Tucson Speaks Out: September 1

Clueless fear of Flock

Outrage over Flock cameras was a curiosity, and then it hit. Activists are concerned over the ways that output can be used. Most people would not use the output in the manner described, but activists came up with ideas of how to use the output. Then it hit them: they came up with concerns about how the authorities would use the output because these are things they would do if they had the chance. Remember how the Biden administration liberals used the FBI to monitor people they wanted controlled. They went so far as to monitor and threaten with arrest the Moms for Freedom group. In other words, a liberal activist group used Biden-controlled federal authority to monitor and harass a group that opposed their agenda. Yes, the first response is denial, but the facts have been uncovered by the Trump administration. Don't be afraid of Flock; be afraid of the people that would and have done these things themselves.

Loran Hancock

Northwest side

Same old same old

Can’t you just hear Ronald Reagan saying, “There he goes again.” This time, in response to Trump imposing tariffs on Canada and then threatening more tariffs when Canada takes retaliatory actions. But then, when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. All Trump knows how to do is hit, then hit harder. He never seeks a creative solution. He doesn’t negotiate. He dictates. He brings nothing to the table that the other side is willing to trade for.

And with Iran, it’s sanctions. Can anyone remember when unilateral sanctions achieved a desired result? Even multinational sanctions struggle to do that. Most of us learn from our mistakes, but since Trump never recognizes his mistakes, he never learns, and we suffer. This situation won’t improve until he’s out of office. Aesop’s fable about the north wind blowing fiercely to try to get a man to remove his coat is an apt metaphor for Trump’s approach to international relations.

Robert Rietschel

Green Valley

Crisis awaits

Trump’s draconian cuts to the VA in 2025 and 2026 provide a window into what awaits the rest of us. When 1.2 million Veterans lost their services, it triggered a historic loss of healthcare workers. Across all 1,400 VA hospitals and healthcare facilities, 40,000 employees were let go — 88% of them were doctors, nurses, aides, assistants, therapists and 24 types of medical specialists; 12% were social workers, care coordinators, schedulers and claims personnel.

Come January, Trump’s BBB slashing $1.06 trillion in healthcare funding will go into effect. Cutting $798 billion from Medicaid and $268 billion from Medicare and Medicare Advantage will not only harm millions of Americans losing their benefits, but it will also cripple our already chronically underfunded and understaffed medical facilities. Acute revenue losses will result in massive layoffs, elimination of services, more critically ill patients who can’t afford preventative checkups, and closures.

When hospitals and clinics flounder, everyone loses. Want to save your healthcare system? Vote for it!

Dr. JB Marshall

Oro Valley

Mandatory service ...

2024-26: Finland, Denmark and Iceland populations are ranked highest in happiness. The USA ranked 23rd, 24th and 23rd, respectively, during the 2024-26 period. The USA is not as socialist as Finland, Denmark and Iceland. Does a constrained level of socialism yield greater happiness? Or do people in the USA have unreasonable expectations that inevitably lead to disappointment?

Isolation won't be solved with public service. Isolation is a problem most people experience and usually resolve by themselves.

Trust in institutions can be restored by those institutions by becoming trustworthy. Federal, state and local governments can create ethics agencies with investigatory/sanctions authority over elected and appointed officeholders to restore faith in institutions. The legislative branches could override ethics agency decisions with a two-thirds majority public/secret vote.

Income inequality: An effective, progressive (not liberal) tax system reducing excess wealth accumulation is a superior solution.

James Abels

Midtown

Biggs budget debacle

I appreciated the Star’s coverage of the three state universities’ funding requests, mostly because it showed just how thin our state budget is. Since the flat tax was passed, our state revenues have plummeted in a way that has taken even GOP legislators by surprise, as they can’t even fully fund their thousands of proposed bills. Now, Andy Biggs is running to eliminate the state’s income tax completely, meaning a $6 billion hole in our already-thin state budget. You think our universities are already barely making it? Imagine what Biggs’ unfunded cuts would do to our state’s higher education future. This is the same sort of logic used in HR 1, but it won’t work here. More cuts to state revenue will mean more cuts to state employees’ retirement funds, salaries, and benefits. Not a good look for a governor.

Wyatt Kanyer

Midtown

Censorship by default

I absolutely agree that the Letters to the Editor policy amounts to de facto censorship. I rarely write letters to the editor myself, but whenever I consider it, I fall into the same trap: I decide to wait, reason that a topic I feel even more strongly about might come along tomorrow, and if it does, it might not get published either. So, I hold back. That hesitation, repeated by countless others, is exactly how quiet censorship succeeds, not by silencing dissent outright, but by training us to self-censor before we ever speak. The result is a chorus of unwritten voices, each one waiting for a better moment that never arrives. I’d rather hear more voices I disagree with than accept a policy that censors by default.

Pamela Ryan

East side

Executive 0rders

The President is the Chief Executive of the EXECUTIVE branch of the government. That includes the Department of Defense, Social Security Administration, and too many to list. It includes their employees. Some past orders had immediate and far-ranging effects (like racial integration of the Armed Services). Some had no effect (renaming Lake Ontario, Gulf of Mexico) because no one from the Chief Executive and his Cabinet to administrators and on down is interested in COMPLIANCE.

A Chief Executive with no interest in compliance with his orders is literally seen as a paper tiger (all roar, no teeth). This is an injustice to our president and all who admire him.

Michael Burdoo

West side