A ‘house divided’

Once again, we are a house divided.

We have experienced the protestations of an unpopular war, clenched fists at Olympic Games and now NFL players on their knees expressing peaceful civil disobedience in a public venue.

Their cause is about the prevalence of racial injustice. It is not about the National Anthem or the flag or our servicemen.

In addition to a president using Jim Crow invectives to divide rather than unite our country, we still have a generation gap between those who remain obsequies to authority and those who question it.

Like predecessors, Jackie Robinson and Muhammad Ali, all deserve respect for taking an unpopular stand for a just cause.

If not them, who?

Roger B. Huntman

Sequim

Capitalism a far better system

Regarding Mr. Carpenter’s letter to the editor (Sequim Gazette, “National Change needed,” Sequim 20, page A-10) that claims that capitalism is geared to the rich at the expense of the poor, or that socialism could do a better job but politicians scare us of its faults:

In my experience and the history of the United States, no other economic system in the history of mankind has provided the upward mobility to humanity then capitalism and free enterprise, when matched by the rule of law and private property rights. Until this country was forged from the sweat and blood by our forefathers, no other place on earth could someone from a poor family work their way up the economic ladder of success to become (maybe) wealthy.

One only has to look at the reason why poor people from around the world came, at the risk of their lives, to become an American. Today, still, the opportunity our system offers is coveted by the rest of the world.

The “national change” that is needed is for government to get out of the way and let the human desire for success and accomplishment drive our economy. Even now more than half the country pays no federal income tax, yet get a free ride of what this country has to offer.

Capitalism was never meant to be fair and equitable to all like socialism, but rewards those who learn and take advantage of what it has to offer. Nor is it the mega-corporations that drive our economy, but the self-employed or small business owner that takes the risk to build a business from nothing.

No, it is not “fair” like socialism — but then ask the people of Venezuela or any other country that has tried socialism.

It’s capitalism that offers the thousands of choices we have in our daily lives.

Bill Ring

Mission Viejo, Calif.