Letters: Voting yes on retention; Penn State hypocrisy

Voting yes on retention

Our state constitution guarantees Pennsylvanians the right to clean air and pure water. That promise only matters if our courts enforce it.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court set that standard in Robinson Township, and Justices Donohue, Dougherty and Wecht have continued that vital work. In the PEDF case, they reaffirmed that Pennsylvania’s natural resources are held in trust for the people and future generations. And now, as the court prepares to decide whether the state can join RGGI, their independence and integrity will matter more than ever.

Retaining these justices means keeping a court that stands up for the rights of everyday Pennsylvanians. This November, I’ll be voting yes to retain Justices Donohue, Dougherty and Wecht.

Douglas Mason, Port Matilda. The author is the chair of the Sierra Club Moshannon Group.

Penn State hypocrisy

How in good conscience can the Penn State Board of Trustees on one hand close down WPSU and at the same time give the university president a raise? At the very least, the timing was ridiculous. Reasons for closing indicated on saving funds to focus on their core mission of serving students. Apparently that does not pertain to giving out raises.

Nick T. Kerlin, State College

Hateful action not a remedy for hateful speech

If you find yourself tempted to remedy hateful speech with hateful actions, and the hypocrisy and ineffectiveness of that solution isn’t enough to deter you, do yourself a favor and take a moment to remember that destructive and violent rhetoric is protected under the First Amendment while destructive and violent actions are not.

Della Chuderewicz, State College

Blame on Democrats serves as distraction

“The Democrats are ‘murderers’” — really?

And who killed Congresswoman Melissa Hortman, her husband Mark and the family dog in Minnesota recently? And who killed JFK? And MLK? And RFK? And who plotted to kidnap Governor Whitman? And who set Governor Shapiro’s house on fire? And who shot Trump’s ear?

Not a Democrat in the bunch!

Charlie Kirk’s death is a tragedy. But without any evidence or even a hint of the motive, the GOP knee jerks and rants, blaming Democrats. Premature finger pointing? What a timely and loud distraction from the Epstein files.

Marilyn Goldfarb, Boalsburg

Violence can never be excused

On Nov. 5, 2024, I watched voices across this country warn that Donald Trump’s America would look like a dystopia. They spoke of rights erased, dissent crushed, and justice replaced with fear.

Ten months later, many of those same voices rationalized the murder of an American citizen in broad daylight. No trial, no process, no justice, just a gunshot before a crowd, and applause from those who claimed to guard democracy, while wielding the knife that killed it.

They said his words were too dangerous, that silencing him with violence was not only acceptable but necessary. Think about that. Even the totalitarian regimes so often invoked, Gilead in “The Handmaid’s Tale” or North Korea, still pretend at due process. Yet here, in the name of tolerance and empathy, people openly celebrated a man’s death because he was heard.

That should trouble every American. Because if words can now be met with bullets, and if violence is excused when it serves one side, then we are not practicing democracy, we are abandoning it.

In that sense, Charlie Kirk won his final debate. He exposed what lay beneath the slogans of love and unity: hypocrisy, control, and fear of dissent. But the greater tragedy is not only his death, it is how quickly so many surrendered the moral high ground they once claimed to own.

History will remember their applause.

Alexandra Kranich, State College

History repeats

About 100 years ago a western European country elected a new head of state. He gradually seized power, engaged secret police, ignored the country’s laws and judicial system, burned books, tried to rewrite history and terrorized ethnic minorities. The judiciary and elected officials failed to do their jobs and allowed this tyrant to assume much more power than their laws permitted. The parallels between this dictator’s rise to power and our current president are absolutely scary. Will our current elected officials and judiciary resist this illegal assumption of power and ensure that we have fair and open elections in 2026 and beyond?

Robert Carline, State College