Sounding off: Hide your Bibles, the book banners are back

With a nod to Meredith Wilson’s “Music Man”:

Trouble, oh we’ve got trouble,

Right here in Westmoreland County!

With a capital “T”

That rhymes with “B”

And that stands for Books.

The book banners are back (with book burners a half-step behind), never really having gone away. They would have us believe that their absence has been due to time spent reading all of those dirty books they want no one else to see, especially their gullible, impressionable children. Actually, they’ve probably been glued to Facebook and other social media merely repeating talking points from well-financed national organizations.

But don’t think that these morality police will be satisfied by book censorship. I can picture them stationed outside movie theaters making certain that the age-group guidelines are being strictly adhered to, and woe be to violators.

Museums will be obvious targets with all of those artworks showing nudes of (gasp!) both sexes. And what about those naked-as-a-jaybird male and female statues? Expect demands for bras and loincloths.

If these jack-booted, torch-bearing censors have their way and are on the lookout for other books containing sex, violence, torture, wars and worse, even our churches aren’t safe. Church leaders should begin making plans to keep their doors locked and Bibles hidden, as mine will be.

Glenn R. Plummer, Unity

Green values vs. destroyed lives

The unprovoked invasion of Ukraine is shown every day on TV. War is ugly as peaceful, hardworking people are being maimed and killed. Rather than concern for the Ukrainian people, we hear comments from elites like climate tsar John Kerry of his concern that Russia may lose its focus on the climate issue. He complained, “You’re going to lose people’s focus. … I think it could have a damaging impact.”

Kerry, whose family owns multiple homes and a private jet, recognizes the war in Ukraine and the refugee crisis as a “problem” but nothing compared to what may be coming when climate change causes huge numbers of refugees to leave their countries for lack of food and energy. Climate-change elites focus on major changes that must be done immediately to avoid presumed catastrophes decades from now (if ever). To them, destroyed Ukrainian lives seem a mere inconvenience.

Climate-change elites now seem to prioritize questionable political programs over innocent people’s lives? Joe Biden, Kerry and the climate elites should go back into their world and determine where their humanitarian values have gone. We must do all that we can to support the Ukrainian people and not listen to climate-change elites who continue to play “Chicken Little” with their political agenda.

Vincent J. Esposito, Murrysville

It’s not about race, it’s about logic

Bad arguments often are the result of using the same term in two different senses. These arguments typically use a weak (trivial) definition to prove the argument, and then they substitute the strong (substantive) definition to give the argument import. Welcome to critical race theory and systemic racism.

Their strong thesis is: Racism is evil. Is this true? Yes, racism is evil when, and only when, you advocate or act to deny someone their individual rights purely on the basis of race. Is this evil racism pervasive? No, evil racism is actually very rare these days.

Their weak thesis is: Racism is all-pervasive. Can they define racism so as to prove it is ubiquitous? Certainly, they can define racism any way they want. They can label every awareness of race as racism, but there is nothing morally wrong with making observations about race. It only becomes evil when you seek to reduce someone’s humanity.

The CRT/systemic racism proponents can prove that an innocuous form of racism is everywhere. They mistakenly claim to have proven evil racism is everywhere. This is a grotesque non sequitur.

CRT/systemic racism proponents are politically dishonest and intellectually vapid. Don’t take my word for it; prove it for yourself. Demand a coherent and consistent definition of racism.

Arthur Moeller, New Florence

Republicans’ questioning of Jackson is embarrassing

The article “Legal experts weigh in on final day of Jackson’s hearings” mentions “questioning” by Republican senators. What I saw did include questioning, but some GOP senators apparently were more interested in demonstrating their incredible lack of maturity in comparison to the poised demeanor of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson.

Sens. Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley and Lindsey Graham in particular were loud, disrespectful and consistently in error about their claims. Cruz didn’t use the word “uppity,” but I’m sure his supporters understood that was what he was thinking in his frequent racist attacks on the person of Jackson.

What is odd about the many attempts to paint the judge as an extreme leftist is that her record and her responses together show that she is not particularly political. She has a history and a philosophy of following the law.

In the end, several Republican senators embarrassed themselves.

Robert J. Reiland, O’Hara

Biden’s ‘America last’ initiative

I saw three minutes of world news coverage on “NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt” of the devastating tornado in New Orleans … only three minutes! Where is the minute-by-minute media coverage of Americans facing total destruction and personal devastation like in Ukraine?

Where is President Biden? Has he requested for Congress to approve billions of dollars ASAP? Are members of NATO countries sending life-sustaining shipments of food, water and building supplies?

And while I am mentioning inactions of the president, why isn’t he protecting America’s borders from foreign invaders? Also, homeless Americans are lining the streets in major cities all over the country. And millions of Americans are dead and dying from the ravages of covid and drug addiction.

Democrats fervently opposed Trump’s “America first” prophecy, so how is Biden’s “America last” initiative working for you?

Robert Smith, Monroeville

Democrats are more concerned for middle class

In the 1950s, corporations contributed 32% to the federal revenue, in 2013 it was 10% and currently it is 7%, equal to a more than three-quarters reduction rate. This reduction in taxes paid by corporations is due to the Reagan, Bush and Trump tax cuts for the wealthy few plus corporations. Republicans supported those tax cuts with no concern about the trillions of dollars in losses for our government. Reagan’s policies were the beginning of a long and steady rise in income and wealth inequality.

In the 1960s, we had a graduated corporate tax structure, where the lowest rate on profit was 15% and the highest rate was 50%. Before Trump’s tax cuts, the lowest rate was still 15%, but the highest rate had been reduced to 35%. Then, Trump reduced the tax rate even further to 21% and eliminated the graduated tax structure. No matter how much money a corporation makes, it still pays only 21%. Keep in mind that corporations make their money from you, the American taxpayer, who does have a graduated tax.

However eager the Republicans were for tax cuts to corporations, they did not feel it important during this economic downturn to help the American middle class. The American Rescue and the Infrastructure plans passed with little or no Republican support. It seems the Democratic policies are concerned with the middle class while the Republican policies are concerned with their donor class.

Joanne Garing, North Huntingdon

Hempfield book complaints are about responsibility

Regarding the recent reporting on the challenged books in the Hempfield Area School District (“Hempfield is latest district to face book ban challenge”): This is not an issue of censorship or banning. The media and those few individuals who oppose policy change for resource selection in the school have made this something it’s not.

When a public school teacher chooses one book over another for classroom curriculum, we don’t say that the other book was censored. This is about responsible resource selection. Materials in a school library must be appropriate for a general audience of students. In this case, the general audience includes 14- to 18-year-old minor children. State laws have restrictions in place for the safety of this age group.

The purchase and use of alcohol, tobacco and pornography are prohibited. Certainly, our public schools should also safeguard our resource selections to protect these developing minds. It’s important what we eat for our physical health, and what we take into our mind is important to our emotional, mental and spiritual well-being.

Also, resource materials should align with community values, and a selection process should include an accurate sampling of the community. The sexually explicit content in the challenged book does not meet that criteria.

Paula Cinti, South Huntingdon