Responsibility for common needs

To the editor:

John Stossel (Nov. 23 column) suggests that the lost lesson of Thanksgiving is that private property provided the Pilgrims in the Plymouth Colony the incentive to produce more than they did when the profits were shared. He has a point.

However, an important modern lesson of this so-called “Tragedy of the Commons” is that we still have resources that we must share in common with our fellow citizens.

Some of these are natural (air, water, wildlife, wilderness) and some are cultural or political (transportation, security, health care, waste disposal). Privatization has limits, and we need to balance it with a sense of responsibility for common needs.

Thus, the tragedy today is often too much of a focus on what I need and too little on what we need to survive together.

Lawrence Walker

BOULDER CITY

ONE for all

To the editor:

In an editorial last week on the ONE Campaign, the Review-Journal on the issue of eradicating world poverty stressed consulting “the World Bank before simply parroting back the top-down statist solutions of yesterday.” We appreciate the Review-Journal’s enthusiasm for eradicating malaria and global poverty and saving lives and, as fellow constituents and Americans, look forward to the 2008 presidential candidates’ specific positions on how to go about it.

We at the ONE Campaign believe poor governance and corruption in developing countries pose as direct a threat to impoverished communities as disease or drought. A strong commitment to education and job-skill training will allow for a greater realization in self-improvement and wealth for that nation than any financial aid. Give a man a fish and you will feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you will feed him for life.

While corruption is harmful to all governments, losing resources to corrupt leaders is particularly devastating in poor countries, where every dollar lost results in one less child in school or one less well dug to provide clean water. Approaches such as America’s Millennium Challenge, which direct assistance to honest governments, are the most effective, as is channeling assistance through private (and faith-based) relief and development agencies.

The presidential candidates know that now — as the world gets smaller every day — is a vital time to improve the lives of the most desperate people around the globe and simultaneously to advance America’s reputation abroad. This will take place only with a multi-faceted approach that maximizes our donation to the truly needy and excludes corrupt leaders.

Megan K. Jones

LAS VEGAS

THE WRITER IS STATE DIRECTOR OF THE ONE CAMPAIGN.

VA hospital

To the editor:

Southern Nevada has not had a Veterans Administration hospital for several years. In October 2006, just before the general election, several politicians did a groundbreaking ceremony to start to build a Veterans Administration hospital near the Las Vegas Beltway and Pecos Road.

Since then, Station Casinos has topped off its hotel tower in Aliante, and construction on Centennial Hills Hospital off Durango Drive has all but wrapped. Both of these projects were in their infancy at the time of the VA groundbreaking — and all that has been finished on the VA project in 13 months is a small building.

Why don’t we get rid of all Veterans Administration hospitals and implement a veterans insurance card, issued to all veterans, so they can pick the hospital and doctors of their choice instead of waiting for one to be built?

Steve Sanson

LAS VEGAS

THE WRITER IS PRESIDENT OF THE LAS VEGAS-BASED VETERANS IN POLITICS INTERNATIONAL.

Farm story

To the editor:

The expansion of wilderness areas can be compared to the establishment of no-fishing zones in the sea. These zones supply areas of refuge where long-lived fish can grow and reproduce, thereby supplying surrounding waters with the surplus fish that move out to find their own territories.

The dangerous decline of many species of large fish in the ocean has been precipitated by over-fishing, and necessitated such refuges.

The 5 percent of Nevada that currently has wilderness designation is protected from development foremost, and will allow herds to grow and supply surrounding areas in perpetuity (climate allowing).

To use a grocery store analogy about hunting, wilderness areas are the refuge — equivalent to the farm, not the aisles of the grocery store. How viable would our food system be if — instead of waiting for delivery from the farm — we had unfettered access to the fields and pastures?

William Belknap

BOULDER CITY