Memo to radical Sarasota hospital board candidates: Being disrespectful won't gain votes

Reject candidates who hide from voters

I have been a full-time resident of Sarasota for 27 years. There have been numerous occasions when I had to use the services of Sarasota Memorial Hospital and the SMH Urgent Care facility in my neighborhood.

I have always been given prompt and excellent care by wonderfully skilled, pleasant and caring people.

Unfortunately, a group of radicals is trying to get elected to the hospital board with a slate of extreme ideas. Part of their agenda seems to be to privatize SMH and allow fast-buck investors to control the hospital for financial gain.

At a League of Women Voters forum July 11, two of these people declined to appear, which was an indication of their unwillingness to present their position to the public. Their failure to appear at a public forum showed a lack of respect for the voters.

The League also held a School Board forum where an incumbent member refused to appear. Any candidate rejecting the opportunity to present his or her platform to constituents should not be considered for election.

Inform yourself and make sure you are casting your ballot for dedicated folks who want to maintain our superb hospital and strengthen our School Board.

Gary Olson, Siesta Key

Biden should serve out his term

It is just political silliness for anyone to claim that President Joe Biden should quit now because he has decided not to run for a second term.

We hired Biden to be president for four years, not eight. It’s a lot different completing the job he was hired to do in a few months, compared with adding another full four years after that.

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The Tampa Bay Bucs hired Tom Brady for a couple of short stints as their quarterback; they didn’t offer him an eight-year contract. When Brady dropped hints that he would likely retire at the end of his last contract, nobody shouted that he should go ahead and quit a couple of months before the season ended.

Jim Stewart, Parrish

GOP sycophants worship at altar of Trump

They bowed down before former President Donald Trump.

Even the beam of light, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, glorified Trump, sadly losing her credibility after a wonderful surge of interest during her 2024 presidential candidacy.

All were grasping for a position in this new Republican Party, oblivious to the fact that they are probably not included.

The elderly Republican statesman, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, was booed after all his years of service to the country. (McConnell had initially blamed Trump for the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, but later endorsed him.)

Welcome to the Maga Movement. It’s not in the realm of impossibility that pro wrestler Hulk Hogan – who was a speaker at the Republican National Convention – will be the next defense secretary.

Susan Owens, Sarasota

Founders created country free of religion

Myths have power.

We all know the myth about black cats being witches; the myth says if you see a black cat, it’s bad luck.

The idea that America was founded on Judeo-Christian values is another myth. The Christian right has trumpeted that myth for 60-plus years and a good number of people have come to accept it as true.

But the truth is that America was founded by those escaping religious restrictions forced on them by the Church of England. They came here to be free of those confines and to worship or not as they saw fit.

In order to do so, our Founding Fathers wisely created a country where the government was free of religious entanglement.

When the Constitution was written the words "God," "Bible," "Jesus," "deity," "creator," "Christian," "baptism," "priest," "savior" and "prayer" were intentionally left out.

Several of the founders were deists who believed in a supreme being but that our destiny was up to us alone. There is no evidence whatsoever to conclude that America was to be a Christian nation. Don’t be fooled by the myth.

Tyler Cassell, Nokomis

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This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Memo to radical Sarasota hospital board candidates: Being disrespectful won't gain votes