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Tuesday's letters: Threat from Russia is no illusion

 
Published Oct. 12, 2015

View the world realistically | Oct. 9, letter

Threat from Russia is no illusion

The letter writer isn't worried about Russian geopolitical maneuvering because Russia has eight foreign military bases while the United States has about 800. Well, the British had an empire that spanned the globe, and the United States had possessions halfway around the world in the Pacific, as Germany reeled from World War I reparations and was not even in possession of its own industrial region. Then Adolf Hitler came to power. I doubt Germany had a single foreign base when it set out to conquer the world, but it nearly did so.

A great deal of damage can occur when any nation-state with a determined and calculating leadership moves against the interests of a greater power under the command of a weak and feckless academic handicapped by ideology and paralyzed with a greater fear of his own nation's power than the forces arrayed against it. The KGB colonel vs. the community organizer has a predictable outcome and is playing out exactly as expected.

Dwayne Keith, Valrico

'No' to lawmakers' redistricting map | Oct. 10

Don't isolate poor voters

Before the last census, Florida's 24th U.S. congressional district was District 17 and was classified in the 2010 Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index as the "most suffering" district in the nation in the category of life evaluation, or how people described their quality of life, and the third-most-miserable district overall.

After being elected to Congress and learning that access to health services was the largest contributing factor to the "most suffering" rating, I was more determined than ever to ensure that the Liberty City Health Clinic was built. It not only meets the health care needs of thousands of residents, but also provides needed jobs. In addition, the Miami-Dade Board of County Commissioners passed a resolution to address the underlying causes of the district's poor showing and to seek ways to enhance its prosperity.

In 2012, District 17 became District 24 and was redrawn to include PortMiami, the Brickell financial district and the Jackson Health System complex, transforming the economic landscape.

PortMiami, the gateway for Florida trade, contributes more than $27 billion annually to South Florida's economy and helps generate 207,000 direct, indirect and induced jobs. Because it is a nonresidential area and has no voting population, it is unconscionable to even consider removing this vibrant economic driver from a community that has come to depend on it for good-paying jobs. The same is true of the Jackson Medical System complex, which employs more than 11,000 workers, and the Brickell financial district, which helped lift District 24 out of poverty.

If the plaintiffs' map in Florida's redistricting case, known as CP1, is adopted, District 24 could once again become the nation's "most suffering." Instead of continuing to cultivate economic growth, congressional, state and local government offices will be forced to focus almost exclusively on the inevitable problems that come with areas consisting of concentrated poverty and no economic drivers. Efforts to create jobs, attract new businesses and strengthen the district's financial health and vitality will be replaced with solving problems related to housing, domestic violence, incarceration and others that overwhelm communities in which there is no hope of escaping poverty.

Isolating poor people behind district lines is as much a violation of the spirit of the Voting Rights Act as intentionally separating races for voting purposes to give one party a political advantage. To my chagrin, the CP1 map drawn by the Fair Districts Coalition is anything but fair. I hope that the justices tasked by the state Supreme Court to make the final decision will pay close attention to CP1. I beg them to not allow District 24 to revert back to the "most suffering" district in the nation.

U.S. Rep. Frederica Wilson, D-Miami

Campus guns bill revived | Sept. 17

Deadly confusion

Cries for gun control are in the news. But who is going to suggest measures that will work? The Florida Legislature? I think not.

The idea of allowing Florida college students to carry concealed weapons on campus to prevent mass shootings is wrong for many reasons. Do we really think that hundreds of armed students, once shots ring out, will make the right decision as to where to aim their weapons?

In the aftermath, we may find that innocent "armed students" were killed or severely injured because inexperienced students who were not prepared to be calm made mistakes.

Even law enforcement professionals make mistakes. I do not trust the ability of college students to do well under tense circumstances, and I don't think they should be placed in such dangerous situations.

Calvin Branche, Hudson

Ben Carson

Dangerously false narrative

Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson is weaving a dangerously false narrative of how Adolf Hitler came to power into our national consciousness. For instance, to paraphrase Carson, the vast majority of Germans did not agree with Hitler.

Wrong. While Hitler never won an outright majority in the Reichstag, the Nazi party held — by far — the greatest number of seats in the Reichstag after July 1932, through free and fair elections. In that same month, more than 13 million Germans voted for the Nazis, which came out to 37 percent of the electorate.

Also to paraphrase Carson, no one opposed Hitler's rise; people kept their mouths shut.

Wrong. Millions supported Hitler; millions opposed him. Communists and Social Democrats fought Nazis in the streets. Many major newspapers editorialized against him constantly. Voter turnout was very high in election after election. Up until the seizure of power, Germans resisted other Germans who were Nazis or supported them.

Ben Carson's idea of how Hitler came to power (summoned from the bowels of hell by some conjurer, the reins of Germany placed into his cleft hooves with nary a peep from the German people) is so fundamentally at odds with the truth that it beggars belief. It is no exaggeration to say that if you take what he says and stand it on his head, you will arrive fairly close to the truth.

Mark Cattell, Oldsmar