What is fascism?
With our political climate today, it’s important to understand fascism. Fascism is a far right authoritarian political system. It portrays itself as ultra-patriotic and ultra-nationalistic. It seeks to have a one party system and is intolerant of other political concepts. It shuns modernism, in favor of traditionalism. It shuns institutions of higher learning and intellectualism. It is intolerant of dissent.
Unions are banned under fascist rule. Fascist leaders see themselves as ultimately masculine. There is a sense of victimhood and a sense that their group is under siege by some phantom enemy that must be destroyed. Fascists are stridently anti-Marxist since fascists are far right politically. There is strict social hierarchy in fascism, where groups are segregated by their worth. Those at the bottom of this order are punished. Racial, religious and political minorities are subject to scapegoating. Bigotry and sadism are the cornerstones of fascism. Fascism builds a world of fantasy for its followers to dwell, using propaganda. Nearly all fascist leaders have been sociopaths.
Steve Rasmussen
Foothills
Letter to Christian Nationalists
This is a letter to people who call themselves “Christian Nationalists” (and who seem to be white supremacists), and who want to take over the U.S. and be the only ones with any rights. It would seem that most Christians in the U.S. do not agree with you as there are many Christian denominations in this country. The U.S. was founded as a secular nation, not a Christian one. Look up the history of the founding of the U.S.
Christianity is not “superior to” or “better than” any other religion. There is no “one true religion,” and there never has been any.
Flora Frederick
Midtown
Abortion and God
The only God given right explicitly stated in the Bible is the right to choose (free will), (abortion isn’t even mentioned). Regrettably, certain smug and sanctimonious heretics have voiced their dissatisfaction with scripture by making the unfounded declaration that life begins at conception, and abortion is murder. This is an effrontery to God because it questions his infallibility.
Each year the number of pregnancies ended by miscarriage and stillbirth dwarves the number of abortions. So is the religious right calling God a mass murderer? To say, he is only correcting his mistake is blasphemy!
The Bible states that life begins and ends with the first (Genesis.2:17) and last breath (Acts 5:5). The fundamental question is whether a fetus is a person. The 14th Amendment places the threshold for personhood at birth, and Webster’s backs that up with its definition of “born: To come into existence.” So, an “unborn child” is a fictional child.
John Balsbaugh
Midtown
False narrative
Re: the July 5 article “AZ House leader claims order against ‘conversion therapy’ illegal.”
Ben Toma’s argument that the state of Arizona should support “conversion therapy” starts from a false and harmful premise that homosexuality is a mental disorder. He also believes that parents under the Parents Bill of Rights can choose to subject their child to the mental abuse of “conversion therapy” with the state’s consent. The Psychiatric Association began to reconsider their mental illness classification of homosexuality starting with the activism of the Stonewall Riots of 1969 and joined by some homosexual psychiatrists who began to speak out against the classification.
We as a society should be way beyond this hateful ignorance, but some want to turn the clock back. The order against state sanctioned “conversion therapy” is just another reason why I am thankful the citizens of Arizona voted for Katie Hobbs.
Karen Allison
Three Points
Guns DO kill people
Over the Fourth of July weekend, let’s celebrate: Approximately 17 mass shootings in 15 states, 18 killed and over 100 injured! It is past time to get control of this problem. Politicians, do you hear?
Norman Patten
Midtown
Deprived state planning, indeed!
I-10 is like driving across a moving puzzle in Tucson. Due to miserable planning, it’s been a disgrace for over a decade. The state wastes tax dollars while galvanizing contractors’ permanent hold on the state purse. Deprived state planning, indeed!
The AZ Roads Contractors’ Annuity program has a lock on I-10 in Tucson, leaving no contractor behind. Drivers endure constant construction misery, damaged vehicles, and traffic delays night and day.
First, they close all lanes on the right, move traffic to the left, and rip out concrete roadways. The following year, they move traffic to the middle and rip out the recently poured concrete highway on the left. A year or two later, traffic is pushed to the far right in this hellish work zone so construction crews can mass huge piles of year-old highway concrete and blacktop scrap headed to perpetual landfills. There is no end to this farcicality of tax-dollar waste. Where does the buck stop?
Jerry Wilkerson
SaddleBrooke
The Supreme Court
In the wake of the Supreme Court term just completed, I’ve read several commentaries suggesting that John Roberts must be deeply unhappy with the behavior-ethical and lawmaking-of his colleagues. I disagree; I think he has waited years to have a solid right-wing majority to backstop his own views, and while he may indeed wince at the ethical transgressions of Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, their behavior isn’t enough for him to do what any “boss” worth his title should do: Either resign or read the justices the riot act in a very public way. That he’s done neither speaks volumes about who he is and what he believes in.
Steve Robinson
Oro Valley
Using our flag to bring us together
I knew we weren’t helping the new president bring the nation together with our signs for Harris and Biden in our front yard. We took them down and bought a flag. We told our neighbors why we were suddenly waving the flag, in hopes they would join us. One did. Our street was still deeply divided into those displaying the flag and those who didn’t. Old friends knocked on the door to see if we still lived here. They couldn’t believe we had switched sides. What goes through the minds of delivery people or the AC helpers or the religious or political zealots. Are they happy to see that they are visiting someone of similar beliefs to their own? Do they feel betrayed, or relieved, when they see the Biden Harris signs leaning against the wall in the hallway? We may not have brought our neighbors together, but we have shaken them up a bit, given them something new to think about. And, we have grown very fond of Flaggy.
Stephanie Keenan
Southeast side
You Sly Dog food truck serves a line of customers as a sky shell goes off in the neighborhood to the north of Avenida del Convento just before the start of the official fireworks show over “A” Mountain in Tucson, Ariz., July 4.
Let’s get real about fireworks
Sadly saw again today on local news how Pima Animal Care is over capacity due to terrified animals fleeing fireworks during the Fourth of July weekend.
Don’t get me wrong — as a male, I can remember as a kid the fascination I had with fire, fireworks, and other things that go boom.
However, over the years I have gradually come to question America’s fascination with them, and how for so many people, despite the numerous risks and drawbacks, they simply cannot celebrate the Fourth of July without fireworks. (I’m intentionally not calling it Independence Day, as I believe an unfortunate percentage of Americans simply view it as another “day off” — that’s another letter altogether).
I’ll skip the obvious fact that much of the country is in drought conditions, and that right here in Tucson we live in a flammable desert. More importantly to me, let’s think about the terrified animals, and the potential impact on our treasured and much overlooked veterans with PTSD.
Is it really worth it?
Paul Danek
West side
GOP transformation
I am dismayed, distressed and disillusioned by the contemporary Republican Party. It most certainly is not the party it was. Neither is the Supreme Court what it was, but that is for another letter to the editor. The party is opposed to most everything many others accept as part of living in the 21st Century. How can voters support leaders so involved in purely punitive party politics? The GOP has become an organized religion that doesn’t permit independent thinkers. I am incapable of believing in a political party so filled with lies and incendiary rhetoric.
Toni Kane
Oro Valley
