We have become a nation of whiners and softies

Look, we all know that in a corporate sense America is no longer a Christian nation. The atheists, the American Civil Liberties Union and activist judges have seen to that. But that does not mean that corporately we do not worship something. In 2017 we worship and adore victimhood.

What was the tipping point that morphed us into a nation of

constant whiners, complainers, moaners, being incessantly aggrieved and then demanding that others accede to us in exactly the way we wish? Was it the 2000 presidential election? Is it the offshoot of Mister Rogers’ “I like you just the way you are” mantra, giving us generations of children who see no obligation to improve themselves, because they are already wonderful, with the attendant lack of manners endemic in the young?

Children today, particularly the college crowd, have substituted screaming and terrible behavior for reasoned discourse. They will accuse and demean and disrespect and hurl venom at those who displease them, and ironically, if any slight echo of that behavior is directed toward them, they demand safe spaces and counselors. Who taught them that?

We have become a soft, annoyed, dissatisfied country. If the Depression hit now instead of in the 1930s, this nation would not last a year. Not enough backbone. And if JFK had just been elected and had given his “Ask notwhat your country can do for you …” speech he would have been laughed off the rostrum, and the millennials would have rioted… after they finished their counselingsessions. JAMES F. CATALDI

Moon tragedies are clearly not confined to Penn State.

Additionally, I would recommend that he and others in the media actually take the time to read the Freeh Report and then Dick Thornburgh’s very critical analysis of it. Perhaps then their conclusions regarding the manner in which former Penn State administrators — including football coach Joe Paterno and president Graham Spanier — handled the entire Sandusky issue would be based on facts and context and not senationalism and generalization. VAUGHN GILBERT

Elizabeth Township

Sen. Pat Toomey has stated his case that he is anti-Medicaid expansion to the states under the Affordable Care Act and totally favors the disastrous replacement plan hatched by House Speaker Paul Ryan. As the senator stated: “What do we accomplish if at the end of the day the governors are thrilled — they get lots of money — and the federal government is on its way to bankruptcy?” (“Toomey Working to Recast Medicaid Portion of Health Bill,” May 17).

Read between the lines. He favors massive tax cuts to the wealthy and wants to take us back to the time of “trickle-down

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economics.” We’re back to hearing that this GOP effort will allow billionaires to create new jobs for the rest of us, and thus we’ll be able to afford health care insurance. It didn’t work then; what makes anyone believe it would work now? We’d have to work three jobs, maybe more, to afforddecent health care.

It is clear as a bell that cutting Medicaid expansion will cause severe hardship to the poor who cannot afford health care and also to the hospitals and physicians who abide by a Hippocraticoath to tend to the sick.

I challenge Mr. Toomey and any member of the government who wants to follow the Ryan health care solution to give up theirown health insurance first. MATT BARRY

Munhall