LETTERS

Tuesday Letters: Readers debate Confederate statues

Times-Union readers

CONFEDERATE STATUES

The call for removing Confederate statues gets more ridiculous by the day.

What is wrong with people that they are afraid of a statue, an inanimate object, a piece of stone or metal?

Statues aren’t doing anything, they aren’t saying anything, they aren’t hurting anybody — they are just standing there. People who don’t like them should just not look at them!

Carol Kaine, Jacksonville

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CONFEDERATES

TREATED AS U.S. VETERANS

All Confederate soldiers were declared to be U.S. veterans. Therefore, to desecrate a Confederate grave, statue or site is to desecrate the grave, statue or site of a U.S. veteran from any and all wars where men and women who wear the cloth of the U.S. are killed.

In other words, there is no difference between the Union blue and the Confederate butternut gray, they are both the uniform of the United States and those that stained them with their own blood were U.S. soldiers.

Shame on those who are demanding that history be destroyed.

As someone said, are we burning books next?

God save the United States of America.

Gene Aschenbeck, Orange Park

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CONFEDERATE MONUMENTS

LET’s BE CREATIVE

Maybe we have come to the end of what we can do to the issue of move or don’t move the Confederate statuary.

Time to try a new question: How could these objects be used more effectively?

One answer is to place them together in a conducive environment and remove them from being a finger in the eye of our African-American population.

Right now they are scattered like raindrops all over the county.

There is at least one Civil War cemetery. Why not add a sculpture park? That constitutes a situation not ripe for riots around gravestones.

It would be worth the little bit of city expense just to get this done. Larger pieces could be easily repurposed.

The large female ensemble in Confederate (why not Springfield or mid-town?) Park has a few clues to the Confederates that a good sculptor could remove.

Replace the plaque to read “To all women who have lost husbands, sons, fathers, brothers to the curse of war.”

That sentiment embraces half the human species whatever our color or history.

Sharon Scholl, Atlantic Beach

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POPULISTS VS. LIBERALS

REBELLING AGAINST ELITES

Remember the line from the movie “Network?”

“I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore.”

This is the underlying cord that has fueled the populist movement in the U.S. with President Donald Trump and the recent discord in Western Europe and with the European Union.

In short, this is the start of a rejection of liberal democracy in its present form.

Given the constant push against Trump by the ruling elite establishment, it seems that they know that something is coming for them.

People are sick of the propaganda, the narratives, fake news, political correctness, partisan tone deafness, polarization, race politics, the liberal democratic state’s intrusion and meddling in the private lives of citizens and the cultural humanistic attacks on traditional values and religion.

Liberal democracy is a far cry from the democratic republic our founders set up.

Jerry Wood, Jacksonville

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HEALTH CARE

NOT GOVERNMENT’s business

Where does it say in the Constitution that it’s the government’s responsibility to provide me health care?

Where does it say that I must pay for the health care of others?

Why not offer two or more systems of health care?

1. The socialized single-payer system (government) that is wanted by the liberals and predominantly Democratic Party individuals. Let those who choose this system pay for it. Only their tax dollars can go to pay for it, not mine. Hopefully it would be solvent, but it would likely go bankrupt.

2. A user payer system that allows the individual to choose from anywhere the company and policy that is right for them. We choose and pay for what we want or need. Medicare and Medicaid will still be there for those who qualify.

3. A health care savings account that can be funded by the individual or others (like the employer) on his behalf.

Giving people freedom of choice, what a novel idea!

We must also require more accountability from those who use government assistance like Medicaid.

Mike Dallas, Jacksonville