Climate change and big government
Editor:
On Father Gregorio’s column “An idea that should appeal to everyone, but doesn’t” (March 6), I believe that most Americans are committed to reducing their carbon footprint and protecting the environment. As for manmade global climate change, you are completely wrong that it is a 100 percent certainty. You ask the question “Why would anyone spend big money to urge voters to vote and constituents to contact Congress in order to overturn laws protecting everyone’s lungs?”
You have mistaken people’s distrust in big government with being against clean air. I believe these are free citizens of our country that are simply saying, we do not want big government passing more laws and taxes that hurt the average citizen and never solve problems.
Where we disagree is not on reducing carbon emissions but how we do it. There are free market solutions to the problem you discuss in your column. You want the government to pass new laws and taxes to force the American public to accept your solutions. The fantasy of everyone having solar panels on their roof that run the house and charge cars sounds great.
The government can’t tax sunlight hitting panels or energy stored in a battery, but they can tax carbon emissions, power plants, gas stations, car companies and citizens.
We should all be committed to protect the earth that God created. I leave you with a quote from President Grover Cleveland from 1887 when Congress wanted to pass a bill to help Texas farmers that were suffering through a catastrophic drought.
“I feel obliged to withhold my approval of the plan, as proposed by this bill, to indulge a benevolent and charitable sentiment through the appropriation of public funds for that purpose. I can find no warrant for such an appropriation in the Constitution…. A prevalent tendency to disregard the limited mission of this power and duty should, I think, be steadfastly resisted, to the end that the lesson should be constantly enforced that though the people support the government the government should not support the people. The friendliness and charity of our countrymen can always be relied upon to relieve their fellow-citizens in misfortune…. Federal aid in such cases encourages the expectation of paternal care on the part of the government and weakens the sturdiness of our national character, while it prevents the indulgence among our people of that kindly sentiment and conduct which strengthens the bonds of a common brotherhood.”
Jeff Morse
Cherry Hill
‘German occupied Poland’
Editor:
Regarding “Survivor visits school” (March 20), Auschwitz, the concentration camp that Rabbi Kohn was in, was not “Polish” nor was it in Poland. It was “German” in “German occupied Poland.”
“Poland” and “German occupied Poland” are significantly different geo-political entities. “Polish” and “German” are not interchangeable terms.
As the son of a member of the Polish underground whose unit Zoska was acknowledged by Yad Vashem for saving 350 Jews during the 1944 Warsaw Uprising, I would like to point out that referring to a German concentration camp in occupied Poland the way you did is insensitive to the families of the millions of ethnic Poles who were killed, forced into slave labor, tortured, taken away from their families, maimed, terrorized, burned, bludgeoned, turned into soap, starved, etc. during the brutal and inhuman occupation of Poland by Germany. You should also know that the Germans, besides killing Polish children outright, forcefully removed over 200,000 blue eyed, blonde Polish children from their parents to be placed with German families. Most were never found or returned.
Also, if you are referring to Poland, Poles or Polish in association with these horrific places in which Poles also suffered purely because of their ethnic background, then you should clearly identify the victimization of the Poles, which, of course, you did not.
Stefan Komar
Queens, New York
Where to write
Send letters to Carl Peters, 15 North Seventh Street, Camden, NJ 08102 or email to cpeters@camdendiocese.org. Include daytime phone number. Letters should be limited to 300 words or fewer. Material subject to editing. Opinions expressed in printed letters do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Catholic Star Herald or the Diocese of Camden.