Opinion

Opinion Who is the real ‘sucker’ and ‘loser’?

BY MIKE LEATHERWOOD G UEST COLUMNIST

When I was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the Army Corps of Engineers in 1963, I took this oath: “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.”

The President of the United States takes almost the same oath with the words: “I will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.” A multitude of reasons come to mind as to how President Trump has violated this oath — and the recent revelations of his referring to our military men and women as “losers” and “suckers” leaves me shaking my head at such callous and apathetic remarks from the commander-in-chief.

The general usage of “loser” is couched in terms like: “The basketball team members were sad losers;” “Retirees were losers in the budget cuts;” “The young man was a loser in the pieeating contest;” We say he or she was a graceful loser or a poor loser.

Likewise, the term “suckers” is thusly referenced: “A plant produces suckers;” “It’s a lollipop;” “A pipe or tube through which a fluid is drawn by suction;” “I am a sucker for chocolate cake!” “A gullible or easily deceived person.”

In no shape or form do these phrases define the dedication, character, courage, or sacrifice of members of our military forces; to wear the uniform is not to become a “loser” or a “sucker” but to define courageous commitment to a cause greater than self. My platoon sergeant, who was killed in an ambush in Vietnam, was not a loser! A friend in the armored battalion, who was killed when he stepped on a mine, was not a sucker! The young private, killed when his helmet fell onto a mine he was attempting to defuse, was not a loser or sucker! The young lieutenant in my engineer battalion, killed by a sniper, was not a loser! None of them wanted the Vietnam War; none of them refused to go; none of them were derelict in their duty.

In the recent article in The Atlantic, these disconcerting words appear: “Trump rejected the idea of the visit (to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery near Paris, where 1,800 marines died in World War I) because he feared his hair would become disheveled in the rain, and because he did not believe it important to honor American war dead.” Also, in the same article, Trump stated: “Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers ... and they are suckers for getting killed.” What? The commander-in-chief said what? Looks like we see the real “sucker” and “loser” in his attitude of callous disrespect for our dead marines and in his priority of protecting his hair!

Mary Trump, the President’s niece, describes her uncle in her book this way: “Donald today is much as he was at three years old: incapable of growing, learning, or evolving, unable to regulate his emotions, moderate his responses, or take in and synthesize information.... His cruelty serves, in part, as a means to distract both us and himself from the true extent of his failures.... His cruelty is also an exercise of his power, such as it is. He has always wielded it against people who are weaker than he is.”

“While thousands of Americans die alone {COVID}, Donald touts stock market gains. As my father lay dying alone, Donald went to the movies. If he can in any way profit from your death, he’ll facilitate it, and then he’ll ignore the fact that you died.”

And, if you are an American killed in combat, he will say you are a sucker for getting killed. What a callous, apathetic, heartless, insensitive attitude toward a human death — even more appalling in the context of our military! When I see a man who said upon hearing of Sen. McCain’s death (a valiant naval pilot who was a prisoner-of-war in Vietnam), “We’re not going to support that loser’s funeral,” I perceive only one loser in the overarching scheme of this hostile and cruel presidential environment — Trump, Trump! I identify only one sucker here who Mary Trump affirms: “... lying, playing to the lowest common denominator, cheating, and sowing division are all he knows. He is as incapable of adjusting to changing circumstances as he is of becoming ‘presidential.’”

Yes, my empathy, rapport, and grief for men and women in the Army, Navy, Marines, Air force, Coast Guard, and National Guard, are jolted and shaken when I hear the president refer to military deaths as losers and suckers. I denounce such references with my entire being and pray that somehow God’s transforming love will help Trump to understand that each life is sacred and there are no losers or suckers in His Kingdom.

Yet, as Mary Trump also writes: “The lies may become true in his mind as soon as he utters them, but they’re still lies. It’s just another way for him to see what he can get away with. And so far, he’s gotten away with everything.” (Mike Leatherwood is a native of Waynesville, a veteran of Vietnam, a retired clergy, and a concerned citizen.).

Vote Democrat and restore morality

To the Editor:

As another Election day approaches, I feel compelled to express my thoughts and opinions to my community. I am very concerned about how the future will be impacted by the results of our upcoming November 2020 election. This election feels much more consequential to me than any other in my lifetime.

I sincerely believe we need a dramatic change in leadership in Washington. The current Trump presidency and Republican-controlled Senate must be replaced by Democrats to make our nation safer, healthier, fairer, and happier for all. The unchecked cruelty, racism, and greed if not rejected will lead to irreversible consequences to our nation, its citizens, and our democracy. At my age, these consequences may not directly affect my wife and me, but they will surely affect many Americans for years to come.

I have been privileged to serve as a physician (gastroenterologist) here in western North Carolina for the last 37 years. I believe my training and this experience give me an important perspective that I should communicate.

Foundations of medical ethics for centuries include firstly a singular dedication to the welfare of each individual patient, which we doctors strive to achieve daily. Medical

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ethics also dictate that we physicians should work to promote justice in our society’s health care system. This means advocating for the equal distribution of health care to all and eliminating discrimination against anyone in need of medical care.

The Democratic Party’s platform conforms to these medical ethics: • It supports equal and expanded access to necessary medical care to all, regardless of their ability to pay. • It supports the expansion of Medicaid, which North Carolina and other states unfortunately have so far rejected. • It supports the lowering the eligibility age for Medicare, making it available to more Americans. • It supports improvements and expansion of the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”) which, among many of its provisions, prevents insurers from denying coverage to persons for their pre-existing conditions. • It supports coverage for women’s preventative and reproductive care. • It supports reversing and controlling the relentless and unjustified rise in prices of our essential prescription drugs. • It is committed to providing all of us with clean, healthy air to breathe and water to drink. • It believes we need a coordinated and intelligent national program to control the coronavirus pandemic in the U.S.

Democrats are fighting to extend the critically necessary financial support to the millions of Americans who have lost their jobs and health insurance and soon to lose their homes due to the economic recession due to the Corona virus pandemic.

The Republican Party and Donald Trump, however, have worked hard to do exactly the opposite. That is wrong. It is cruel. It is antithetical to what our medical ethics tell us to do. Poverty and homelessness are incompatible with good individual well being and public health.

So, as a physician I object to and reject these selfish, cruel, and immoral polices of the Republicans in Washington. In addition to continuing to care for my individual patients, I feel the responsibility to advocate for policies that will benefit the public health and our country. One way is to voice my opinions and concerns, as I am doing. The other mechanism for change and reversal of these meanspirited polices is to vote for new leadership which will pursue worthy goals.

The politicians currently seeking election as our representatives will be vested with the power and responsibility to create laws and policies and allocate money to advance the public health for the public benefit. It is our constitutional right and responsibility to vote for those whom we believe have the will to serve us, not just themselves. This year, more than ever, we must vote for the candidates in the Democratic Party. They are the ones committed to compassionate service to and treatment of us all.

So, I implore all Democrats to vote, no matter what the obstacle. We cannot afford to be apathetic. Ideally, all could vote by mail to avoid exposure to the coronavirus. If so, we must vote by mail as soon as possible so the ballots arrive in time (despite the Republicans’ efforts to paralyze the U.S. Postal Service) so they will be counted. We can vote in person, either early or on Election Day. If so, we must be very careful by wearing a mask over the mouth and nose, using hand sanitizer, and staying at least 6 feet from others to protect ourselves, our friends and family, and others who are voting.

I also ask Republicans and independent voters to consider voting at least this one time for the Democratic candidates. The Republican candidates have demonstrated that despite their words, their actions show that they are not really interested in your welfare. Since the independent candidates will not win, protest votes for them are really wasted, as if you did not vote at all.

Finally, we all must insist that Donald Trump respects the results of this election. No president has ever had the audacity to disregard the results of an election that he lost. It is amazing that we should F

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even have to worry about his trying to do so. Should he succeed, we will no longer be living in a democracy; we will have given it away and suddenly be subjects of a dictatorship, unthinkable until 2016.

Thank you for taking the time to read this and think about it. Henry Nathan, MD Waynesville

Cawthorn wrong about health care

To the Editor:

As the campaign for North Carolina’s 11th Congressional District enters its final months, I’d like to draw attention to Madison Cawthorn’s position on health care reform.

According to his campaign website, Cawthorn is positioning himself as a proponent of patient choice and the free market. He states, “We turn patients into shoppers and equip them with buying. Reform creates choices it doesn’t take them away.” Notwithstanding the errors in punctuation and grammar, the real problem with his position is its lack of policy prescription and substance. He rehashes tired vagaries reminiscent of former Rep. Mark Meadows’ time in office, when the opening salvo to any argument was an unabashed support of the free market.

However, the free market does not always work in health care. It’s a problem that health care economists refer to as market failure. Basically, health care is not a normal commodity. It’s not a truck or a Tshirt or a pizza. You can buy a pizza — or not — it’s truly your choice. But if you’re having a heart attack, you don’t have a choice about health care. You go to the nearest hospital. If you want to live, there is no price you will not pay to live.

And therein lies the trap. Our current health care system is based on the free market, on capitalism, and produces some of the most expensive and least valuable patient outcomes in the developed world, consuming over 20 percent of our GDP.

Mr.Cawthorn writes that single-payer healthcare rations care without providing proof to support his assertion. In fact, the free market already rations care. If you don’t have health insurance, or the right amount of coverage, or the right network, then most doctors won’t see you. That’s why when you call a doctor’s office, the second question after your name is: do you have insurance?

Many a politician through the years has answered concerned constituents’ questions about access to healthcare with the statement, “If you’re sick, you can go to the emergency department for treatment.” It’s a statement that lays bare their profound misunderstanding of how health care in America really works.

Madison Cawthorn routinely brings up his paralysis in a car accident in high school as evidence of his knowledge about health care. Misfortune may be the father of success, but misfortune is not the same as success. Mr. Cawthorn’s experience as a patient does not make him a doctor, a nurse, or a pharmacist, and his time as a patient seems to have given him little insight into the struggles, be they health or financial, that plague most patients’ lives.

Lastly, Mr. Cawthorn spends what little space he has allocated to health care on his website disparaging his opponent this fall, Col. Moe Davis, of desiring to replace our current health care system with a “Sovietstyle socialist single-payer, government run plan.” Scare tactics aside, Mr. Cawthorn shows he fundamentally misunderstands what a single-payer system is. Single-payer is not socialist; it is an extension of Medicare to all in the population. It saves money by standardizing costs for hospitals and patients, allows Medicare to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies for the lowest price, and, in some models, cuts out insurance companies as unnecessary and obstructionist middlemen or co-opts them to be executors of Medicare, like in Medicare Advantage. Importantly, the hospital systems and local independent providers remain private, unaffiliated and unattached to government.

Health care reform is routinely listed as voters’ first or second most important election issue. Affordability and coverage are key concerns for voters. That Mr. Cawthorn expresses no deep, original thinking about the subject is consistent with Republican efforts at the national level over the last 3.5 years. When given an opportunity to replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA) with something else, Republicans waffled, and internecine fights play out among those who want limited government versus no government at all.

Now is not the time for incendiary sound bites and full-throated protestations that lack any meaning whatsoever. What we need now are evidence-based policies that make sense and embrace what is best in our health care system while attacking the special interests that support the intolerably high cost of care that Americans experience. Mr. Cawthorn’s opponent, Col. Moe Davis, has shown through his detailed policy positions and interviews with the public that he understands and is committed to tackling the problems of the American health care system. Rarely has the right choice for Congress been any clearer. William M. Hite BSN, RN-BC Waynesville

Davis puts public health before politics

To the Editor:

If you were hanging around outside one of the NC-11 Congressional debates at WCU’s main campus in Cullowhee or its satellite classrooms at Biltmore Park, on Sept 4 or 5, it would have been hard to miss a lively crowd of Madison Cawthorn supporters honking car horns and waving flags. You might even wonder, where were Moe Davis’s cheering supporters? Doesn’t he have any?

As with many things that involve Madison Cawthorn, there’s more to see here than meets the eye.

It boils down to a tale of two emails: Cawthorn’s campaign emailed his subscribers shortly before the debates asking them to show up with flags and hats. A crowd dutifully assembled, maskless and in a close-packed group typical of the superspreader type events that Cawthorn continues to hold across the state. This particular “grassroots” rally took place despite 1) being explicitly forbidden by the debate hosts at WCU, and 2) an obvious and unnecessary public health risk.

For his part, Moe Davis sent an email to his voters asking them not to attend the debates in person and to live stream them or watch them on television. This is what the debate organizers had requested from the beginning for both candidates, out of respect for the wishes of the debate hosts, and for the lives and safety of our community.

If you care about the health and safety of your WNC community as I do, the choice is clear: I’ll be voting for Moe Davis because he puts the welfare of his constituents ahead of politics. I hope you’ll do the same. Annika Peacock Woodfin To the Editor:

Consider this case study in trust: A meteorologist reports the track of a category 2 hurricane, explaining that it will not come close to the U.S. mainland. It will, she says with confidence, curve to the north Atlantic without making landfall and “disappear.” She says that any impact at all will be no worse than a summer rain Her clear, confident language convinces those who listen to her forecasts to not prepare. Privately, she says to her coworker that the storm will hit the East Coast as a monster Category 5 storm. She explains later that she did not tell the real projection to her viewers to avoid creating a “panic.” Later that week, the storm makes landfall on the Southeast coast of the U.S., kills many people, impoverishes workers, disrupts education and forces businesses to close. Would you ever trust this person’s reporting again?

America, we have a decision to make about those who ask us to trust them to lead, again. Will it be the guy telling us that coronavirus is just a hoax while admitting privately that he knows better? Charlotte W. Collins Sapphire

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