Letters to the editor: Nuclear treaty, national deficit and a Post-Trump world
Nuclear treaty
As a 21-year-old citizen of the world, I’m here to report that Jan. 22, 2021, will be a day that goes down in history! On that day, the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons enters into force.
On Jan. 22, 2021, in the 51 countries that have signed this treaty, everything to do with nuclear weapons will be illegal. Sadly, yet unsurprisingly, the United States, along with the other eight nuclear-armed nations, has not signed on.
The doomsday clock is set to 100 seconds to midnight. We’re the closest we’ve ever been, Cold War included, to nuclear annihilation. Instead of allowing this to discourage us, let this be a wakeup call. A wakeup call for those nine power-hungry countries. A wakeup call for all of us as citizens of this world.
Let us celebrate the Treaty this Friday. Let us celebrate the 51 countries that have signed on to lift the nuclear shadow that has loomed over the world for 75 years. And let us push U.S. leaders who have long said we have a special obligation to lead the way to nuclear abolition.
For more information visit www.icanw.org.
Ruby Stigers, Boise
National deficit
Consider a situation in which a teenager steals credit cards from a parent and goes on a massive spending spree, which maxes out all available credit. The parent ultimately finds out, admonishes his or her child, and demands that child pays off the balance, but a realization soon sets in. Given the child’s spending went undetected and he or she does not have the means to pay, the parent is now on the hook for that debt. This burden weighs on the parent’s mind, impacts his or her access to credit, and forces changes in spending. Replacing that aging roof, changing out those balding tires, and the family trip all need to be put on the back burner. These decisions create ripples throughout a local economy because proprietors who rely on that business to survive will have to wait. Considering the massive and growing national deficit, we are acting like the teenager in this scenario and running up a credit card for future offspring to pay back. Adjusting taxes, decreasing spending, and revamping social safety nets should all be on the table. Instead of perpetuating this generational theft, we need to get back to spending only what we take in.
Douglas O’Coyne Jr., Meridian
Post-Trump world
I would dispute much in Lee Edward’s column in last Sunday’s Statesman, such as listing the confirmation of three Supreme Court Justices as among the “great things” “conservatives have achieved” when that achievement was founded on Mitch McConnell’s stunningly cynical manipulation of the judicial confirmation process. And then there is what Mr. Edwards sees as the Republican Party’s commitment to “the priceless principle of ordered liberty” – which appeared next to a photo of rioters assaulting the Capitol in the name of the Republican president, and above a photo of Idaho Rep. Russ Fulcher joining an effort to erase something as indispensable to “ordered liberty” as the result of a national election. But I was especially struck by Mr. Edward’s painfully obvious reluctance to include Donald Trump among the inspirational GOP leaders he names, despite Mr. Trump having comprehensively remade the GOP in his own image. Mr. Edwards mentions the President only once, in his column’s headline: “The Challenge for Conservatives in the Post-Trump World” – as if he not so secretly wished Mr. Trump was already in conservatives’ rearview mirror like a stretch of bad road, thankfully left behind and not to be traveled again.
Mark S. Geston, Boise