Tucson Speaks Out: April 20

Funding for Armory Park Senior Center

Please continue funding Armory Park Senior Center and its variety of activities, including exercise and sign language classes. I am a 60-year-old long-time Tucson resident with a variety of mental health disabilities and two different physical disabilities who depends upon the Armory Park Senior Center to help provide me with physical functionality, mental well-being, and quality of life. Armory Park Senior Center is a lifeline for many of us seniors and helps to prevent very expensive healthcare costs and more disabilities.

The public Sunlink Streetcar and most public buses seem to stop at Ronstadt Transit Center, which has restrooms, and is in walking distance of Armory Park Senior Center, making the senior center more accessible and equitable than any other center in Tucson. Armory Park Senior Center specializes in staff and volunteers who are trained, experienced, knowledgeable, and interested in working with seniors. Armory Park Senior Center is irreplaceable and should be considered indispensable.

Patricia Bauerle

Midtown

The ethics of war

Tim Steller’s column about personal conflicts regarding working for Raytheon introduced me to a new concept. “Just War Theory” — a tradition of military ethics. Reports of the origin are many, but it has been around for millennia. Three conditions are included within. Jus ad bellum (right to go to war), Jus in Bello (right conduct in war) and more recently added Jus Post Bellum (morality after war).

For example, there must be just cause, legitimate authority to initiate war (Senate), probability of success, right intention (not for vengeance or territory), proportionality, and as a last resort after diplomacy/sanctions in going to war. Conduct in war includes legitimate military targets, no excessive harm to civilians, military necessity, fair treatment of prisoners of war and no other evil methods of war (mass rape). Lastly, afterwar, actions concerning peace treaties, war reparations and war crimes trials are covered. As you can imagine, Trump/Hegseth have not followed many of them.

Margaret Gordon Magruder

Downtown

Elect clowns ...

I've been flying drones most of my life and have held a commercial drone license for almost four years now.

First, airspace in the United States is regulated at the federal level by the FAA. The FAA guards this power very closely. States have argued this and lost the case in court already. If small venues are having issues with drones, they need to contact the FAA, not the state.

Second, flying over crowds of any size is already illegal. Anybody doing this is in violation of federal rules or has federal permits to do so and has met some very strict safety requirements. A state law is not going to trump a federal permit.

Would the voters of Arizona please stop sending these Republicans to Phoenix to ignore things like the budget so they can re-legislate things that have already been legislated?

Please?

David Reynolds

East side

The strait is open

Hooray, Hooray, the Strait of Hormuz is open, at long last. But wait, two months ago, it was already completely wide open prior to Trump attacking Iran. And please explain to me why he began that irreversible process. Had Iran shot any missiles, made any overt actions against us or anyone? Absolutely not, nothing indicated that Iran actually had nuclear bombs or planned to use them. Our brilliant president thought they might, just maybe. So Trump, in his infinite wisdom, thought he would start a war, as he had nothing else productive to do. And after the loss of many United States lives, many civilian casualties and billions of dollars wasted we are back to square one. No, we are worse off. Hold on a minute, I see that the Pentagon is preparing action against Cuba. All you Trump sycophants should be proud. This lunatic who espoused no war is proving just the opposite. Who knows what is next.

Philip Reinecker

East side

The war of choice

President Trump has been pilloried by the liberal press and leading Democrat politicians for "the war of choice" with Iran. Looking back into history, WW2 was a war of necessity because we were attacked and had to fight for survival. However, if Western European and United States politicians had not dithered and procrastinated for five years with the obvious knowledge that both Germany and Japan were undergoing massive military buildups, WWII could have been avoided. Because of the dalliance, millions of military personnel were killed or injured, tens of millions of citizens were killed, economies were devastated, and over 6 million Jews were exterminated, all because of inaction and hesitancy. Instead of denigrating Trump’s actions, we should be praising this war of choice and the administration’s decisiveness and resolve because it will avoid a horrific confrontation with inconceivable worldwide devastation in the near future.

Loyal M Johnson Jr

Oro Valley

Arizona ballot access reform

Restrictive ballot access laws exclude opposition parties and independent candidates.

Party status is tied to breaking five percent of the gubernatorial vote, yet restrictions block Libertarians from general elections.

Seventeen states allow smaller parties to nominate candidates by party assembly instead of having individual candidates petition onto primaries.

Plurality elections encourage insincere candidates to hijack ballot lines of small parties whose values they don't represent. Republicans have hijacked Green Party primaries with stealth candidates since 2010.

Any political party with 1,000 registered Arizona voters should be able to nominate candidates by assembly.

Petition requirements for qualifying a new political party should be reduced to 5,000 signatures.

The "spoiler effect" is a rare byproduct of single-vote ballots in single-winner plurality elections. This could be resolved with sincere voting methods like instant runoff ranked choice voting for executives and proportional representation for legislators.

Green Party write-in candidate, CD6 Arizona,

Gary Swing

Northeast side

Farm teams

April 18 LTE: College basketball transfer costs.

The NCAA should require student-athletes or their parents/guardians sign an agreement that the colleges they are training with will receive one-third to one-half of all income, paid or accrued, as a professional or semiprofessional athlete upon departing the college sports system. Penalties and fines should be excluded from the reimbursement calculation. Proration is appropriate, if collegiate training is received from different colleges.

If not, the professional leagues or sponsors should pay for all the direct, indirect and overhead costs of the effective farm team being managed by the college for all student-athletes.

Next: An honest politician?

James Abels

Midtown

In a mess

We are in a terrible mess, in many ways. Our democracy is battered. Our ruler has been able to initiate rude, crude and dangerous actions of questionable legality, and he is allowed to get by without being made to take responsibility for them. Our inert Congress and judicial branch are of no use.

How far down do we have to descend in our ruler's muck for us to realize he is the problem, not all of the entities that he is attacking? Too many of his followers are vicariously luxuriating in his showing of wealth and power.

Don Gerlach

East side

Transitioning, we all do it

Transitioning is the passage from one position or state to another. Are your views and beliefs the same as your 13-year-old self? Mine aren’t. People evolving through life are influenced by many factors that make them who they are right now. Religion: more, less, none? Politics: conservative, liberal, more, less, none?

Why can’t the same be said for gender identity? Some identities evolve early. With names changed for this letter, my nephew’s twins were named Sarah and Stephanie at birth. Well before their 4th birthday Stephanie asserted that he was really Steven. Some people take years or even a lifetime to acknowledge their true selves.

For those who oppose this reality, why and how does this directly affect you? Evolution or transitioning of our feelings and beliefs from one life stage to another is a human thing. We are all humans, aren’t we?

Mel Strijdonk

Northwest side