Letters on hateful rhetoric, Trump, mental health, earthquakes
Hateful rhetoric sign of dangerous times
We live in very dangerous times, when some of our public figures engage in rhetoric that dehumanizes groups such as Muslims and Hispanics, and this speech is considered acceptable by a large part of the electorate.
Donald Trump is accurate when he says that ISIS beheads people. It uses the propaganda of fear and hatred, backed up by unbelievable violence, to achieve power over others. It engages in evil for evil’s sake. Let us not do the same. This is diametrically opposed to our Constitution and our historic attempts to evolve away from treating certain groups as less than human.
Trump, whatever his in-your-face appeal, is a poster child for the dark side of human/American nature. His justification for waterboarding as a retaliation for ISIS transgressions would turn us into a moral monster that would forever haunt our history. The American Psychological Association has rightly classified waterboarding as torture that is ineffective in its results.
Perhaps Trump would have all the stupid people – those who do not see the world as he does, or do not bow down to him – register and then be put in camps. This is not just sarcasm, but a tip-of-the-iceberg concern, for history has shown that such inflammatory rhetoric can be a foreshadowing of very dangerous times.
Charles A. Gaynor, Bel Aire
Truth in Trump
Donald Trump opens his mouth without thinking. Politicians tell us what we want to hear – and then forget it. There is more truth in what Trump tells us.
Elmer Pinkerton, Wichita
Fund mental health
A staff member at Osawatomie State Hospital was raped recently by a patient (Oct. 31 Eagle). She was saved from any worse harm by another patient – not by security staff or another mental health technician.
There are certain things we need to have a safe society. We need schools. We need law enforcement. We need hospitals to care for our physically ill and mental health care for those who are dealing with mental illness.
And just as we need emergency rooms that do not turn away those in physical need, we need community mental health centers and state hospitals that are adequately staffed to take care of all the mental health needs in our state.
We do not want another tragic event like what happened at Osawatomie, and we do not want more mass shootings. Contact your state legislator and demand full funding for our state hospital system and our community mental health centers.
Tami Martin, Wellington
Small quakes good
As forces try to move the tectonic plates relative to each other, there eventually will be some slippage, and thus an earthquake. If there is friction at the plate interfaces, this slippage will not occur easily. But eventually the forces will be great enough to make them slip, and there will be a great earthquake.
If there is some lubrication between these plates, such as caused by fracking, the slippage will occur more easily. Thus there will be more earthquakes, but they will be smaller. Because small earthquakes cause little damage, this will result in less damage over the long term.
Lubricating the plate boundaries in California has been considered for this reason, but was judged to be too expensive.
Gordon Bakken, Wichita
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This story was originally published December 6, 2015 at 6:05 PM with the headline "Letters on hateful rhetoric, Trump, mental health, earthquakes."