Rising school rates

Dear Editor,

I see the school board is up to no good — again.

Where do you people get off thinking that the average retired homeowner can cough up additional mills to pay for the school district’s financial woes? Especially during hard Bidenomic times like these.

There has to be a better or at least more sensible way to balance the books than to charge the folks of this county and the board members better start looking for it. Enough is enough!

Dale Lindsey Jr.,

Warren

Lesson in history

Dear Editor,

Fifty-six miles west from Warren, in New Richmond, Crawford County, on the John Brown Road, off PA 717, is where John Brown and his family lived for 10 years, 1825 to 1835. Brown had a farm and a tannery. In 1946, it was designated as a Pennsylvania Historic Site.

It is reported that Brown assisted more than 2,500 fugitive slaves’ (A.K.A. “illegal aliens” of their time) use of the Underground Railroad to seek their God given right to breathe free air. Slaves were fleeing from the “S. holes of that time,” which today tend to be deep red states. The fugitives were fleeing a terrible, dead end system whereby owners, upon occasion, would impregnate their property to increase the owner’s wealth. Slavery was total exploitation of the captured Africans and their descendants. The Confederate flag is the symbol of that government, whereby states could perpetuate slavery.

In 1835, Brown moved to Kent, Ohio, and within the year, May 1836, he with his sons were in Kansas where they killed five pro-slavery advocates in retaliation for a pro-slavery burning of an anti-slavery community in Lawrence, Kan.

In 1854 the Republican Party was formed. It replaced the Whig Party as our “second political party.” The Whig Party split over the slavery issue. Both the Whig and Democratic Parties – Andrew Jackson’s 1820s “common man” party – tried the Compromises of 1820 and 1850, namely “popular sovereignty,” of letting the people decide state by state, to resolve what to do with slavery and its expansion into new territories, such as Kansas.

“Bleeding Lawrence Kansas” demonstrated popular sovereignty at work, at its worst.

In 1857, the Dred Scott Supreme Court Decision ruled a slave is a slave wherever the slave was thus eliminating the idea of “slave free states.”

In June 1859, Brown raided the Harpers Ferry Arsenal seeking weapons to arm slaves for a slave uprising. He was hanged in December. The raid convinced southerners that abolitionists would use any means to accomplish their goal to eliminate slavery, upon which the South’s economy and society were based.

In December 1860, South Carolina seceded from the Union, following the November 1860 election of Republican Abraham Lincoln and the GOP “abolition of slavery” platform.

They say the rest is history, that is until Trump came along.

Candidate Donald Trump at the Schnecksville 911 Memorial, this January, spoke about the Civil War, “I think the Civil War could have been negotiated; so many mistakes were made, war was unnecessary and Lincoln could have done more to avoid bloodshed; all the people died, so many people died.”

Lincoln assumed Office in March, 1861. The CSA fired on Fort Sumter in April, when Union forces refused to surrender.

This April, Trump gave his Gettysburg Address: “Gettysburg, wow. What an unbelievable battle that was. It was so much and so interesting and so vicious and horrible and beautiful in so many ways. It represented such a big portion of the success of this country. Gettysburg, wow. I go to look and watch.”

Readers of this letter know more about the causes/history of the Civil War than does Trump.

The COVID 19 Pandemic, 2019-2023, was Trump’s challenge – so many mistakes, so many died, so horrible and vicious and it represents a big portion of our economic downfall. Trump deferred decision making to governors and then second guessed them when things went wrong. It was chaotic. Health care providers lacked necessary equipment, scientists were badgered and belittled, truth was sacrificed for public relations, snake oil bleach and such were promoted and more people died. Our economy went into shutdown.

Trump failed his Presidential crisis. Trump’s flawed misunderstanding of history and his incoherent oratory is exceeded by his bluster. In many ways, Trump is a very inappropriate person and was very ineffective when in office.

Don Scott,

North Warren