DeSantis, where woke dies? Teflon Trump; Fox fakery; Anne Frank ban; fund cops | Letters

Fund the police! Add radar cameras to Indian River Drive

Instead of lowering the speed limit on Indian River Drive in St. Lucie County, why not do what Florida's Turnpike has been doing for some time with the toll payments?

We all see the speed signs on various roads that show both the speed limit and your speed right below it. Well, common sense tells me that as you go by the sign, a camera facing the opposite way could take the picture of your car, with your plate number and actual speed from the radar, and notify you how much the amount is needed to pay to the city or county if you were speeding.

The equipment is already available, and cheap, so some people would not have to complain about the price to install these units. By the way ... don't do this on all the blinking speed signs in the county or city.

This would let speeders wonder: Does this one have a camera or not?

This would not only save lives, time and money, but with the extra money it generates, it sure would help retain and add more police for our safety.

Fund the police!

George Sinbine, Port St. Lucie

Based on court settlement, Fox must be public enemy

A recent letter writer stated that the biggest enemy we have is the media. Fox’s voluntary settlement with Dominion Voting for $787.5 million certainly proves that’s at least true as to Fox.

Thomas Going, Vero Beach

Let's hope Port St. Lucie leaders remember past bubble, debacle

I just read the article about where property values in the Treasure Coast took another huge increase in double-digit billions for most, including St. Lucie County and Port St. Lucie. This reminds me of the period between 2003 and 2008.

I bought a condo for $80,000 and saw the prices rise to about $180,000. All the county and city officials were loving it, except taxes also increased and they thought they had money to burn. So much so that they spent a bunch of money buying land and doing work west of Interstate 95.

A new development was going to be built and 2,000 people stood in line to buy. I thought this was crazy, but most were happy. Guess what happened in 2008 and afterward? Well, my condo I could not give it away for $40,000. Everybody was underwater, and locally we were stuck with a billion-dollar loan for all that land and improvements, which we are still paying off. It took almost eight years for the market to recover.

In Florida, history always repeats itself in the real estate market, and I can envision the same thing occurring in the near future for politicians who never pay attention to history. They will give you a tiny decease in the tax rate and spend the additional income as if it is Monopoly money.

Let's hope those in power learned by their mistakes in that period and save for the eventual collapse, but history tells me that won't happen.

Edward Marasi, Port St. Lucie

Removal of graphic edition of Anne Frank diary violates rights

It was shocking to hear “Anne Frank’s Diary: The Graphic Adaptation” was removed from the Vero Beach High School library, all because one parent, Jennifer Pippin, and her group claimed that the book minimized the Holocaust and showed Anne’s thoughts about other female bodies, including showing the protagonist walking in a park, enchanted by female nude statues, later proposing to a friend that they show each other their breasts.

The high school students who might read the book were not children of tender years, but were as old, if not older, than Anne when she wrote her diary, before she and her family were betrayed and sent to concentration camps to die during World War II by the same Nazis who burned books.

Anne’s feelings, including those of a sexual nature, were expressed in the original diary, copyright 1952.

The adaptation gave voice, based on words and feelings expressed in the original diary, to a teenager whose life was tragically cut short in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp who can no longer speak to us about her feelings (sexual and otherwise) about growing up during some of the most formative years in a young person’s life. To ban the adaptation for expressing what Anne felt and stated in the original diary is to say that the original diary itself should be banned.

The adaptation was briefly removed from a Texas school district, but later slated to be returned.

No one has the right to censor a book simply because they disagree with it. Ms. Pippin can say what she wants, but she has no right to impose what she thinks is historical truth on other students and parents who want the adaptation to remain on shelves. Freedoms of speech, to read and to teach, have lost big time in Vero Beach as they have elsewhere in Florida.

Barry Fulmer, Fort Myers

Trump hardly destroyed by media; just look at Jan. 6

President Donald Trump was not destroyed by the media. He’s out playing golf, looking hale and hearty.

Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick was destroyed, and wasn’t it after President Trump sent out a tweet that Vice President Mike Pence had betrayed him, which seemed to invigorate the mob?

There seem to be hundreds of videos by hundreds of “media” of what happened that day. Is the cop who was pushed up against the pillar OK? How about the one who was dragged down the steps backward, being hit with a flagpole the whole way?

And if you want less government spending, please tell us just how much it cost to clean up and repair the Capitol building.

Helen Frigo, Jensen Beach

Whatever happened to law and order?

When one thinks back to the Summer of Love in 2020, and compares it to the Jan. 6 Insurrection of the same year termed, “worse than Pearl Harbor and 9/11, combined,” one must seek factual support.

The Summer of Love riots were more significant with 15 times more police injured, 23 times more arrests, and damages estimated in dollar terms 1,300 times more costly than Jan. 6.

The so-called Capitol rioters were pursued by authorities with more vigor, holding and allegedly mistreating dozens in pretrial detention for months, whereby the vast majority of charges were dismissed in the “Love” cases.

Fast-forward to the present, it would appear that self-defense is under fire. We have a former Marine subway rider who, while attempting to protect innocent travelers, along with two assistants, overcame the menacing perpetrator. Unfortunately, the perp, who by the way, had 42 arrests (2013–2021) for such crimes as: punching a 67-year-old woman in the face, breaking her nose and fracturing her orbital bone, and attempted kidnapping of a 7-year-old girl, was fatally injured.

The deceased has been characterized by those close to him as “a sweet kid who suffered from mental disabilities and became homeless.” It would seem he was allowed/encouraged to commit more and more serious crimes that were excused/overlooked by authorities.

In local media, we learn of an elderly man who was sentenced to 111 years for viewing kiddie porn, not participating or filming; nothing, other than viewing.

Two questions arise:

Is the right to self-defense no longer the right to life?

Does law and order exist?

Audrey Taggart, Hobe Sound

State Cabinet has no business overturning judge's ruling on comp plan

In reference to your recent editorial, I share your consternation on the Administration Commission overturning a judicial decree relating to Martin County's comprehensive plan.

The actions of Gov. Ron DeSantis and his Administration Commission are dictatorial, in your face, subjective realities.

Florida is one of 24 GOP-controlled states with government by the state, of the state, and for the state.

“A nation of well-informed men who have been taught to know and prize the rights which God has given them cannot be enslaved. It is in the region of ignorance that tyranny begins,” Ben Franklin said, reference my prior rants and raves about GOP strangulation of funding public education.

On Memorial Day, I anguished the millions of our military who died to protect our freedom, now circumvented by greedy old people.

Lowell Sasser, Fort Pierce

Complain about country, servicemen? Take a hike

It is unacceptable for anybody, especially Americans, to insult and denigrate America and those service people who have made the ultimate sacrifice in order to protect our country and us.

I remember the day when my aunt and uncle across the road from us heard the doorbell ring and opened the door to see two Army officers standing there with the horrendous news that my 19-year-old cousin had been machine-gunned in half by the Japanese on Luzon. He had volunteered for a second mission to go behind enemy lines. I remember his mother screaming, and his sister running over to our house to get my parents. I was only 10 years old at the time.

I remember that one of my mother's brothers was wounded fighting against Erwin Rommel in Africa, another uncle fought in France, another learned Japanese in order to interrogate prisoners, another uncle repaired our planes in Burma, a friend's ship was torpedoed by the Nazis in the English Channel, a cousin was wounded three times in Korea, another served in Vietnam and our dear grandson served on an aircraft carrier that toured worldwide for four years.

So many families have had to suffer great losses so that complainers could live well. Anyone who complains about this country doesn't deserve to live here.

Nancy Celano, Sebastian

Commonsense solutions offered to limit shooting bloodshed

Gun comtrol has dominated the letters to the editor lately .

This subject is not my cup of tea; I don't have a gun that kills. But I do have a small mace gun we used at West Point to knock the bats down in the food warehouse. However, I would like to share my thoughts about the latest diatribes from some gun enthusiasts.

Freedom to own guns is not being threatened. The proposal is that all gun purchasers be subject to background checks and that all guns be registered. It's just like you have to pass a test to drive and register your car.

In addition to that, guns that can produce a massacre would not be available for purchase.

If anyone thinks regulating guns will make each of us vulnerable to losing our freedoms, he or she should take a trip to one of the cities to speak to a parent of one of the many children who have been victims.

Let's halt the easy ownership of high-powered weapons with rapid, repeating magazines that should be only in the hands of law enforcement and the military.

If anyone you know has one of the massacre-capable guns, I hope you advise that person to keep it under lock and key and no one else has a key.

Joe Liguori, Indian River Shores

Where woke goes to die? What a shame

Who's woke? I'd like my kids to know history in all its ugly asides.

It seems to be some anti-woke warriors are bigots in sheep's clothing. For our governor to campaign on "woke comes to Florida to die," if not laughable, would be extremely scary. He certainly doesn't represent the majority of Floridians who feel a woman should have control of her person.

One of your letter writers seems to think it OK if like in China, the Mideast, Turkey, Nigeria, etc., you might receive a death sentence for LGBTQ+ practices.

Gov. Ron DeSantis ain't DaBomb. Enough said.

Barb Conboy, Stuart

When it comes to Florida, DeSantis, just report the news

I just read the June 4 paper.

The governor opened the state in May 2020 in the year of the pandemic. All those vulnerable were encouraged to continue to take precautions. Small businesses were allowed to open.

Can you recall getting your mail? Having your trash hauled away? Seeing plexiglass at every cashier? Food on the shelves in the grocery stores? There were many people working, which allowed the vulnerable to continue life, buy food and stay at home. I, for one, did not want to see businesses go under and have entrepreneurs lose their investments.

Florida’s ranking snapshot:

For the past seven years Florida, ranked No. 1 in education (by USNews). We have the lowest higher-education costs and fees.

We are ranked seventh in quality of life.

We are 70% fully vaccinated for COVID.

Florida is ranked as one of the best-run states. Home values increased by 36.3%, where the national average gained 23.7%

As of April 2023, Florida ranks 13 in unemployment rate at 2.6%. Compare that to New York’s ranking 42 at a 4.0% rate and California’s rank of 49 in the country with a 4.5% rate of unemployment.

Florida needs work as far as health care. We rank 36 in access to health care.

Americans are savvy and can make their own decisions without the personal opinions of writers in your newspaper. Start printing the facts devoid of opinion, so Americans can make excellent decisions.

When we make personal and important decisions in our lives, we want facts not biased opinions.

Go back to reporting the news. I don’t need to be entertained when gathering facts.

Jo-Ann Scotto, Vero Beach

This article originally appeared on Treasure Coast Newspapers: DeSantis, woke dies? Teflon Don; Fox fakery; Anne Frank ban | Letters