You can’t please everyone; don’t try

Addressing Mr. Luke Hamaty’s statement to state Rep. Carl Ford at the town hall meeting of March 17:

It seems Mr. Hamaty is wanting to hold the Republicans to a higher standard than the Democrats. He went on to say, “Let’s do what’s right.”

This is not the problem. In this day and time, there are very few people who believe in absolute right. To most people, it is relevant to what they feel is right. We have too many opinions as to how things should be. It reminds me of a story I heard many years ago. I might not get it just right, but you will get the point.

A man, his son and their donkey started off to town. The man put his son on the donkey to ride. They soon met a group of people who thought it was terrible for the son to ride and his poor, old father to walk.

The son got off, the father got on. Next they met a group that thought it was wrong for the father to ride and the son to walk. So both father and son rode.

The next group they met criticized them for both riding the poor little donkey. They should carry him. They tied the donkey’s legs together, put him on a pole and started off to town. They came to a bridge. While crossing it, the pole broke, the donkey fell in the river and drowned.

In trying to please others, they lost the donkey. It is impossible to please everyone.

Without God’s help and compromise on both sides, we will never settle anything. Learn from or repeat past mistakes.

— Sybil Athey

Salisbury

Man deserved care

I just read an account of an incident related by Mayor ProTem Maggie Blackwell at the Salisbury City Council meeting this week. She had to stop and help a man in the middle of the street who was begging for her to run him over. She found out later he was a veteran in need of psychiatric help who had just been to the Hefner VA Medical Center on Brenner Avenue and was turned away.

As the wife of a retired Naval officer, I find this to be outrageous. The VA Medical Center should have taken this man in, if he had an ID card that proved he was indeed a veteran, and given him the help he so badly needed. If the man did not have proof, then he should have been put in an ambulance and taken to Novant Health Rowan Medical Center.

This is why we have so many veterans with psychiatric problems who are committing suicide or taking out their frustrations on other people. This is not going to go away until veterans who have served our country are treated with the care and concern they deserve.

Lastly, thank you, Maggie, for your care and concern for this veteran, and thanks also to the policeman who obtained help for him.

— Juliet Connery

Salisbury

Trump’s theme song?

In light of the gaffes coming from the Trump administration on a nearly daily basis — wiretap, Russian interference, unaffordable health care,  reshaping government that looks a lot like a dictatorship, etc. — I’d like to suggest a theme song for the president and his cabinet members.

Frank Sinatra had a hit record in 1956 for Capitol Records written by Carolyn Leigh and Phillip Springer. “How Little We Know” aptly describes the current administration and its ineptitude, much to our concern.

— Herb Stark

Mooresville

Face the facts, folks

I’m mad! I’m damn mad! Another day, another terrorist attack on innocent people — for no reason other than they’re “infidels,” not of the Muslim faith.

Again, I saw the bloody, brutalized bodies of fellow human beings after being mowed down by a Muslim “extremist.”

Is that an acceptable, politically correct term? Or am I being insensitive? I would hate to hurt anyone’s feelings; it’s much more acceptable for me to keep my mouth shut and to accept what is becoming commonplace around the world.

I saw the body of a 30-year-old father, a British policeman who, according to British custom, was probably not armed. We saw him lying on his back, sliced up by the 8-inch knife of another Islamic terrorist. I ask you, is that acceptable? Or is being politically correct more important?

It’s getting to the point where I don’t go to a movie or eat lunch at Chick-Fil-A without looking around and wondering how I’d get out fast, if I had to. This is the world our children live in. These are the images they see on the nightly news.

Is this acceptable? Our children and grandchildren deserve better! It’s up to us to give them better!

We are Americans. We have the right to live and enjoy our lives in peace and with at least a modicum of harmony. I am tired of losing my rights to accommodate the extreme religious beliefs of others who do not want to become part of America, but come to kill us, and to disrupt our way of life.

— Kathryn Dews

Salisbury