Tax or take money from anti-vaxxers? and more letters to the editors

Tax or take money from anti-vaxxers?

The unvaccinated folks here in Tennessee and abroad are costing our country time, money and lives.

How should our democracy deal with this? Of course there are legitimate reasons some should not take the COVID-19 vaccination, but those individuals are a single digit percentage of the total who should be vaccinated.

Should we impose an unvaccinated tax? Should we rescind the stimulus money that was distributed to these individuals? Should we have an additional endorsement on our state licenses indicating vaccination status? Maybe all of the above.

These anti-vaxxers will cost our country billions of dollars over the coming years, causing lingering variants to pop up, solely due to these folks' stubbornness. This will undoubtedly cause more and more costly government intervention in order to quell these variants.

This is a democracy, anti-vaxxers, and your participation is vital to the welfare of all citizens. Don't be a slacker, anti-vaxxer!

John Mathna

Warming planet may be the least of worries

A recent letter stated: "Ignore the climate alarmist balderdash." I once worked with a guy who called these people exactly what they are: pseudo-intellectual idiots. They pretend to know so much and constantly proclaim their own actual balderdash. They will tell you how much more they know than scientists or medical experts. They only know as much about the subject they spout as to be dangerous to the rest of us.

We may not need to be concerned about the world burning up because the GOP would allow pollution to poison all our water and air before that happens. Solar, wind, and water power are clean, and totally renewable for as long as the earth and sun exist.

Dolores Benton

Signal Mountain

TFP urged to take care with headlines

About last Sunday's article on teaching candidates. The headline "Teaching candidates of color are being left behind" leads the reader to think that "of color" teaching candidates are selectively not being hired, implying racial discrimination.

The truth is that more candidates "of color" who have failed the licensure test are not retaking it.

I understand that article headlines are supposed to capture the reader's attention, but I also expect that the headline and the content of the article are consistent. As you know, many folks screen headlines only instead of reading all of the articles.

Please remove your bias and report (in both headline and article) facts. I expected more from the Times Free Press.

Thank you.

Kirk Kruse

Jasper, Tennessee

Schools benefit from National Park Service grant

A National Park Service grant, "The Triple Victory of the 6888th," which funded the 6th Cavalry Museum's new exhibit and education program, has allowed the museum to donate age-appropriate books to every school library in Catoosa and Walker counties.

The museum donated 52 books valued at more than $900. The three books - "To Serve My Country, to Serve My Race," "One Woman's Army," and "Standing Up Against Hate" - offer firsthand accounts of Black women who served their country during World War II experiences, including passages about their time at Fort Oglethorpe.

The 6888th Central Postal Detachment officers and soldiers were the only Black Women's Army Corps unit to be sent to Europe during World War II.

Chris McKeever, museum executive director

'BRIC' nations weaponize environment

Some 30 years ago, the BRIC nations - led by Communist China and Russia (and including Brazil and India) - established a goal to control the world's economy by 2030.

The key to competitiveness is energy cost. While North America has immense fossil resources, if utilization of fossil resources could be somehow unilaterally curtailed, BRIC (now BRICS with no such foolish intent) would have an immense energy (as well as labor) cost advantage. Hence the carefully orchestrated climate change charade of imminent, cataclysmic environmental collapse unless the world's democracies abandon fossil fuel. The wholly obsequious and clandestine "Green New Deal," conservatively increasing energy costs by seven to 10-fold, promotes such economic suicide.

Climate change is a weapon in BRICS subversive war for global dominance. Diverted by orchestrated internal strife, stagnated by embedded anti-America socialists, bombarded by an obsequious media and prostituted academia, America sleeps while massive economic and military power is being aligned against us. As per the 1930s, when met with only toothless rhetoric, use of such power is inevitable.

R.G. Kirn

Soddy-Daisy

Will we hear the truth from McEnany?

I see Kayleigh McEnany will address the Athens, Tennessee, Chamber of Commerce on Aug. 2, 2021.

Your paper mentions she will share her faith. A question: What part of her "faith" includes the following list of lies?

- She defended Trump's claim that COVID-19 affects "virtually nobody."

- She maintained that the former president's suggestion about injecting disinfectants (including bleach) was "taken out of context."

- She stated that Trump "never downplayed the virus; once again, the president expressed calm." In his recordings with the author Bob Woodward, Trump mentioned he knew the virus was "more deadly" than most people realized and that he intentionally downplayed its severity.

- She argued that the Mueller Report provided the "complete and total exoneration of President Trump." Wrong, The Mueller report provided 10 examples of the former president's efforts to obstruct justice.

- Lastly, she recently claimed that "all of our Founding Fathers were against slavery, recognized the evils of it." Forty-one of the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence owned slaves.

As Edward R. Murrow once observed, "To be persuasive, we must be believable,/To be believable, we must be credible, /To be credible, we must be truthful."

Michael V. Woodward

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