Observer Forum: Letters to the editor

In response to “Bright lights, big city, dead birds” (Sept. 26):

Saving birds is nice, but don’t let this turn into a mandate

I have nothing against birds, no ax to grind with the Audubon Society – but come on people, turning off the lights uptown?

To me this is just another example of an environmental group gone wild. Birds die all the time in the migratory process; we can’t save them all.

If we have a volunteer program to shut off the lights a few weeks each spring and fall that’s fine, but go no further than that.

Please don’t turn this into a government mandate, as often happens. Next, we’ll have a tax on our Duke Energy bills to replace the birds that die each year hitting the building.

Doug Eberhart

Charlotte

Let your benevolence shine, dim the lights on corporate towers

Here’s hoping the tall and the powerful will listen to the volunteers seeking to have the city lights dimmed for the sake of tiny birds during fall and spring migrations. It’s such a small price to pay for their tiny lives.

Hear us mighty Duke Energy, Wells Fargo, Bank of America – be the benevolent corporations you’re described to be. Save a few more lives.

Sherry Williams

Charlotte

Don’t focus on disenfranchising voters; bring more into fold

It’s arguably a short distance from saying almost half the country won’t “take personal responsibility and care for their lives” to believing it is permissible to disenfranchise them.

While it’s inevitable that partisans will go to great lengths to prevail, actions that clearly target voters of color are too often tolerated as politics as usual rather than as threats to democracy and equality.

It is time we get beyond shameful efforts to suppress urban turnout in swing states and get on with creating national registration and voting standards that reflect our commitment to universal enfranchisement and electoral best practices.

Pat McCoy

Charlotte

In response to “Does Obama skip intel briefings? Not really” (Sept. 26):

Foreign policy requires more than ‘powder puff sanctions’

Whether or not President Obama goes to security briefings is a moot point. The fact is his foreign policy is in disarray and he has destroyed America’s leadership in the world.

Wars are not ended by quitting, nor does suicidal evil succumb to wishful sweet talk and powder puff sanctions. Power rules. We don’t need God to damn America. We have Obama.

Ed Mesko

Charlotte

In response to “Government shouldn’t create markets, just facilitate them” (Sept. 26 Forum):

To get bread to market you need what government builds

Taken out of context, President Obama’s “You didn’t build that” remark sparked debate over the relationship of publicly financed infrastructures and private enterprise.

Forum writer Jan Notzon’s letter alleges that infrastructures, such as the Erie Canal, are facilitators, not creators of markets. Jan attempted to bolster that assertion stating: “If I bake good bread, people buy it and a market is created.”

Jan, there is no market for your bread without the means to deliver it.

Daniel R. Coughlin

Concord

Time voters recognized GOP’s ‘bad behavior’ hurts country

It is no secret that 15 prominent Republicans, including Paul Ryan, met the night of President Obama’s inauguration to plan how to make him a one term president.

Their plan was to say “no” to everything the president wanted to do, even if the ideas were originally Republican ones, even if the ideas would help the country.

Like children, they would just say “no, no, no!” As most parents have learned, if you give in to bad behavior it just reinforces it. Hopefully voters will realize this as well on Election Day.

Laura Reich

Matthews

In response to “Bowles, Simpson continue to push to tackle debt” (Sept. 26):

To reduce national debt we must curb future expenditures

Assessing our nation’s fiscal health by measuring the debt accrued to date is like assessing driving conditions on a road trip by looking in the rearview mirror.

Come up with all the justifications you like for the problems that confounded you on the relatively straight, smooth road behind you; it won’t help.

The road ahead is filled with unfunded liabilities, social programs, military expenditures, pensions and governmental commitments of all types that simply cannot be met. Sixteen trillion in debt is a drop in the bucket compared to the hundreds of trillions needed to pay for our future commitments.

John P. Cunnane

Charlotte

In response to “NFL fans furious about blown call” (Sept. 26):

Forget NFL call, unite instead

to bring down national debt

This country can unite against the replacement NFL referees, but we cannot even come close to agreement on what to do about our $16 trillion debt.

Which is more important in saving our great country?

Wayne Martin

Matthews