Letters to the Editor | March 13, 2024

Instead of spending 10 minutes at a news conference thanking all the collaborative work of members of the Philadelphia Police Department, the FBI, the school district, the ATF, the district attorney’s office, and SEPTA involved in the aftermath of the horrible mass shooting of eight children last week at Cottman and Rising Sun Avenues, can we address why it’s easier for young people in our inner city to obtain a gun than a laptop? Gun buyback programs feel good, but they are not making a dent in reducing the volume of weapons in the hands of criminals, and now children. Work cohesively to get the guns off the streets. Add some more tools to the box — please. Legislation, National Guard presence, longer sentencing guidelines, etc.

Tiffany Richardson, Philadelphia

Mayor Cherelle L. Parker has made addressing violence in the city a signature tenet of her administration. That may suggest she intends to be “tough on crime.” Yet, her selection of Kevin Bethel as police commissioner might indicate some momentum toward becoming “smart on crime.” In his work in the school system, Bethel reduced the number of student arrests significantly, focusing instead on conflict resolution. In her Feb. 7 column, Jenice Armstrong reported on a program instituted by District Attorney Larry Krasner that required participants arrested on illegal gun charges to attend school or be fully employed. The enrollees met in both group sessions and individually with counselors who worked with them to improve their circumstances. Upon graduation, the charges were dropped and expunged from their records. Similar programs have been successfully used in the past, only to be abandoned when funding ran out. We cannot arrest our way out of violence in Philadelphia. Instead, let’s get smart.

Norma Van Dyke, Philadelphia, nvandyke121@gmail.com

In 1976, I was a U.S. Navy pilot with two weeks of active duty in the Pentagon. My responsibility was to determine if the plane I flew on active duty was suitable for patrol work along the Rio Grande. The S-2 Tracker was designed, primarily, to be flown from aircraft carriers to locate and destroy enemy submarines. One of our “weapons” was radar. So the question posed: Could the plane with its radar help stem the (then-modest) flow of illegal border crossings into the U.S.? I interviewed anyone in the Pentagon who might give significant input to the project. I doubt my final report gave much hope for the proposed action. Today, politicians criticize opponents for their failures to staunch the flow. My point is that the illegal crossing problem has existed since 1976 — and earlier. We have spent more time criticizing than actually doing something.

Ed Auble, West Chester, edauble@aol.com

What would happen in November if the whole country had the option of voting for “none of the above” for president? Would we get a do-over? I’m looking for a T-shirt that shows humorist P.J. O’Rourke’s famous book cover: “Don’t vote, it only encourages the bastards.”

Carol Rhodes, Barnsboro

Harper Leary’s eloquent op-ed in the Sunday Opinion section was moving. I also strongly oppose the Benjamin Netanyahu government and its support for expanded settlements in the West Bank. But it is unconscionable to sit out this election because you disagree with how Israel is prosecuting the war in Gaza. President Joe Biden has a very tough set of priorities to balance, and I think he is doing as well as he can.

I was born in Argentina during the Holocaust because antisemitic nationalists prevented Franklin D. Roosevelt from allowing Jewish refugees into the U.S. Israel was recognized by the United Nations in 1948 to prevent further antisemitic genocides. For reasons that have been well-debated, I consider denying the legitimacy of Israel to be antisemitic. Biden was right to vigorously condemn Hamas’ unprecedented brutality and to support Israel’s military response. Now that response seems to have gone “over the top,” in Biden’s words, and he is working feverishly to negotiate an extended cease-fire so that hostages can be recovered, Gazan infrastructure repaired, and Gazan civilians provided with food and supplies. The moral situation is not as clear as Leary believes.

There is no Palestinian counterpart to the millions of Jews in Israel and the U.S. who openly disagree with Netanyahu’s policies. If U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib and other pro-Palestinian “progressives” desire a two-state solution, I have not heard it. Meanwhile, they create discord among liberal Democrats, driving wedges between young progressives and older liberals, and between people of color and their traditional Jewish allies, whom some Palestinians try to portray as white racists. If Donald Trump is elected, the world will suffer, and the anti-Israel progressives will have a lot to answer for.

Michael Selzer, Wynnewood

Now that we have two dead-on-arrival federal budget proposals, Congress should focus on small but sensible steps to close the budget deficit, like House Resolution 4740, the Streamline Pentagon Budgeting Act. The Biden budget, submitted on Monday, has $5 trillion over the next decade in additional taxes on corporations and billionaires that Republicans will never approve, while no Congress will bear the pain of actually passing $11 trillion in unspecified nondefense spending cuts, as included in the bill Republicans pushed through the House Budget Committee.

Neither proposal represents politically viable avenues for reducing budget deficits that, under current economic conditions, worsen inflation and constrain our options for responding to unanticipated emergencies. We need to turn to modest policy fixes that can pass Congress. Current law mandates that individual military services and agencies submit unfunded priorities lists. This virtually guarantees Congress passes military spending beyond the levels that emerge from the Pentagon’s yearlong, cost-vs.-benefit budget process. HR 4740 would end that practice and should attract bipartisan support. I urge Sens. John Fetterman and Bob Casey to consider sponsoring a Senate version.

David R. Ross, Nottingham, dross@brynmawr.edu

There was a time in the not-too-distant past when politicians perceived as aiding and abetting their country’s enemies were swiftly ousted from the political landscape. Rather than being political kryptonite, cavorting with foreign nationals opposed to America’s ideals of liberty, justice, and international tranquillity has become a trademark of Donald Trump’s election strategy. In short, Trump needs Vladimir Putin, and vice versa.

It comes as no surprise that Putin finds favor with U.S. officials who would withhold military aid to Ukraine, undermine the strength and unity among NATO countries, dismiss Russia’s role in the death of Putin critic Alexei Navalny, and praise the leadership style and “genius” of autocrats like China’s Xi Jinping and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un. All these world leaders are more motivated than ever before to involve themselves in the upcoming 2024 election by flooding the airways with damning disinformation targeting President Joe Biden and extolling false valorous narratives attributed to Trump. If the Republican Party’s campaign war chest is running on empty, the GOP message can be readily augmented with Russian and Chinese electronic campaigning.

James L. DeBoy, Fort Myers, Fla.

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