Readers Write: The Trump administration, EPA, capitalism

Opinion editor’s note: Strib Voices publishes letters from readers online and in print each day. To contribute, click here.

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What’s the final straw? Now national park workers are ordered by President Donald Trump to remove or alter park signs that refer to climate change or disparage our history (“National park workers told to scour for offense,” July 26). In other words, deny the truth both about global warming and our history.

For six months, we have watched undocumented people whisked away often without cause and certainly without due process; the Constitution ignored, institutions gutted, media censored, science research disparaged and cut, education penalized, funds withheld as weapons, allies bullied, and conflict of interest business deals made. It just goes on and on.

There are people who try to convince us to just get along despite our political differences. That’s hard to do when core values underpinning our democracy are under siege —truth, human rights, fairness, justice, compassion, freedom of the press, rule of law and a system of checks and balances.

Trump’s party in Congress acting en masse have the power to check the dictatorial behavior they know is wrong. Where’s the courage to stand up? Is there no final straw?

If now is not the time to be angry, speak out daily, protest peacefully and beseech both political parties to stop Trump’s actions, when is the time? We owe it to our children and grandchildren now.

Sharon Oswald, Roseville

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Reading the Minnesota Star Tribune this morning (July 29) was very disturbing. The current administration is pushing for acceptance of religious expression in the workplace (my personal bias screams the administration is pushing Anglo-Christian religion exclusively; a Muslim proselytizer would be taken away by Immigration Customs Enforcement), while on the front-page there is a long article forecasting the devastating loss of health care to 140,000 Minnesota Medicaid users. In the Variety section, another long article with gorgeous pictures of a 26th-floor condo up for sale for $3.7 million because the owner finds using the elevator with his dog too inconvenient. Our society is sick. How did we get to be this way?

Bob Downs, Orono, Minn.

In mid-July, four Minnesota Republican House representatives and two from Wisconsin in Congress submitted a letter to the ambassador of Canada regarding the smoke from forest fires. They stated, “Our constituents have been limited in their ability to go outside and safely breathe due to the dangerous air quality the wildfire smoke has created.” In the July 24 issue of the Minnesota Star Tribune, an article that the Environmental Protection Agency (an independent agency of the U.S. government tasked with environmental protection matters) is proposing rescinding a 2009 legal opinion that greenhouse gas emissions put human health at risk, which is the basis for government action on climate change. The information about this decision was based on anonymous sources as it has not yet been made public. EPA administrator Lee Zeldin previously stated he aims to strike a balance between economic concerns and protecting the environment. I wonder if the U.S. House members who wrote that letter to Canada see any irony or hypocrisy in this, as well as whether they support this decision?

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This is a time for good leaders — political and religious — to stand up with scientific backing to fight back for the sake of the world’s children. Any intelligent American that has lived longer than 30 years knows that the environment has changed. Ask people why their auto and home insurance has risen in the last few years by over 30%. This is where the Democrats need to start a grass roots machine to communicate this huge mistake by Trump and his inexperienced blinded regime. God help us if Americans keep believing in them.

Bill White, Eagan

Stephen B. Young laudably tries to make a case for moral or ethical capitalism (“How about moral capitalism, instead of democratic socialism for Minneapolis?” July 29), but it is an oxymoron and an idealistic myth. Ethics is philosophy and capitalism is economics, which are distinct domains. Capitalism is strictly oriented toward profit-making and there’s no profit in taking care of others. The competitive nature of profit-driven enterprise favors predatory practices, not altruism. Predatory policies, which have been relentlessly championed by conservatives over many decades, have incrementally unraveled the safety net first instituted by Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal and strengthened by the programs of the Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society.

What America needs is not a mythical approach, nor socialism, per se, but rather a reinstatement of the socially responsible, regulatory policies we had. Regulated capitalism has been systematically undermined by the greediest capitalists just so they can compound their obscene wealth.

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Capitalism and the two-party system are both fundamental pillars of American society. We should be cautious about moving toward socialism or adopting a parliamentary style multi-party system. Many of the challenges facing America are not a result of these two pillars existing, but rather how they have come to be defined by the people we elect to office.

The capitalism of Adam Smith has become the capitalism of Ayn Rand and “corporations are people too.” Commitments to equal opportunity, basic fair play and a safety net have become lost in a sea of golden calves. Capitalism is not supposed to be a corporatist oligarchy.

The two-party system has become two particular political parties unfairly insulated from electoral competition. Robust third parties have an important role to play in a healthy two-party system, and major party candidates should not be required to provide unfettered and clandestine “access” to corporations. The right of citizens to vote and be voted for is essential to a republican form of government, and they have been swamped in a sea of greed and bureaucracy.

Voters have been voicing valid grievances, and the rise of both the far-right wing and the far-left wing is not unexpected given the challenges to these two pillars of American society.

Edward TJ Brown, Parkers Prairie, Minn.

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The Federal Government does not have a spending problem — it has a revenue problem. Every nation in world history that is run by the rich and powerful, run it for themselves, not the citizens. Today’s rich and powerful are no different than the nobility of Europe in the Middle Ages. That was the point of Western Europe’s democracy. Give Republicans credit, they have strategically outsmarted Democrats (and us) by putting long groomed Republican politicians on the U.S. Supreme Court and by framing elections around “dirty” minorities and religion, versus economics. The next 100 years aren’t going to be as good for us as the last 100.