Letters to the Editor: Feb. 6

Dear fellow drivers, I have a confession. I’m the one driving the posted speed limit, the one you blame for missing the green turn arrow or yellow light.

I see you riding my bumper, honking when you speed past. I see you at the next light shaking your head in disgust. Here is how you can avoid this frustration. Join me and drive the posted speed limit. Not only will you never be stuck behind me again, you will find yourself more relaxed during your drive.

You’ll realize trying to save time by speeding is futile, thwarted not by me but by traffic lights controlling the general flow of drivers. You will never again worry about being pulled over for speeding, and surprisingly arrive pretty much at the same time. You, too, can rest easy knowing the secret joy of driving the posted speed limit and making our roads safer for everyone.

Riley Merline

West side

Gender issues

Public discussion of the following should aid understanding of the complexity of human gender issues. The American Psychological Association defines gender identity as, “A person’s deeply-felt, inherent sense of being a boy, a man, or a male; a girl, a woman, or a female; or an alternative gender (e.g., genderqueer, gender nonconforming, gender neutral) that may or may not correspond to a person’s sex assigned at birth or to a person’s primary or secondary sex characteristics”

The authors of a meaningful study hypothesize that gender identity is a multifactorial complex trait with a heritable polygenic component. They argue that increasing the awareness of the biological diversity underlying gender identity development is relevant to all domains of social, medical, and neuroscience research and foundational for reducing health disparities and promoting human-rights protections for gender minorities.

Let the thoughtful discussion proceed!

John Hughes

Foothills

Walton is a joy

My take on Bill Walton — love him! He exemplifies a joy for life we should all try to emulate. Keep Bill. We have enough mundane.

Linda Dobbyn

Midtown

Death penalty bias

Re: the Jan. 29 letter “Death penalty bias” and the Jan. 25 article “AZ should study biases in death penalty use.”

There’s a simpler way of looking at this controversial subject. We won’t even have to worry about whether the death penalty is applied equitably or not. To quote a bumper sticker, “Why do we kill people who kill people to show that killing people is wrong?” In other words, what part of “Thou shalt not kill” don’t we seem to be getting?

Aston Bloom

East side

Stealing from Social Security

Social Security is not a handout, it is not welfare, it is not a government benefit. The money in the Social Security Trust Fund is money that workers put into the fund through the payroll tax deduction from their paychecks. Generally, the worker puts in half, the employer puts in the other half. Self-employed workers pay the full amount. The money belongs to the people and is paid out in retirement, disability payments and to children whose parents are deceased or cannot work. To use that money for any other government expense is stealing from the American people. So Republicans who want to cut Social Security to reduce the deficit want to steal from the American people. I thought Republicans were the party of law and order.

Don Ries

Southeast side

Vote will tell

Re: the Jan. 31 letter “Stop the stupid.”

Recently a writer asked the Republican Party to “stop the stupid” and my reaction to that is it can’t be done because stupid people never realize that they are in fact stupid. Somehow they seem to band together for self-preservation and the comfort knowing that this herd-stupidity might protect them from having to face reality. The first step to recovery is realizing there is a problem. Luckily for these people you can’t tell by looking at them that they are stupid, you have to wait until they open their mouth and show you (Lake, Finchem, Masters). That’s when you have to decide if you are one of them, only your vote will tell.

Roger Boesch

Foothills

Policing

Re: the Jan. 31 article “America’s police problem persists.”

Your Bloomberg columnist presents the typical one-sided view, blaming the police. So let’s look at some similarities. The cities are different, the training is different, the causes are different, the races of offenders are different, etc. So what is the one consistent thing? In every case, regardless of race, location or offense, the ultimate loser resisted. The respect for authority has gone. A ninth-grader defies the teacher, police get gunned down, referees get beaten. Those who obey the authorities live to plead their case. There is no room for criminal actions by police and they must be held accountable. But Newton’s law says that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Let’s see a little balance from our editorials.

Bill Blaine

Marana

Water for everyone

Everyone is fighting over the diminishing resource, water. No one proposes a viable solution. Here it is: desalinization of Pacific Ocean water, increasing the total water supply. Ocean water would satisfy California’s needs, leaving Colorado River water to the other six states in the Colorado River Compact. Substantial costs involved must be met by all seven states. The federal government must mandate cooperation and supervise funding and water use. Reduced housing and industrial development will also be required, but the ocean is the only source of more water.

Don Laws

Green Valley

Social Security

Kevin McCarthy: I worked for 40 years in a productive occupation designing integrated circuits. Each month I paid 7.5% of my salary and my employer paid 7.5% of my salary into Social Security. The promise of these payments was that I would receive a modest payment each month to support my living expenses after I retired. I am now retired and receive my Social Security check each month, which helps me make ends meet. These payments are a fulfillment of the promise made to me by the federal government when I was working and paying into the system. They are not “irresponsible government spending”! I do not know who you are or if you ever made a payment into Social Security, but you should not make statements which frame Social Security as “irresponsible government spending.” The people who receive payments paid into the system in good faith. They do not live on fat political contributions.

Robert White

Foothills

Equity and diversity education

Tom Horne says no to Equity and Diversity Education. Hmm that’s odd, he produced self-promoting ads with himself (Tom Horne) speaking Spanish on the radio when he was running for office. Tom, we are the United States of America, not the divided states of America.

Saul Ostroff

Midtown

Debt ceiling must be paid

Rep. Andy Biggs does not seem to understand the debt ceiling. He keeps saying (tweeting) that he won’t vote for it unless there are big cuts (he’s eyeing Medicare and Social Security, by the way) in the budget. It is reckless of him to spread lies and misstatements about the debt ceiling. All approval of it does is agree to pay for what Congress (including him) has already spent. Yet, he is demanding Speaker McCarthy blackmail the president to make cuts. The two are completely unrelated.

Think of it this way: A family looks at its budget and sees it is ordering pizza five times a week, so to save money, it will cut that to once a week from now on. On the other hand, it still has to pay that credit card for all that pizza it already ordered and ate. One is future action – the other deals with past debts. Simple. I wish Rep. Biggs would figure this out.

Karen Micallef

Oro Valley