Letters to the Editor | May 21, 2024
Inquirer readers on congressional arguments, Mayor Parker's cleanup plans, and the war in Gaza.
Time out
The National Constitution Center is what I like about residing in the Philadelphia area. It’s a fantastic museum for the exploration of our Founding Fathers’ fundamental principles that establish the legal basis of civil processes governing how our country is to conduct policy. The First Amendment makes no general exception for offensive expression. For many years, I taught students at the middle school level. The starting of arguments by young women were extremely difficult for me to become familiar with, but I learned to master the onset of their starting points in time. Both Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Jasmine Crockett are extremely outspoken politicians, not of the same cloth, but there should be accountability regarding their insulting remarks to each other. If this had been a school situation, the two of them would have been suspended.
Wayne E. Williams, Camden, wwilliams@uarts.edu
Victim-blaming
The worst thing Michelle Obama ever said was that when they go low, we go high. Her husband, who followed her advice, became a doormat for Fox News during his presidency. Echoing that sentiment, Donna Brazile advised Rep. Jasmine Crockett not to take the bait after Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene criticized the Texas Democrat for her fake eyelashes during a House Oversight Committee meeting. Why is Crockett being put on the defensive for responding in kind after Republican committee chair James Comer initially refused to take down Greene’s comments?
Sunny Hostin, on The View, defended Crockett by pointing out that going high doesn’t work anymore. Alyssa Farah Griffin, also on The View, said that if one goes to a scorched-earth policy on the House floor, our politics will descend. Where has she been since 1994, when Newt Gingrich started that descent? Republicans continue to tolerate the outrageous behavior of Georgia’s Greene, and no one seems to bother in the mainstream media to focus on her. Is it because there is no expectation of any decency on her part? Why should the victim in this case be the focus of concern in the media because she refuses to be a doormat?
George Magakis Jr., Norristown
Plan ahead
Mayor Cherelle L. Parker’s effort to clean up every block in Philadelphia over the summer is a bold and admirable undertaking. I think she will get it done. However, where is, or what is, the plan for the maintenance and upkeep of this newly cleaned and greened city? Without it, this will all be for nothing.
Albert Horner, Medford Lakes
Clear reasoning
To those who question an Israeli military operation in the Gazan city of Rafah, including some inside the Biden administration, the strategy was explained more than 80 years ago by Franklin D. Roosevelt in his “Day of Infamy” speech after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. As FDR told Congress and the world on Dec. 8, 1942, “We will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost but will make it very certain that this form of treachery shall never again endanger us.”
Marvin Schlanger, Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.
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