries to lift us above our current idiocy, the idiots are working overtime to keep us down there. Why they want this is totally beyond me.

It is just plain wrong for our representatives, all of them, red or blue, not to give the people a decent health-care system. And no, the Canadians are not unhappy with their health-care system regardless of all the propaganda. Just ask a Canadian, any Canadian ... they think we are totally nuts.

N.K. Mason
482 Milford Lane
Fort Valley
Nov. 9, 2009

Editor
Northern Virginia Daily

Sir:

In spite of personal concerns, global warming, terrorist threats, recent elections and increased property taxes, I have a wonder-full Blue-and-Green-Day.

I feel unaccountably blessed, filled with a sense of well-being and peace, and my heart swells with gratitude. I breathe fresh air, drink clear water, eat nutritious food, sleep in a comfortable shelter, wear adequate clothing, have enough money to pay bills and also a bit more to share.

Would that everyone could say the same. And so I am pondering about the challenges, problems and solutions our leading more simplified and satisfying lives in this age of technocracy.

I remember the book "Everything I Needed to Know I learned in Kindergarten." The author cited the Golden Rule as the one, simple, basic law that encompasses every aspect of human behavior: "Treat others as you wish to be treated." Think about that.

We would not be cheating on, stealing from, or killing one another for any reason at all. There would be no motive for harming another, no need to label our actions as political, religious, or patriotic. We would be careful to be respectful, considerate and tolerant of differences while caring for self and family and minding our own business.

I believe our business is to cherish and mentor the children and to always aspire, to work and create, to discover and invest ways and means to build community in helping others.

Somewhere I've read that "we are spiritual beings having a human experience." For me, the plus on this life journey is trust and faith in the God of history to keep order in the universe, its parade of seasons and day following night, to enable innate resilience of body and mind to heal and always to create something good and right from the awful stuff that happens.

May "this one is for you" -- a four-star moment, hour or day.

ELIZABETH TRUESDALE
468 Virginia St.
Strasburg
Nov. 6, 2009

Editor
Northern Virginia Daily

Sir:

Your foreign policy/military editorials continue to miss the mark. Specifically, your Nov. 4 "Our Man in Kabul" concludes that "unless Karzai undergoes a swift leadership conversion, the U.S. needs to lower its sights and rethink its Afghan strategy. The Karzai we've come to know isn't worth more American money and blood."

Fact is whether Karzai undergoes a "swift leadership conversion" or not, he will never be worth a single drop of American blood. He's pretty irrelevant to the broader question you are getting at: What's to be done in Afghanistan?

If you want to support the White House in attacking/reshaping U.S. involvement in Afghanistan, wants to "lower our sights ... rethink our strategy," you should examine hard issues:

* In the wake of the Sept. 11 massacre, was President Bush wrong to announce that the United States must "drain the swamp" that produces attacks on America?

* Were the Democrats wrong when they held that the real war on terrorism was in Afghanistan (not in Iraq)?

* Will our efforts in Afghanistan be helped by ignoring commanding Gen. McChrystal's recommendations?

* What impact will "lowering our sights" and abandoning our allies have on the security of that region, on the security of the United States? Do you believe in the "war on terror," believe that violent jihad is possible in the United States?

You state that McChrystal's call for 40,000 "smacks of nation-building." Instead I'd say that "nation-building" smacks of the top priorities you place on ending government corruption, poppy-growing and other bad political and cultural habits, ingrained forever. Indeed, it is your desire to have some anti-Karzai leader play a credible "Our Man in Kabul" that smacks of "nation-building."

Fine. While we are mopping up, let's work to make this Afghan government savory and supportive. Let's build schools and encourage women's integration in politics and the economy. But let's not be shocked by Afghan facts of life that go back to the days of Alexander the Great. Above all, let's not be led around by them but develop a policy based upon the examination of real issues.

Richard W. Hoover
419 Liberty Hall Road
Front Royal
Nov. 5, 2009