Walls that divide

Editor:

Building walls that divide people have a long history. The most famous wall is the “Great Wall of China.” It was mostly built from 770BC to 206BC by several Chinese dynasties to keep the Mongols out of China. Think Genghis Khan. Great tourist attraction.

---

---

Hadrians Wall was built by the Romans to keep the “Scots” out of England. Parts of this wall are still visible. “Scots” are still a problem.

The Berlin Wall separated the communist east from the western part of Berlin from 1961 till 1989. Great souvenirs of the wall can be had.

---

---

In 1969 in North Ireland walls were built in Dublin and Belfast to keep the catholics and protestants from killing each other. Been there lately? They are good climbing walls and a good source of building materials.

Famous walls were also built in Turkey, Spain, Croatia and Jerusalem to name a few.

History can tell us a lot about the practice of building walls. They don’t work and you can go over, under, through or around them.

President Trump and the US Congress are asking for 25 billion dollars to build the “great big beautiful wall” to separate the US from Mexico.

That is a lot of money that could be used for Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security and other social issues.

John Tansley

Park City summer resident

Did U.S. voters elect Putin’s puppet?

Editor:

Did U.S. voters vote for a President who has, among other things:

1. targeted parents seeking asylum to prosecute, deport, kidnap and imprison their children;

2. conducted a tariff war and anti-immigration policies that hurt farmers and manufacturers and raise prices for food, building materials, and goods;

3. enacted a budget that

a. the Congressional Budget Office predicts adds one trillion dollars per year to the national debt; and

b. increases the income gap between the wealthy and average citizens;

4. eliminated environmental protections that sustain health and economic well-being;

5. reneged on U.S. treaties and supported foreign policies favored by Putin;

6. threatened to shut down government unless Congress funds an anti-human, anti-wildlife wall between us and Mexico;

7. called U.S. press “the enemy of the people”;

8. showed little understanding of how government works or for the CIA, FBI, and Department of Justice; and

9. fabricated thousands of false stories?

The answer is “No” – U.S. voters IMO probably did not elect Trump.

Statistical analyses of the 2016 U.S. presidential election vote versus exit poll results reveals sufficient significant discrepancies in Pennsylvania and North Carolina for vote miscount to have altered the outcome, even after adjusting for systematic partisan exit poll response bias (Republicans may agree to respond less often than Democrats) and false discovery rate (to adjust for multiple tests).

See this work on http://ssrn.com . The press could reduce interviews of political scientists whose opinion polls assume without evidence that votes are reported accurately and increase interviews of computer scientists who report how current election systems provide no evidence when tampered with. A lack of evidence is not evidence of a lack of tampering. Anyone asserting that U.S. votes are accurately reported as cast ignores computer scientists who have repeatedly shown U.S. election systems are open to undetectable manipulation.

Kathy Dopp

Park City

Consider charging teen as an adult

Editor:

Summit County prosecutors need to consider strongly charging the teen arrested for ordering for distribution illegal substances from China. According to the Park Record, the 17 year old girl was arrested and charged for the same offenses in 2016, offenses that ultimately resulted in the death of two Park City 13 year old teens.

Now, 2 years later she is apparently at it again. Clearly she did not learn or does not care about the consequences of her actions. And she continues to be willing to put the community at risk. For the first offenses, despite the deaths, the disposition may have been appropriate. And I will always seek to err on the side of forgiveness and even leniency for first offenders. Now, with hindsight, tragic history caused prior and continued contempt for the law and society, it may be necessary for this person to be prosecuted as an adult and for the consequences to be real.

Jim Arnold

Park City