Letters to the editor for Saturday, February 4, 2023

Immokalee Road traffic, development

Finally a news media, WINK News, has addressed the significant traffic issues on Immokalee Road that have gone on for years and have gotten significantly worse. Our county commissioners continue to put the cart before the horse with consistent rubber stamps of development along the road. WINK News states that by 2040 a traffic analysis says that traffic will increase in excess of 60 percent! How can these commissioners continue to approve these developments, especially the 4,000 new homes recently approved, this is absurd. A solution is needed now, Vanderbilt extension, traffic light modifications, Livingston overpass, diamond at 75 will not do it, in the report, as common citizens have said we need more east-west roads and definitely added access to 75 now. It is time to stop lip service and institute immediate action.

Bill Mason, Naples

Wish they were 'woke'

Will someone please explain to me why the terms "woke" and "wokism," both used frequently by DeSantis to describe Democrats or anyone who disagrees with him, are considered to be a pejorative?

DeSantis' own lawyer, Ryan Newman, when asked in court to define "woke," responded with "the belief that there are systemic injustices in American society and the need to address them."

Per Webster's, "woke" is the past tense of awake and one definition is "aware of and actively attentive to important societal facts and issues."

I do my best to stay in the "woke" segment of our population.

Unlike the voters in New York who, if "woke," would have acknowledged the many pre-election red flags and would never have elected the fabulist George Santos.

Unlike the proponents of the Keystone Pipeline who, if "woke" would have known it was only a shortcut for an existing pipeline and was to carry low quality oil produced in Canada and destined for export from the U.S., so no impact on our domestic supply.

Unlike Republican politicians wanting to hold the debt ceiling hostage to their demands that Social Security and Medicare suffer cuts who, if "woke" would know that increasing the ceiling allows the government to pay for expenditures previously approved by Congress (actually pretty much everyone knows that with the probable exceptions of Greene, Gosar and Boebert).

Unlike COVID/vaccine deniers, an asymmetrical number of whom are deceased, who if "woke" would have believed the successful and well known history of vaccines, had faith in the scientists and doctors, and may still be alive.

Unlike supporters of Ron DeSantis who don't yet seem to realize the harm he is committing against the state and a large part of the population, "woke" folks know he is a fascist (keep the Webster's open).

Wilburn P. Reed, Fort Myers

Locals first for affordable housing

I clearly recognize the need for affordable housing. Our local property markets have experienced dramatic gains on both the sales and rental front over the past couple of years.

All of Florida, especially Southwest Florida, is a desirable place to live. They keep on coming and and there are many new arrivals to our state and community and these new entrants put pressure on our existing housing stock. Combine that with the increased cost of construction, difficulty in finding land to build and the necessary time and cost to secure building permits, it's not surprising that we have a housing shortage. We have more people and the existing supply can't keep up. However, we should not be providing affordable housing to new arrivals before we take care of our own.

According to the Collier County Housing Authority they do not consider how long someone has resided here when considering affordable housing qualifications. It's really inappropriate for someone who's lived in Southwest Florida for one week to qualify for and take an affordable housing unit from someone who's lived here for 10 years. Our locals should get preferential treatment. Today they don't and this should be changed.

Richard Forman, Naples

Is this the Wild West?

To not need a permit to carry a gun in Florida opens up more mass killings -- this is a fact.Do you want the depressed, mentally ill, extremely angry, revenge-seeking gun lovers and even your neighbors able to carry a gun without a permit and training?Why would we encourage no permits and gun toting in our communities?Is this the Wild West?

How many gun killings does it take for us to ‘wake up’ to the inherent dangers of guns in the wrong hands?Perhaps Ron DeSantis has not dealt with the pain of losing a loved one to gun violence. Would that even turn him around from his "unwoke" agenda of living a lie about guns and ignoring the pain and fears of all citizens who want to live a peaceable life?

A life without fear of a mentally ill and depressed person pulling the trigger on innocent people. Read the research on killers. ALL have mental illness, at the time, most untreated for their mental illness; many not even diagnosed until after the killings.How many more murders will it take before we say "NO" to gun laws and start valuing again our truest freedom of LIFE.Cynthia Best, MSW, Licensed Clinical Social Worker, Lehigh Acres

Clean water south of Lake O

The article by Chad Gillis reporting on a reservoir being built north of Lake Okeechobee misses an important point. The Everglades are dying from a lack of clean water. How does a dam north of Lake Okeechobee solve this problem? The major problem not mentioned is the sugar industry south of Lake Okeechobee which adds fertilizers to whatever clean water there is and then discharges the water into rivers because it is too polluted for the Everglades. A dam has to be built south of the lake to capture these waters that will have the ability to remove the fertilizers so that the cleaned water can continue its natural journey through the Everglades.Ted Raia, Naples

Donalds leads on nuclear solution

Across the Atlantic in the middle of winter, an energy crunch is underway. Our European allies made the mistake of shutting down nuclear plants and relying instead on foreign Russian gas. They now are paying the consequences, and America should take note.

How’d they get there? Take Germany for example. They gave in to the anti-nuclear energy movement in the 1980s. By 1998 they adopted policies such as shutting down all nuclear power plants by 2022. What they did not consider was a war spearheaded by their top natural gas supplier. Now they are facing sky-high costs and significant national security challenges.

The U.S. should still push toward low-carbon energy, but not at the expense of energy independence and reliability. It’s essential we lower emissions while still standing strong on delivering cheap and reliable energy. There are sensible ways to accomplish this, like encouraging R&D or using market-based solutions.

We need more of our leaders to step up. That’s why I'm delighted to see Congressman Byron Donalds leading these efforts. Central to his approach is advanced nuclear energy, a reliable zero-carbon energy source. This past fall he corralled his colleagues in the House -- like representatives Kat Cammack, Mario Diaz-Balart, and Greg Steube -- to push the Biden administration to ramp up America’s investment in new reactors.

I’m grateful for his and his colleagues' forward-looking mindset and I hope to see a continued effort to improve America's energy and environmental future.

Olivia Erfman-Tenzel, Cape Coral

DeSantis promotes historical ignorance

Governor DeSantis is an intelligent man, well-educated, with a history degree from Yale and a law degree from Harvard. So, for certain, he is quite aware of the history of systemic racism in the South during the nearly 100 years of "Jim Crow" laws enacted by Southern state legislatures. And yet DeSantis wants to keep these historical political events and their consequences from the minds of school children by prohibiting the teaching of Critical Race Theory (CRT). Why?

And DeSantis is equally well aware that many Americans are blissfully ignorant of the importance of African American History and Culture, and that for our nation to survive and prosper, racial harmony, appreciation, and unity must be actualized. And yet the governor wants to keep our school children ignorant of such history and culture by banning the teaching of an advanced placement (AP) course in African American Studies. Why?

The most obvious answer to the question, "Why?" is that such prohibitions by the governor play into the biases of a large segment of the country's populace, and thereby garners votes for him in future elections. In that regard, he has taken a page from Machiavelli's "The Prince" and thereby joins the ranks of history's most infamous demagogues, too frightening to name. Among present leaders, Vladimir Putin stands out.

Do we really want such historical ignorance to continue unchallenged and its progenitor to lead our country in the future? I hope not!

Ed OKeefe, Bonita Springs

Orphaned by Republican Party

"Many Republicans have long wanted Donald Trump to go away. But none of them have ever had the political power or the guts to make him." Ex-president Trump has hijacked the Republican Party. Ideas become meaningless when there are no values or character within the candidates. It is like multiplying by zero. I'm conservative at heart but feel like a party orphan.

Raul Dick, Naples

Trump's ugly influence

Since Donald Trump ascended to the presidency, surrounded by skinheads, militant groups, KKK members and assorted undesirables, violence in this country has increased almost daily. The reality that there have been more mass shootings in this country this year than there have been days of the year. What's even more depressing is the way Republican Congress members ignore approaching any solutions.

The Congress members continue to flock around the former president as though they were his family and are continuing to be home schooled by him. Representatives Lauren Bobert. Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Jim Jordan as well as House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and newly elected paragon of truth, George Santos, along with Senators Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham and Josh Hawley have all swallowed the Trump Kool-Aid. None of them have suggested or supported any form of gun control, even for assault weapons. All of them refuse to acknowledge Trump lost his last run for office. Many of them downplay the attack on the Capitol building. These beliefs must be the result of Donald Trump teaching them carefully and thoroughly to accept his philosophy.

I'm reminded of the Conway Twitty/Loretta Lynn song "You're the reason our kids are ugly." Without Trump's influence (and threats), would these Congress members be so radical? Well, probably some of them wouldn't be able to help themselves, but I'd like to think at least a few would be capable of thinking for themselves -- although there is little hope for Ted Cruz.

Robert F. Tate, Naples

DeSantis becoming shameful to watch

DeSantis is sailing the ship, the USS Florida, straight onto a killer reef. DeSantis recently said, “You take a crisis situation like COVID, the good thing about it is that when you’re an elected executive, you have to make all kinds of decisions, you’ve got to steer that ship.” While what DeSantis said is true and sounds good, the fact is he sailed that COVID ship straight onto a killer reef that took thousands of Floridian lives unnecessarily. He took the advice of a “voodoo” doctor over proven medical science as he condemned thousands to die as he performed for the MAGA base rather than the citizens of Florida. He and Trump have shown us repeatedly who they are but many refuse to acknowledge the depth of their character flaws. I personally believe that racism is the “single tie that binds” people to Trump and DeSantis. Italians of the 1930s and 1940s rationalized the behavior of Benito Mussolini, a man who used numerous racial tropes -- a tragic mistake. A mistake many are now making concerning Trump and DeSantis. DeSantis is now adopting another page from Trump’s playbook and claiming to have always had people picking on him as he looks for unearned sympathy. He is becoming shameful to watch. He, Trump and Matt Gaetz must have all been cut from the same bolt of cloth -- probably a sheepskin fabric.

James Stuart Emery, LTC, U.S. Army (Retired), Valrico

Over-classification of government data

The legitimate and growing concerns over the revelation of some classified documents at Delaware facilities of President Biden, the much great batch secreted at ex-President Trump’s abode in Mar-a-Lago, and now those surfacing at former Vice President Pence’s place in Indiana beg a central question: does the government apply a secrecy classification to an excessive amount of data?

While there are a myriad of factual differences and disparate legal issues stemming from these varied disclosures — and perhaps more forthcoming — they all seem to share the commonality that government officials may have run amuck in imposing confidentiality or similar secrecy-imbued designations on documents that ought to be subject to transparency and public purview.

The optics of the discovery of these documents at residences of officials is bad, but the opacity underlying excessive classification of documents as off-limits to public purview might even be worse. While there are, to be sure, valid reasons for some data off limits from the public domain, especially involving national security, ongoing investigations, and other sensitive matters, it’s an ill service to the public and officialdom as well in limiting or eviscerating accountability by shielding information about actions of interest or importance to the citizenry.

This is a matter that ought to be in the forefront of the discourse concerning the disclosures of these document discoveries, especially here in Florida, which prides itself on accountability and transparency in public affairs through the state Freedom of Information Act and court rulings favorable to maximum feasible public access.

The issue of over-classification of government data ought not be buried beneath the valid concerns of criminality, carelessness, or other culpability of particular individuals.

Marshall H. Tanick, Naples

Put Golden Rule into action

The Golden Rule is the notion that you should treat others the way you’d want to be treated. It’s Biblical in origin, part of Western tradition.

When the Eastern-philosophy fad of 50 years back presented itself on the American scene, the notion of “Karma” appeared in the American lexicon. It’s the idea that you get out of life what you put into it.

As it happens Karma and the Golden Rule differ only slightly, but the difference seems to reflect a difference in cultures as distinct as the Eastern and Western traditions they spring from. Karma is passive; it simply describes what happens as a result of your actions. The Golden Rule is interactive; it suggests a contributive approach to human interaction can be both beneficial and self-serving.

A few years ago the same crowd that runs the country today was without shame trying to crucify their biggest critic, while the critic’s crowd, the one running the country back then, appears to have been doing a far better job of it.

It’s been two years now this shameless group has been in charge and finally some of them are starting to realize the country’s heading in the wrong direction. They’re asking seriously: What have we done?

It’s hard to imagine those in charge aren’t going to be victims of their own Karma. We can hope they’ll finally realize what they’ve done to all of us is not something they’d want done to themselves. They should put the Golden Rule into action.

Ed (Mac) McCoy, Bokeelia

This article originally appeared on Fort Myers News-Press: Letters to the editor for Saturday, February 4, 2023