LETTERS - Sunday

Why city supports Bruce

Absolutely no one is mentioning the devastating effect these budget cuts will have on our pools and their employees. They have had to take the brunt of the cuts with very little support from the City Council.

You do realize that the citizens know there are more cuts (sensible ones that hurt no one) that could be made and that’s why they won’t pass the proposals you put on the ballot… I dislike Doug Bruce intensely but he has made some good points and people who resent taxes will support him.

I have been a member of the Aquatics Center for 18 years. I exercise there at least three times a week. I even moved to my retirement home here at Pikes Peak Towers so that when I can no longer drive, I can walk to the Park. I am 78 and in good physical condition and I owe it all to the employees of Parks and Recreation.

There are many members who are not in good physical condition, or trying to recuperate from drastic physical problems. (We are talking about strokes, limb replacements, lung and heart disease, arthritis, ect.). There are rehab centers (if you have the right insurance) but they will only demonstrate how much more you must do to become a whole person again.

We can do all those things and at a more reasonable price people can afford. We have a contract with Silver Sneakers now, which brings in regular payments, we are approved by the Arthritis Foundation and our numbers are growing. This is also a wonderful place for socialization activities, especially for people in wheelchairs, walkers or on canes.

You can see how strongly we feel the need for funding the Parks and Recreation Department. We have been told we will close the middle of December. I’m devastated, especially since the City just built a word class skate park on Memorial’s north side. If we could just keep a couple of the pools open it would increase our usage, raise our revenues and make a lot of goodwill among seniors and young folks/parents. We will be forever in your debt if you will support efforts to fund Parks and Recreation, if only a little.

Once you’ve actually closed a facility it will deteriorate and cost much more to rehabilitate for use again.

I sincerely believe that asking city workers to use their own cars is a very small price to pay for the good of the whole city. You know they will submit plenty of mileage claims to reimburse themselves.

Thank you for giving us some hope.

Della Valk, Colorado Springs

Republicans and health care

Bill Moss’ Nov. 11 letter made a good point: Those critiquing healthcare reform should be more specific, if they are to succeed. Most people talking about health reform either want more government regardless of the actual effects, or believe that some sort of market miracle will happen, if only healthcare is deregulated.

I find neither side very convincing.

Consider: As reported by a recent New York Times article, Switzerland spends much more per capita on out of pocket healthcare than does the U.S. The U.S. spends more per capita on insurance costs, however, and overall pays quite a bit more than Switzerland does for healthcare.

In other words, people in Switzerland more directly pay for their healthcare than do Americans. America has a system where we pay a monthly fee to have our bills covered for the entire month, which encourages us to consume much more healthcare than we actually need.

One necessary aspect of reform, then, is to have a system which (excepting poorer folks, who should receive some subsidies) covers only the highest bills, so that those able to afford it foot their entire bill, or pay much larger co-pays, for most of their unimportant visits and treatments.

Until the system is reformed to make Americans bear more of the burden of their healthcare costs (and I’m talking more than a $20 co-pay), we will continue to demand too much healthcare, and costs will continue to rise.

I agree that the bills currently going through Washington are unsatisfactory. But I, like Bill Moss, would like to hear better critiques, and some workable alternatives, from Republicans in this city and elsewhere.

Tim Canon, Colorado Springs

The tautology of tolerance

Political correctness may have seen better days. At present it feels like it has taken on the form of calling on tolerant people to be tolerant even of those who are brutally intolerant. This, of course, is a logical tautology — a contradiction, in that tolerating those who are brutally intolerant simply means that one is complicit in that brutal intolerance by condoning and therefore participating in it. What follows, then, is that tolerating that which is brutally intolerant actually makes one intolerant and not tolerant at all. And what follows from that is the fact that to be tolerant at all one must be willing to not tolerate that which is brutally intolerant such that non-tolerance is a morally correct response to intolerance, whereas intolerance is morally intolerable.

Thus, it would seem that we can conclude with certainty that the inability to not tolerate anybody, that is to say, remaining on the fence for not wanting to judge anyone, actually and by definition makes one an intolerant person for here one wishes to tolerate those who are brutally intolerant rather than judging them. After all, as seen above, it is a necessary condition of tolerance to be willing to not tolerate at least those who are brutally intolerant.

What follows from this analysis, then, is that there actually is no such thing as a moral fence. The fence is merely a deception caused by the underlying logical tautology in the first place. Hence, to good last, such intolerance grows stealthily amongst us as those who perpetrate it are the ones who themselves believe themselves to be morally excellent, that is to say, extremely tolerant! It is therefore, that authentic tolerance depends for its very existence on the line in the sand that it must first draw in order to indicate that at least that which is brutally intolerant will not be tolerated, lest tolerance does not exist at all. Tolerance, though, ought to exist...

Warren C. Edick II, PPCC, Colorado Springs

Mark items made in China

Goods manufactured in China should carry warning labels, just like cigarettes. If we want to save our economy and bring jobs back home, we should buy American-made products, even if they cost a little more.

Jeff Adams

Colorado Springs

Worth a good laugh

Mark Barna comparing Ted Haggard to St. Paul is ludicrous (“The Pulpit”, Nov. 15). It did give me a good laugh.

Adela Villa, Colorado Springs