Hilton Head, blame yourself, not the tourists | Letters

My husband and I have enjoyed coming to your beautiful Hilton Head Island for many years.

I am a cancer surviving diabetic and he has breathing issues. We are there several times a year and have discussed making this our permanent residence.

Our area is under stay-at-home orders and all our bars, restaurants, malls, and schools are closed.

It is distressing to read that your residents are hostile to the tourists.

We have prepaid vacations already scheduled for this year and the renters refuse to give us our money back and the only way we can not lose it is to come to your beautiful island and infect you and your love ones.

We all know this is not the right thing to do but your neighbor is encouraging it.

Instead of targeting the tourists, you should be questioning why your neighbors are putting money ahead of the health of your island.

Many parents are probably there with their children because they were caught up with unethical renters as we are and this is the only vacation they can afford for this year.

Gerry Curry

Greenwood, Indiana

America needs this Holy Week

In this Holy Week, it’s worthwhile remembering that America was founded as a Christian Nation. Religious freedom was protected for all, but biblical Christian/Judeo principles formed the foundation of our institutions, our laws and, especially, our Bill of Rights.

Recent polling shows that 70% of all American adults identify as Christians, down from 85% only 20 years ago while the percentage of Christians below 30 years of age is considerably less. \

Predictably, millions of American children will grow up without any religious background or teaching. If this trend continues, will the Bill of Rights continue to be something worth fighting for? And how might this affect the purpose and meaning of our life on Earth?

During Holy Week, Christians commemorate the Passion of Christ who died in reparation for the sins of all and rose on Easter Sunday to give redemption and new life to his followers. While Holy Week is solemn and sorrowful, it ends with the joy of Easter and the recognition of God’s goodness to mankind.

Now is the time to put politics aside and come together to unleash the skills, imagination and resources of this great nation to solve the current public health/economic crisis.

Regardless if you consider yourself religious or not, take time during Holy Week and pray for our country.

Pray for wisdom, compassion, conciliation and love. Pray for our leaders, our medical professionals and first responders and for those most vulnerable. The sincerest form of prayer comes from humility … a trait we could all use more of.

Brian Thoreson

Moss Creek

Check temperatures of everyone before admittance to stores; let the healthy get back to work

I have an idea to get our economy turned back on, and put people back to work.

We know the COVID-19 coronavirus most often comes with fever, cough, and shortness of breath.

Why can’t all businesses open with a bookkeeper/gatekeeper at the entrance who will check and record everyone’s temperature before allowing entrance? If their temperature is high, they must go home and isolate. Everyone else can go to work.

As of this writing, if we compare the deaths due to coronavirus to the deaths from smoking cigarettes, guess who wins? Cigarette smoking has already this year killed 1,278,130. That is 1,223,665 more deaths than the 54,465 killed from the virus. Are we stopping the sale of cigarettes? No!

We can ask anyone who has a temperature and feels cold and flu-like symptoms to just stay home. It should be an easy transition, now that most people are complying with the sheltering at home orders.

With a simple temperature check at the gateway or entrance into our businesses, healthy people could go back to work. Just have everyone keep a personal thermometer on their person while out and about, and all public places will check the temps of people coming into their establishments.

Well then, we could all go back to semi-normal, with only the few infected ones staying home and isolating.

What do you think? Are you up for it, America?

Debra Parsons

Bluffton

Life amid a pandemic

With all the time I now have because of COVID-19, my wife tells me its time to finish everything I started around the house. So now when I get up in the morning, I change from my night time PJ’s to my daytime PJ’s and get started. Yesterday, I finished the vodka, today the gin and tomorrow the Scotch.

Every few days I shower and dress then go to the store looking for toilet tissue, to no avail. My neighbor, who gets up early and goes to the store every day, tells he me can spare some toilet tissue if the crisis ends before 2038.

The golf courses are open but the restrooms are closed. I now found a new use for the sand bottles that came with the golf cart.

Stay healthy and hope it’s over soon.

Bruce Rafinski

Sun City

With Trump in charge, American history would be disastrous

We don’t have many things to be thankful for these days with the coronavirus upending our lives, thousands out of work, stores closed, schools closed, etc.

No one knows when all this will end so we can get back to our normal activities.

Here is one thing that everyone should appreciate: Donald Trump was not president of the United States during the Great Depression and the beginning of World War II. If he had been president then, we would all be in bread lines speaking either German or Japanese today.

Terry Gibson

Beaufort

America’s three-branch system broken

Our Constitution provides for three independently functioning branches of government.

▪ Executive: President, cabinet, support personnel.

▪ Legislative: Senate, House of Representatives.

▪ Judicial: Supreme Court, lower courts.

Often a controversial concept, these three branches were meant to provide a clear separation of power in government through a system of checks and balances. Today, this system is in gridlock and severely broken.

“We No Longer Have Three Branches of Government,” an article written by Harvard professor and vice president of the Aspen Institute, Mickey Edwards, points out that de facto law now reins through regulation and executive order while Congress subordinates its constitutional authority and responsibility to such concerns.

In reality, we now have just two branches. One consists of the president, his supporters in Congress and the federal bench, the other branch consists of the opposition to the president in Congress and their co-partisans on the bench.

Those individuals who drew up our Constitution could not have envisioned the current absence of fairness and common sense as society continues its moral decline down the rabbit hole of partisanship without civil dialogue.

The acceptance of “alternative facts” vs. the truth, pious hypocrisy, ignoring the 10 Commandments, disregard for process, the preeminence of “executive” decisions, irresponsible pardoning, polarization of the Justice Department, lack of compromise and consensus have contributed to where we are today.

Solution? In the Lowcountry, get involved. Demand reform and a return to the basic concepts of our Constitution that made our country the envy of the world.

Earle Everett

Moss Creek

How to submit a letter

Send letters to the editor by email to letters@islandpacket.com or letters@beaufortgazette.com.

Or you may submit a letter online.

Letters to the editor must be 250 words or fewer and include your first and last names, street address and daytime telephone number so we can verify the letter before publication.

You are limited to one letter per 30 days.

Letters may be edited for length, style, grammar, taste and libel. All letters submitted become the property of The Island Packet and The Beaufort Gazette.