Public or private indoctrination?
Should public funds be used to support private schools? Those who say "no" assume the public school educates and the private school indoctrinates. This distinction is manifestly false. Indeed, a private school filters ideas through its values and beliefs, but so does a public school.
Unfortunately, many public schools have abandoned belief in objective truth and replaced it with subjective feelings, desires and experiences. Sadly, public education now indoctrinates students with bizarre notions of pregnant men, gender choice, mindless atoms that evolve into intelligent life, "woke" culture and history, and other nonsensical ideas that run counter to thousands of years of intuitive common sense.
Well, then, let's not use public funds to support private schools that indoctrinate with verities of personal responsibility, respect for authority, discipline and objective reality. Instead, let's support public education that indoctrinates by deconstructing objective reality and replacing ancient, tried-and-true classical traditions of civilization with modern romantic delusions.
Since human beings learn, preserve and pass on value systems, their education cannot proceed without indoctrination. Indoctrination occurs in both public and private education, so what kind indoctrination do you want? It isn't a choice between public education and private indoctrination.
Bob Miller
Signal Mountain
How much caring is too much?
You work hard and are finally able to afford a house for yourself and your family. Some well-meaning folks come by and ask that you allow some struggling families to live in your home, and as a caring person you agree. You even unlock your front door and allow whomever wishes to enter. Soon, people who seem to be not so caring are camping in your living room and asking for food and other things you previously worked hard for to provide for your family. You, being a caring person, agree to allow them.
One day you notice your house, which was once clean and well maintained, has become dirty and rundown. The new residents you invited into your home don't seem to be pitching in to take care of it. Apparently, they did not take care of their previous residence, which is one reason they moved into yours. When you complain about this, the well-meaning folks ask that you continue to work and give them some extra money for the education they received that enabled them to see the wisdom in opening your home in the first place. Being a caring person, you say no.
Mike Wolford
Hixson
Foundry site needs ‘dramatic symbol’
Assurances are given of a much larger, varied utilization of the former Wheland Foundry/U.S. Pipe site, not merely a Chattanooga Lookouts stadium. Mayor Kelly: "The transformation of Chattanooga's long-neglected western gateway will begin at long last."
Missing is a dramatic project on the western end of the property. Chattanooga needs a symbol of equal size and impressiveness as the 605-foot-tall Seattle Space Needle or 630-foot-high Gateway Arch in St. Louis. Each, reverberating in the national imagination, is a mammoth tourist draw.
The property, sitting next to I-24, is the first focus of the Chattanooga viewshed: a dramatic welcome. It can have the same notoriety in the national imagination as the aforementioned symbols, becoming a tourist attraction in its own right and a money-maker for all Chattanooga. Throw open to everyone: the symbol-search, its design, including a surrounding park.
How do we want to be known to the world? Professionals will stylize the design and engineer the structure. But submission of concept and accompanying images can come from all, generating honor and enthusiasm and arousing the imagination of the entire area. Its results will symbolize Chattanooga worldwide.
Olin Ivey
Tax increase for schools is needed
In last Sunday's paper, Mayor Jim Coppinger was quoted as saying, "We want to give our local athletes every opportunity to excel on the field, but we also need to ensure they can excel in the classroom first."
I couldn't agree more -- that is the whole point of the public school system. I understand that to many people athletics are very important and that it is what keeps some of our students in school, but before we devote the front page of our esteemed Chattanooga Times Free Press to the issue of underfunded athletics, let's address our underfunded educational system.
Literally, quality public schools determine our future, and, yes, we have some great ones in Hamilton County, but we also have some not-so-great ones. So let's do what we should have done years ago and increase our taxes so we can pay our teachers a wage befitting the work they do, pay for the supplies needed, and repair or build school buildings that meet the needs of our students.
Please join me in pressing for a tax increase to be devoted solely to Hamilton County Schools.
Jane Elmore
GOP supports hate and violence
For at least since the 1920s, Republicans have been playing reverse Robin Hood. They give tax cuts and tax breaks for the wealthy, and deregulations for corporations, saving them money at the peril of workers (regulations save lives). An economic study has shown that since Reagan, through that last Republican in the White House, the U.S. Treasury has lost several trillions of dollars. Consider what that could have accomplished. One of the most disgusting things I hear from Republicans is their absurd "we can't afford that." Then the ridiculous line that Democrats just tax and spend. No, the Republicans just give it to their millionaire buddies!
But now, thanks to "Trumpism," they have become evil. If you don't know that, you need to quit listening to and passing on the hateful lies from that outfit that calls itself Fox News. To support any Republican now, and I mean any Republican, you are supporting hatred and violence, which will take the whole world back to the dark ages.
Walter Benton
Signal Mountain
Georgia deserves new hospital
I am writing in regard to Parkridge Hospital's appeal allowing Memorial to build a new, better equipped hospital on Battlefield Parkway that will provide a better quality of care to the people in the community. Hospitals should be working together and focus on meeting the health care needs for the people in the community, not on money and greed.
There are a lot of people in Tennessee and Georgia. Parkridge can't see them all. It shouldn't be a competition. The people want and need this hospital, and they deserve it. Memorial, Parkridge and Erlanger are good hospitals. We need to put the needs of the people first, not the hospitals. Let Memorial build its hospital.
Elizabeth Woodruff