To the Editor:
Re “Senate Confirms Patel to Lead F.B.I. as Agency Faces Turmoil” (information article, Feb. 21):
The cowardly Senate Republicans are actually responsible of giving the tyrant within the White Home the cupboard he so desperately sought.
With Pete Hegseth on the Pentagon, Tulsi Gabbard as director of nationwide intelligence, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at Well being and Human Providers, and now Kash Patel on the F.B.I., America is in for the roughest and most harmful trip in maybe all of our historical past.
These are sycophants of Donald Trump who will do something and all the pieces this president tells them to do. As an alternative of “the shining metropolis on a hill,” we are actually an emblem of mistrust and evil around the globe.
The injury these now confirmed cupboard officers will do is incalculable, not solely as a result of they’re sycophants, but in addition as a result of they’re utterly unqualified for his or her vitally essential positions. Beware, America, that is what 77 million of you voted for.
Henry A. Lowenstein
New York
To the Editor:
To the Republican senators who confirmed Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as secretary of well being and human providers:
We within the medical group now think about you personally answerable for the pointless deaths, and there can be many, that can happen due to Mr. Kennedy’s ineptitude as well being secretary.
I by some means doubt that the grieving households can be comforted by your ideas and prayers, figuring out that you just betrayed the American folks solely since you are afraid of Donald Trump.
For those who had any decency, you wouldn’t avail yourselves or your households of the miracles of contemporary medication and science, because you noticed match to burden the American folks with an anti-vaccine, anti-science man with crackpot concepts to supervise our well being and well-being.
Steve Turner
Raleigh, N.C.
The author is a doctor and the proprietor of Garner Inside Medication, a personal main care follow in Garner, N.C.
To the Editor:
“Wrecking ball,” a time period generally used today, is just not an correct description of what Elon Musk is doing. Wrecking ball operators are expert and answerable for the implications of the wrecking ball.
Mr. Musk is uncontrolled and has no thought of the implications of his actions.
David W. Gallagher
Tucson, Ariz.
The Pastor and the Homosexual Son: ‘Love Earlier than All Else’
To the Editor:
Re “How My Dad Reconciled His God and His Gay Son,” by Timothy White (Opinion visitor essay, Feb. 16):
Having been steeped in a conservative evangelical church from delivery to maturity, I used to be moved by this text.
Rising up, I seen that amongst church leaders a lot of what was deemed morality was based extra in a profound lack of humility than in any of the phrases ascribed to Jesus, to not point out easy human kindness.
A lot of the inflexible biblical interpretation by means of which “morality” was dictated arose as a lot from worry, insecurity and a core want for certainty because it did from the a lot translated, human-altered textual content.
In consequence, even slight variations from conformity have been seen as threats and quashed, generally viciously.
Although the piece raised some disagreeable reminiscences, and although I’ve been an atheist for over 50 years, the pastor Invoice White’s struggles with convictions and his church, born of his integrity and love for household, have been touching and provoking.
Thanks very a lot for publishing this piece, and deep due to the Whites for sharing their story.
Brad Wheeler
Phoenixville, Pa.
To the Editor:
As a homosexual man of a sure age, I respect studying homosexual popping out tales, then evaluating others’ experiences with my very own. As a clergyperson, I relish finding out how different folks in my career come to reconcile tenets of their religion with homosexuality — once more, evaluating their journeys with mine. Coming throughout Timothy and Invoice White’s tales was, for me, transferring and edifying.
Their instance demonstrates how constructive transformation might be achieved once we put love earlier than all else. Combining that with the braveness to take leaps of religion and the willingness to wrestle with laborious points and ask powerful questions accomplishes one thing nothing in need of miraculous.
As Katy and Invoice White thanked God for the reward of their homosexual son, Timothy, I thank God for uplifting the White household to share this constructive and highly effective witness for us all.
(Rev.) S.S. Brown
San Diego
To the Editor:
Thanks for publishing Timothy White’s stunning story of affection and reconciliation. We’re sadly missing these parts in America right now. Our nation is riven by extremes of anti-everything, it appears.
The present administration appears intent on eliminating America’s sense of humanity and duty for selling what is nice and useful to our fellow human beings right here and throughout the globe.
That is what makes America nice. We should not lose that to egocentric, highly effective egotists who don’t have any ethical compass.
To the Editor:
Re “Can We Please Stop Calling These People Populists?,” by David Brooks (column, Feb. 14):
On this column and others by Mr. Brooks inveighing in opposition to “liberal elites,” I’m feeling not noted. I’m a John Stuart Mill liberal, actually nicely educated — my father, a science trainer and a Republican, insisted on it — however not a tutorial. I’m a member of the skilled class (a retired commerce journalist), however I by no means made a wage of greater than 5 figures per 12 months. I’m anti-bigotry, anti-authoritarian, pro-labor. I’m pro-democracy and imagine in “liberty and justice for all.”
My many liberal buddies match a lot of the identical description: What makes us “elite”? It appears to me that Mr. Brooks, like different skilled observers of the political scene, has a restricted set of containers he desires to suit us all into. Might or not it’s that they aren’t sufficiently in contact with the complete range of the American public? Might or not it’s that they, too, are the elite?
George Stubbs
Durham, N.C.
To the Editor:
David Brooks inexplicably misses a necessary hallmark of populism. Let’s begin with a basic definition of the populist: “a member of a political social gathering claiming to characterize odd folks in opposition to the Institution.” The important thing phrase right here is claiming. The claims of sure populists could pressure credulity greater than others, however make no mistake: Deception is a defining characteristic, not a bug, of the populist calling card.
The litmus take a look at for a populist, then, can’t probably hinge on his precise devotion to “boosting the destinies of working-class Individuals,” as Mr. Brooks writes. What did the French Revolution do to spice up the destinies of the French citizen? Nothing. It introduced solely destiny-destroying tyranny.
Individuals will understand the deception solely when it hits them the place it hurts: within the pocketbook.
Rod Thompson
Holland, Mich.
