Letters to the Editor (Nov. 8) | The Wichita Eagle

The best way, and perhaps the only way, to combat fake news and foreign meddling is through education. We need to learn to think critically, get the facts straight, and understand both sides of an issue.

Unfortunately, more people are interested in teaching youth football than in teaching debate. And more people are interested in keeping taxes low than in supporting education. We are doomed, and this great experiment in self-government is coming to an end.

This Saturday, we will once again observe Veterans Day. Formerly called Armistice Day, it marked the day and hour the guns fell silent in Europe. Specifically, on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918 — this moment formally ended The Great War.

We now observe this day as a time to recognize all veterans. Rightly so. If I may suggest a few ways to let our service members know how we feel.

Fly your U.S. flag, a symbol of our unity. Donate to a veterans charity to help wounded warriors and their families. Also, if you see a service member in uniform or know one personally, stop to shake their hand and tell them thank you. They need to see and feel our gratitude for all they do for us. Do this also for our police and firefighters. They are our warriors at home who keep us safe in our neighborhoods. They need to feel this gratitude, as well.

Please remember that our freedoms are not free. A dear price has been paid repeatedly to secure and preserve them. Show that you care. Keep our flag flying.

Michael Reagan’s Nov. 2 column (”Reagan’s message of how to cut taxes”) tells how his father, Ronald, explained confiscatory income taxation and that he was being taxed at 90 percent and offered his son a deal to raise his allowance when his own tax rate was lowered – thus holding off a raise in allowance from 1954-64. The allowance story is an excerpt from his book “Lessons My Father Taught Me.” The lesson learned supposedly has national implications: “When I get a break in taxes, you get a bigger allowance.”

What the future president didn’t explain to Michael was that the 90-percent rate was only on earnings over $400,000 ($3.7 million in 2017 dollars). The top rate on capital gains was 25 percent at the time. And you can’t tell me that Reagan’s net asset value wasn’t increasing during that decade of stagnant allowances.

Reagan brainwashed his son and swindled him out of an increase in earnings for a decade. This is precisely the same flim-flam the GOP is trying to pull on you and me with their current tax plan.

We stayed up to watch “The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon” to see Blake Shelton. Fallon made fun of the names of Blake’s songs and the photo on the album label.

I’m old, and not the brightest, but even I can pronounce Tishomingo, Okla., where Shelton lives. If Fallon doesn’t like the Midwest, we sure don’t want to watch him. We saw Fallon dance around, but heard little from our country star.

We are Kansans, but we like Oklahoma and its people. Fallon doesn’t get it. It’s an insult.

I’ve lived in College Hill for eight years and would like to thank the Wichita Police Department for its part in making Halloween this year so successful.

So many people come together from all across our town, taking part in one of the biggest community events of the year. It’s people who don’t know each other all that well, if at all, letting their children be treated as part of each other’s family for one little moment. Never throughout the year does anything else come close.

WPD did a fantastic job keeping it all flowing smoothly and safely. I really appreciate how they engaged with our neighborhood for feedback on what worked well from previous years and what could be improved. Signs went up ahead of time announcing exactly when Douglas would be closed and larger vehicles were allowed through (slowly) rather than being diverted through crowded side streets – all the result of brainstorming ideas with WPD at a neighborhood meeting.

We’re at our best when our communities and government entities engage with each other.