Sounding off: Lincoln's Lyceum Address is enlightening

I’d like to encourage everyone who reads this to please look up on Google or YouTube the 1838 Lyceum Address by Abraham Lincoln. It was written 23 years before the Civil War. Similar to today, tensions were high, and there was much unease.

Lincoln warned the nation of immense harm that would prevail if we “the people” permit it. Very similar to today, mobs were what some thought was an adequate way of change.

After you have read or listened to the address, hopefully you’ll be convinced that this, the greatest nation on Earth, was built on the countless lives lost that helped create this experiment in democracy. And laws. And that this must remain a nation of laws. Not mob rule. Not a person’s rule. Not a family’s rule.

Harry Blank, Unity

Covid’s toll on our planet

With people being in isolation for much of the past year, different aspects of everyday life have been altered, and we have had to adapt to this new “normal.”

Although some of these changes have made our lives better, have they benefited Earth? According to the Climate School at Columbia University, covid-19 has halted states’ efforts to eliminate plastic waste. In many grocery stores, shoppers are no longer allowed to bring in reusable bags, or workers bring their groceries out to their cars, often in plastic bags. Restaurant owners have seen an influx in takeout orders and are using more plastic containers.

It is not a surprise that people choose these options; it is what they decide to do afterward that makes the difference. Plastic grocery bags can be taken to recycling locations. Many takeout containers can be recycled, and also can be used for creative at-home art projects or storage.

Coronavirus has inspired people to design new, innovative ways to safely interact. Now it is time to use that inspiration to benefit Earth.

Cianna Denis, Unity

The writer is a senior at Greensburg Central Catholic High School.

Make voice heard on redistricting

Redistricting will be upon us soon. We voters, once again, will be herded between legislative boundaries that remind one of cowboys riding drunken horses lurching side to side to keep their balance just so the most powerful can keep the power they have given themselves.

This is the true way our votes are stolen: We are forced to cast our ballots where we have been directed; no need for midnight truckloads of fake votes or machines jimmied to erase the wishes of the electorate. Simple snakey lines going through townships, counties and sometimes even dividing a patriot’s homestead.

Lines are drawn by Democrats and Republicans only and are set forth behind closed committee doors, with no public input, answering to no electorate, utilizing as the only criteria whether the desired geography is red or blue.

Gerrymandering hobbles us in our present and robs our children’s future. Once candidates win elections, it is nearly impossible to get them out of office.

Before the Legislature are two bills, Senate Bill 222/House Bill 22, the Legislative And Congressional Redistricting Act (LACRA). When enacted (and we can get this done together), redistricting committee meetings will be made open to the public. Voters will have input, and modern methods of cartography will be employed to draw these, the most important lines in our commonwealth.

We need to contact our state legislators to convince them to sponsor and support LACRA, to take back our elections from the onerous rules of the 18th century. Inform them of what time it really is: time to take back the vote.

Richard D. French, Ford City

Telecommuting would benefit DC

One key lesson the pandemic taught us is that about one-third of the population can effectively work from home. Among the D.C. ruling class, the figure is far higher. So why not make it permanent, starting with Congress?

The Capitol and hearing rooms could be turned into big-screen Microsoft Teams meetings for tourists. There would be a dwindling number of riots either of the widely condemned Jan. 6 variety or the media-supported riots of last summer due to this dispersal of power and wealth.

K Street could wither on the vine with no concentration of Congress in town to lobby. As D.C. completes its transformation into a city of first-class museums and monuments, eventually every department save the Pentagon and State Department could help spread the wealth.

The area north of the Potomac could be retroceded to Maryland, just as the area south was retroceded to Virginia in 1850. The city, with its beautiful national park, would become a congressional district in Maryland; the 23rd Amendment could be repealed; and we’d have no more silly talk about a single-industry 61-square-mile town about ¹⁄₁₇th the size of Westmoreland County becoming the 51st state.

David Staples, Hempfield

GOP’s self-destruction is sad

As a longtime, former member of the Republican Party, it embarrasses and saddens me to see the Grand Old Party self-destruct.

The Honorable Liz Cheney, U.S. House member from Wyoming, is now a voice in the wilderness, that rare current Republican elected official who is sufficiently honest, decent and patriotic as to preclude her from buying into or indulging the dangerous fantasy that Donald Trump won the Nov. 3 election. Her belief in democracy has earned her the wrath of party stalwarts who have joined the Trump cult of dishonesty, and who refuse to accept anything less than total, blind allegiance to the leader. Shamefully, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, his eye on becoming speaker in January 2023, is the leader of the anti-Cheney pack, believing that any dissension from the Trump line spells doom for the party.

Cheney has been ousted from her leadership position, demonstrating the accuracy once again of the adage that no good deed goes unpunished.

In order to be elected as a Republican for most offices today, total loyalty must be pledged to Trump, and his delusional insistence that he won the election must be accepted.

Beware Rep. Elise Stefanik and any other GOP representative who would succeed Cheney in leadership: If you ever dare to exert a shred of independence or refusal to in every respect follow the leader, you will be destroyed!

Oren Spiegler, Peters

Guns and suicide

For developed countries, life expectancy has been increasing, with one exception: the American white male. In studying this phenomenon, researchers found a correlation between their decrease in life expectancy and an increase in suicide rates. In the U.S., suicides outnumber homicides almost 2 to 1. The increase in suicide rate was noticeable only for U.S. white males.

Suicidal thoughts are mostly temporary. It is an impulsive act in a moment of panic or despair. Nine out of 10 people who survive suicidal attempts never take their lives. However, when a gun is used, the attempt is fatal 85% of the time.

The use of guns in suicide deaths also correlates to state gun laws. In states with lax gun laws, suicide gun deaths are greater than in states with strict laws. For U.S. white males, there is a relationship between suicide rate, gun ownership and lax gun laws.

For the safety of your loved ones, dispose of your firearms or keep them locked away or store them outside the home. And urge our state legislators to enact sensible gun safety laws.

Joanne Garing, North Huntingdon

Biden is taking us backward

I believe Joe Biden is intent on taking this country back to a time when Democrats’ policies destroyed the family unit.

During a 2019 campaign event Biden referred to himself as the “savior around the world.” He touted a plan to force American taxpayers to fund abortion through Planned Parenthood. Just one week after taking office, he restored tens of millions of taxpayer dollars to the International Planned Parenthood Federation which performs nearly 1 million abortions every year.

Not to worry though, because Biden has a plan.

In the $1.9 trillion stimulus package is cash allowance for children under age 6, which equates to $300 every month, and for children ages 6 to 17, a $3,000 cash allowance which equates to $250 every month. Although the stimulus is temporary, Biden may make this permanent.

He has learned nothing about the problems of the past of which he was a party to, or just maybe that has been the intent of the far left all along.

In 1965, 24% of black infants and 3.1% of white infants were born into fatherless families. Children living in single-parent homes are at greater risk of living in poverty. The culprit, according to political scientist Charles A. Murray, is the “overly generous federal welfare benefits.”

Why would Biden want to take us back to that time? The answer is simple: Make the public reliant on the government and you hold power over them.

Ed Liberatore, Turtle Creek