Letters to the Editor: COVID-19 is only a culture war to Joe Biden's critics

LONG BEACH CA SEPTEMBER 14, 2021 - President Joe Biden waves as he boards Air Force One at Long Beach Airport, Tuesday, Sept. 14, 2021, in Long Beach, Calif. (irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)
President Biden waves as he boards Air Force One at Long Beach Airport on Tuesday. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)

To the editor: Columnist Jonah Goldberg suggests that President Biden has adopted a "never exit" strategy of government regulation that fosters exhaustion and polarization, thus widening a cultural war.

Perhaps he has forgotten that about 418,000 Americans died in World War II, 37,000 died in Korea, 58,000 died in Vietnam, 4,500 died in Iraq, and 2,200 died in Afghanistan. In all, about 520,000 Americans died in these years-long wars.

The COVID-19 pandemic is not even two years old, and in the U.S. almost 670,000 people have died. It is a very real war that some have chosen to make a cultural war.

Maybe winning this war without too many more dead will require us to handle a little frustration and government regulation. If we cannot do this, we can add another loss to our scorecard. Is that what we want?

Maurice M. Garcia, Newbury Park

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To the editor: Just as we get word that the U.S. will soon become the least vaccinated wealthy nation in spite of an embarrassingly high stockpile of doses and a huge head start, Goldberg faults Biden for not having a pandemic exit plan.

It's akin to setting a building on fire, preventing firefighters from extinguishing it, then criticizing said firefighters as the blaze rages out of control.

To those of us whose vision is not clouded by culture war smoke, Biden's pandemic exit plan has been clear all along: Get the shot, and we can put most of the pain, suffering and death of this pandemic behind us.

Mark Van Leeuwen, Newhall

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.