Hosni Mubarak steps down; going to Mars but not coming back; constitutional case for healthcare reform

A new day in Egypt

Re Hosni Mubarak’s resignation, Feb. 12

As a lifelong admirer and student of Egypt, it is a wonderful thing to see Egyptians’ determination and success in ridding themselves of a dictator.

But the future will be even more difficult. Making a democracy work is harder than opposing a dictator. It will be messy, frustrating and require compromise and hard work — and there will be no one to blame anymore but the people themselves.

Egypt’s friends can only advise, support and encourage. We can only hope that will be enough.

Deanna Williams

Monterey Park

This is truly a “social tsunami” of which the Egyptian people can be proud. Oppression can only be exerted for so long before change comes.

In this case, the determination, the total sense of unity and the unwillingness to accept anything less than the powerful demands of basic human rights were realized — peacefully.

Social media played a pivotal role because the exchange of ideas could not be controlled.

The young people of this very old and proud culture will be able to be a guiding light in the world. Their vision has got to be an inspiration to others. Democracy has begun in Egypt; let it be treasured.

Lorraine B. Kirk

Rancho Palos Verdes

Congratulations to the people of Egypt.

This should be a lesson to the people of the world that dictators can be brought down by peaceful means. It should also tell Americans something about the power of peaceful revolt. We never saw people with guns trying to overcome the power structure. Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. led the way.

I can only hope gun owners and the National Rifle Assn., who believe they need firearms to bring down an oppressive government, are watching,

Anthony Lawrence

Woodland Hills

Over the last three weeks, President Obama never succumbed to all the criticism from his adversaries to ask for Egypt’s president to step down. Obama maintained that the decision was the Egyptian people’s, who should be congratulated in reaching their goal of ridding the country of its dictator peacefully.

Thank you, President Obama, for not taking the U.S. to center stage and allowing the Egyptians to bring about their own democracy.

Eileen Murphy

Huntington Beach

To Mars, but not back to Earth

Re “Only one way to Mars,” Opinion, Feb. 6

Sending people on a one-way, essentially suicide mission to Mars makes about as much sense as urging the tribal chieftain to sacrifice his daughter to the volcano god.

For that matter, two-way missions don’t make sense either. The manned space program is of little scientific merit; anything that people can usefully do in space can be done much more cheaply by robots and computers.

The manned space program has so far managed to escape the fiscal ax for only two reasons: public entertainment and jobs in the aerospace industry. It’s time to wield the ax.

Leland Johnson

Pasadena

Imagine being strapped into a coffin for a six- to eight-month journey to Mars, and all the while your brain is being fried by solar wind and cosmic ray particles. I can’t think of a worse way to die.

Earth is the only planet humans will ever live on. Thousands of years of technological advances will not change that.

John Gleason

Camarillo

Healthcare and the Constitution

Re “Constitutional showdown,” Opinion, Feb. 6

For about the first half of Akhil Reed Amar’s commentary on federal District Judge Roger Vinson’s invalidation of “Obamacare,” I thought he was making some good points.

But he mentions a 1792 militia law (an era with a skeleton standing army and a young nation still wondering about its survival) as his only example of Congress requiring citizens to buy something, and that the founders (circa 1780) intended Congress to have sweeping tax powers, as demonstrated by the 1913 Income Tax Amendment. Wasn’t that a constitutional amendment, not just a congressional edict?

In my view, Amar is just as guilty of mangling America history and constitutional structure as he claims Vinson is.

Mel Wolf

Burbank

I am opposed to the healthcare bill on constitutional grounds. That said, I do agree with Amar that it is constitutional to force those who remain uninsured to pay a tax. Congress has the right to tax us.

But this is a penalty for the uninsured, not a tax. In my view, a penalty and a tax are two different things. Otherwise, on April 15, we are all penalized for living in this country.

Dennis Eodice

Altadena

Thank you for this lucid, scholarly article on vitally important concerns that we continually hear ranted about week after week. I can hardly believe that simple, declarative sentences can provide such academically profound information on the complexities of the Constitution.

It would be a great public service to reproduce Amar’s article every few months to keep lucidity and truth at the forefront of people’s minds.

Marilyn Ehrman

Beverly Hills

Some political football first

Re “Officials, not cheerleaders,” Editorial, Feb. 6

The L.A. Event Center would be a welcome addition to any city in America. It is especially important to the continued growth and development of downtown and our city’s convention and tourism industry.

There is widespread agreement that the proposed stadium would give a much-needed boost to the Convention Center by improving its facilities and layout. Combined with the Event Center next door, it would be able to attract some of the largest and most lucrative conventions held in America.

It needs to be repeated because it is so true: This means jobs for thousands of L.A. residents. Tourism dollars circulate over and over again in our economy. And the restaurants and retail facilities that would unquestionably follow the growth in tourism would serve our community as well.

Carol Schatz

Los Angeles

The writer is president and chief executive of the Central City Assn. of Los Angeles.

The Times writes that a new football stadium has the potential to create jobs and boost tax revenue.

In another Times article, economics professor Brad Humphreys is quoted as saying that his best estimate would be zero jobs created. His research of sports facilities over the last 40 years found no evidence that a local economy did any better. Furthermore, the article says that floating bonds to pay for upgrades to the Convention Center would give the city fewer options to finance other priorities.

Kerry Meade

Reseda

Roots of the financial debacle

Re “Culprits in the financial disaster,” Business, Feb. 6

How could Michael Hiltzik discuss the causes of the financial debacle without naming one of the major contributors to the problem? That would be the loan applicants who willingly participated in the fraud and bought houses they couldn’t

afford with the thought that they could resell quickly at a higher price.

I have no sympathy for the people who submitted faulty data and bought houses they couldn’t afford and who are now in

foreclosure because they expected to resell. How about some individual responsibility?

Bill Weaver

Glendora

It should not be left to government regulators to provide society with a safety guarantee from financial failure. Enterprises should be allowed to fail when they make mistakes.

The problem, as the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission report addresses, is that we allowed these enterprises to become too big and too connected so that they represented a systemic risk if they failed.

Instead of letting these business ventures fail, hundreds of billions of dollars have been transferred from public resources to the financial industry to provide some form of stability.

What is regrettable is that several years later, we essentially are back to business as usual.

Victor Volpe

Camarillo