Tucson Speaks Out: June 13 letters of the day (2024)

Conscience

It all boils down to two groups. A. Those who have a conscience and B. Those who do not. Some stray; but return to the fold. That’s group A. Some stray, think only of themselves and do not return to the fold. That’s group B. Poster boy for group B. is the Don. Let your conscience be your guide in November. To fold or not to fold? That is the question!

Joe Sanchez

Marana

The Game Show

The Republicans in Congress remind me of The Oprah Winfrey Show. Occasionally at the end of her show she would have a surprise giveaway. Republicans do this also: You get a tax cut and you get a tax cut and everyone gets a tax cut. The main difference, Oprah can pay for hers.

Daniel Poryanda

Southeast side

Climate change is real

Re: the May 25 letter “The climate change hoax.”

Just because you change your address from Oro Valley to the Southwest side doesn’t ignore the fact that your family still spouts lies through the LTE’s. Climate change isn’t a hoax. If you believe that, I not only have a bridge to sell you, I have some lunar land you can buy. Most educated people in Tucson and in the world for that matter understand climate change and how it’s destroying our planet. But the family from Oro Valley won’t ever admit that, even when they claim they moved.

John Bingham

Northwest side

Improving our justice system

Americans have always been proud of their justice system. “Nobody is above the law” was a statement that we all cherished. A new wording is beginning to replace the old and is more appropriate to current times. The new statement is “nobody is safe from the law” and those in government who enforce them.

Many with long careers in law enforcement have said that there are now so many laws, some not clearly defined, that the average person breaks one or more of them every day. Our government needs to eliminate unnecessary laws, write laws more clearly, and do away with laws that prosecute you for what they think you think or what they think your intentions are instead of using evidence of criminal action.

It is time we elect representatives who will keep us safe from government legal abuse.

Kenneth Smalley

Midtown

Science and faith are opposites

Re: the May 31 article “Belief in reason and reason in belief.”

Quoting charming sentiments by decidedly biased proponents of faith does not constitute evidence against the far superior predictive value of the scientific method over all “methods” founded on faith. Facts Trump feelings of “rightness.”

What the astonishing assertion “Disbelieving requires just as much faith as believing” lacks in coherence, it makes up in redundancy. Disbelieving or believing based on faith means there’s no evidence for or against either, making the point frivolous.

Atheists aren’t co*cksure so much as they’re confident in rejecting specific orthodoxies of religious dogma. They would hardly find Thomas Aquinas’s flawed arguments persuasive. This in no way, though, requires that they lack a sense of reverence for the unknown.

Matters of faith cannot entail evidence or they would not be matters of faith. God’s existence cannot be disproven. Being unfalsifiable, it is not a topic for scientific consideration. We must leave it at that. If only the faithful would too. To accept without evidence — on faith — is the very opposite of scientific.

Robert Gavlak

Midtown

Where’s the NRA?

How come the NRA is not coming to the defense of Hunter Biden and the 2nd Amendment? You mean Hunter Biden has no right to bear arms?

Matt Somers

Midtown

Laura Conover for County Attorney

As a retired TPD with 26 years of service I supported Conover in her first run because of her commitment to focus on violent crime and its causes.

Conover has been effective during her time in office:

The homicide rate is down 36% over two years from its peak.

The robbery rate lowered by 39%.

She reinstated a Homicide Panel clearing a backlog that stretched back to 2017.

She tackled the fentanyl crisis focusing resources on large scale dealers and those tied to organized crime.

She re-established the County’s Fraud Unit and secured more than $1 million for victims.

She focuses on serious crime not just low level non-violent offenders to keep numbers up.

Her opponent says he supports many of Laura’s policies but on conservative radio programs he takes a ‘tough-on-crime’ stance while at other events he talks about second chances. Hard to know who he is and what he stands for.

I support Laura Conover for reelection as our Pima County Attorney.

Roger Carrillo

Midtown

War in the Middle East

If you are like me, reading a daily newspaper helps me better understand the world around me. Editors attempt to explain such leaders as they fight in the Israeli-Hamas war. Columnists attempt to report on the horrifying, grisly war that perhaps no one can win. The Middle East is more than a war, it is annihilation, and extermination of peoples.

This war is a war recognizing a highly developed nation state and a land of historically displaced peoples. Questions of leadership plague both sides. Endless civilian casualties — mothers and children — bespeak war crimes, crimes that belong in a courtroom in the Hague or the ICC.

Nonetheless, I like to draw to your attention to the New York Times’ Sunday edition dated May 12, 2024. A photo appears on page 6. Please see it. It shows the aftermath of 2,000-pound bombs and bulldozers posing as German panzer tanks. One side of the war possesses 2200 such tanks in their inventory.

Tom Staab

East side

Hudbay distortions

Re: the June 9 letter “Copper World.”

The mine will likely last way beyond 60 years. The Sierrita mine near Green Valley and Sahuarita has already operated for 65 years with NO serious incidents and is testimony to safe mining operations. Hudbay will post a multimillion-dollar bond to clean up the site after closure.

Copper World is 27 miles from Tucson, while the Sierrita mine is 17 miles and has had zero water contamination issues for Tucson water in 65 years. Copper World is over 90% on private land and on absolutely ugly sites of useless high desert shrubs and grassland.

The post is, as usual with letters critical of Hudbay and Copper World, both false and inaccurate.

Steve Sollenberger

Foothills

Mexico as narco state

The reason Mexico is becoming a narco state is America’s ravenous appetite for drugs — the majority of which are brought into this country by US citizens at legal points of entry. There have been 10 presidents since Nixon that declared the war on drugs. It has gotten progressively worse, now about 100,000 deaths a year. We’ve tried draconian measures enacted in the 1980s to combat the crack epidemic, it didn’t work. Big Pharma pushed oxycontin, causing many addictions, no one went to jail. Prohibition showed outlawing a substance led to the rise of organized crime in this country. I wish there was a magical solution to this problem but I’m not aware of one.

Craig Miller

Northwest side

Who are we?

Admittedly, I’m old. However, I grew up with principles: treat people with respect regardless of their views; don’t lie; take responsibility for your own actions; accept the truth even if it’s not what you want to hear; America stands for freedom; don’t carry grudges or seek revenge; justice is for all people, even those we don’t like; working together makes the job easier. If you grew up with similar principles, consider them when you vote in the next election. We reap what we sow and if we, as Americans, put aside those morals and principles, then we are not worth saving as an individual or a nation.

Cynthia Schiesel

East side

Arizona’s future better with Biden or Trump?

As a science teacher I teach students to put aside expectations and observe “what’s actually happening?” It’s the difference between feeling “wrong” and being “surprised” by the unfolding of what is true. That lesson applies across disciplines and of course, into politics. The policies put forward by the Biden / Harris administration, are substantive, detailed, and focused on everyday Arizonans, including helpful programs for working people and families, expanding rental assistance and investments in infrastructure and supporting training programs for workers. Felon Donald Trump’s politics of grievance, of favors and tax breaks for his richest donors, of attacking the judicial system and the Rule of Law that seeks to hold him accountable aren’t in the same universe. The people of Arizona would be wise and well served to elect leaders who can put forward the policies as described above rather than riding the Hate Bus driven by Trump.

Eric Robbins

South Tucson

Born to a party

I have heard this from several people about the Presidential election. They say, “I don’t like Trump, but I am a Republican”. They will vote for someone they know is dangerous and insane because they have no choice but to vote for their party. No one is asking them to vote for a Democrat, just don’t vote for a dangerous ego maniac because you “belong” to a party. In the history of the United States there have been 17 political parties. They are: Federalist 1789, Democratic/Republican 1828, Democratic 1828, Whig 1830, Free Soil 1848, Republican 1854, Prohibition 1869, Socialist 1901, Progressive 1912, Communist 1919, American Labor 1936, Liberal of NY 1944, Black Panther 1966 Libertarian 1971, Constitution 1992, Reform 1995, Green 2001. Mindlessly voting for the wrong person to demonstrate affiliation and loyalty to a political party is ridiculous. Vote for what is right, or don’t vote at all.

Richard Bechtold

West side

Veterans service

Re: the May 27 article “Pilot’s faith saw him through.”

Major Thomas Storey’s Memorial Day account of being shot down, injured and held as a POW in Vietnam for 2,239 days serves as a reminder of how much this country owes our military veterans. I don’t know how someone (Donald Trump) could say they don’t like people (John McCain) who were shot down, injured and held captive while serving in Viet Nam.

Al Kackley

East side