YOUR VIEWS
Pitiful immaturity
Someone once said, “You cannot let your emotions be affected by someone else’s immaturity.” What we seem to be witnessing in the halls of Congress is the pitiful immaturity of those who cannot accept that they lost an election. And at the vortex of this shameful, hateful, profane, obstructive and immature behavior is none other than a transplanted Oklahoman, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. All of this is nothing but politics at its worst and her preview of running for president in 2020. The silent Americans who are watching this chaos, fomented by many of the Democrats in Washington, are totally fed up and are trying not to let it affect their emotions, but it will affect their votes come 2018 and 2020.
Mike Meador, Oklahoma City
Live within your means
Gov. Fallin’s request to add 164 “services” to the state tax rolls sounds like another money-grab by politicians. My wife and I are retired (age 70) and have always lived within our means. Our house is paid for, both cars are paid for, we don’t owe anybody, and we live comfortably. All this was done on the salary of an Air Force enlisted member who did roughly the same maintenance career for 45 years (not a big-bucks job). The secret to our success is to live within your means. I know the teachers need (and deserve) pay raises. I know other things need doing. But it is more than past time for Oklahoma politicians to live within their means.
Richard Markel, Moore
Check the record
The Associated Press report on Betsy Devos’ confirmation as secretary of education (News, Feb. 8) noted the extreme criticism of DeVos by Democrats, teacher unions and civil rights activists, because of DeVos’ lack of public school experience and how unprepared she would supposedly be to address their problems. Issues of higher education such as rising tuition, student debt and troubled for-profit colleges were also listed as problems for DeVos. In the past eight years, when there was a secretary of education acceptable to all of those critical of the DeVos nomination, where were signs of improvement in any of these problem areas?
Jim Jones, Edmond
New conductor found?
I have spent 50 years listening to the philharmonic and symphony orchestras in Oklahoma City and three seasons with the New York Philharmonic conducted by Leonard Bernstein. Andreas Delfs’ recent presentation of symphonic works was brilliant! He was more than reminiscent of Bernstein. Delfs was electric. The audience’s heart was won by his motions. He knew the music by heart; podiums be damned. The audience sat in stunned silence for a three-second count before bursting to their feet in their praise, cheers, bravos and applause. Oklahoma City has seemingly found its new conductor.
Christian Towles, Oklahoma City
U.S. isn’t innocent
Nowhere can you find where President Trump suggested there was moral equivalence between the governments of the United States and Russia. He merely pointed out that America isn’t so innocent itself. The real danger is that we Americans do, in fact, believe ourselves to be morally superior to the rest of the world. To believe that America holds the moral high ground, one has to ignore such things as racism being institutionalized and ignored by various levels of government until the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the complicity of the CIA in the overthrow of duly elected President Salvador Allende of Chile, the attempt to overthrow the revolutionary government of Nicaragua by supplying weaponry and aiding logistically the Contras, and the invasion of Iraq that resulted in our overthrowing Saddam Hussein. These are examples of things the average citizen knows about. How many other things do we not know anything about?