Readers Write: Online safety, End of Life Options Act, Minneapolis/Gaza, presidential debates

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The so-called Kids Online Safety Act is once again being pushed toward a vote in the U.S. Senate. Republican Martha Blackburn of Tennessee, who is one of the authors of the bill, has said straight out that it will be used to suppress LGBTQ+ information on the Internet; it will also require online sites to collect personally identifying information for all users (because how else do you expect to prove you are an adult?) with zero regulation or control over how that’s collected and shared.

If KOSA had been in effect in 2010, it would have been used to block teen access to the videos of the It Gets Better Project. If KOSA had been in effect in 2017, it would have been used to block teens from information about #MeToo. “Harm” in this bill is whatever a state attorney general decides it is, even if that’s Ken Paxton of Texas!

I am appalled that Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota is a cosponsor of this anti-free-speech bill that will violate the privacy of both children and adults. As the parent of two young adults, I’m deeply aware of the challenges of parenting in the era of social media, but this bill would not have solved any problems for my children or their friends — it would have done the reverse.

Naomi Kritzer, St. Paul

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Though he may have a point, I’m a bit surprised that U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., would be so upset with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, stating that “your product is killing people” (front page, Feb. 1). I would have thought that Hawley would have considered a statement associated with the pro-gun people he strongly supports: “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people,” and that he would have given Zuckerberg a pass. Apparently, Sen. Hawley feels that some products are deadlier than others.

Jeff Dufresne, Minneapolis

END-OF-LIFE OPTIONS ACT

Rationality equals dignity

Andy Brehm leverages his Feb. 1 commentary (“End-of-life legislation is not a good ‘option’ ”) against legalizing physician assisted suicide by appealing to human dignity. Left unclear is what this important moral principle means. His phrases — “miracle of life,” “basic human dignity,” “incalculable worth,” ”this nobility” — do little more than sloganeer.

Dignity is one of those words that we all can get behind, but without careful examination, it remains vague. It deserves better, particularly when used in questions of life and death. Immanuel Kant, an 18th-century philosopher, grounds dignity on human rationality and famously concluded that humans are never to be treated as mere means to an end but as ends in themselves, that is, as individuals that are intrinsically important. Kant’s appeal to our rationality is a more concrete basis for dignity and how we would use this term in the debate on physician-assisted suicide than are empty appeals to other vaguely moral terms like “nobility” “or tying it to “the gentle hands of the divine.”

Craig Peterson, Minneapolis

GAZA RESOLUTION

Not just symbolic

When Minneapolis City Council’s cease-fire resolution was introduced, while it was being amended, and even after it passed with a 9-3 vote, some claimed that it was “just symbolic” and thus a waste of time. But, what makes a City Council resolution symbolic as opposed to purposeful? As Mayor Jacob Frey stated, “The council had an opportunity to support a unifying resolution calling for peace, a two-state solution, return of hostages and ceasefire.” (“Frey vetoes council’s resolution, says it misses the mark,” front page, Feb. 1.) These three components that Frey is advocating for are symbolic and inconsequential in a goal to end the genocide.

Hostage exchanges, governing frameworks and a so-called “peace” are not within the jurisdiction of this city. But divestment is! The resolution that was passed on Jan. 25 has one vital call to action: End U.S. military aid to Israel. The City Council’s resolution amplifies a demand that can’t be ignored by our governor, our State Board of Investment, and ultimately the White House. Simply put, Israel’s actions in Gaza could not continue at the scale they have for the past three months without the United States.

A symbolic and inconsequential resolution may have passed unanimously, but, as Council Member Robin Wonsley quipped, “Unity for the sake of unity is comfort for the oppressor, not justice for the oppressed.”

Unifying the council over a weak resolution like the one approved in Hastings, Minn., would at the same time neglect the calls and demands of thousands of Minneapolis residents to divest our taxpayer dollars and state pensions from apartheid Israel like we did in 1985 during apartheid South Africa. Minnesota’s along with other states’ divestment laws ultimately caused the U.S. to divest from South Africa in 1986.

As more and more Palestinians are killed every day, we can’t wait longer and allow our country to keep funding Israel. Now that the mayor has presented his veto letter, we need Council Members Andrea Jenkins, Jamal Osman, Wonsley, Katie Cashman, Jeremiah Ellison, Jason Chavez and Aurin Chowdhury as well as Council Vice President Aisha Chughtai and Council President Elliott Payne to stand with their original vote and get this resolution passed.

Liz Bolsoni, Minneapolis

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On July 14, 1948, the beloved mayor of Minneapolis, Hubert Humphrey, in the turbulence of the nascent civil rights movement, jolted the nation at the Democratic National Convention with these politically courageous words of moral clarity: “There are those who say — this issue of civil rights is an infringement on states rights. The time has arrived for the Democratic Party to get out of the shadow of states’ rights and to walk forthrightly into the bright sunshine of human rights.”

Mayor Jacob Frey, who sits in the same office as Hubert Humphrey, vetoed a City Council resolution that called for a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war and the end of U.S. military funding for Israel. In doing so he has walked forthright back into the darkness of a nation’s state rights and away from the bright sunshine of the human rights of the Palestinian people.

Paul Rozycki, Minneapolis

2024 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

Who needs debates, really?

Joe Battenfeld of the Boston Herald (“Let the general election debate (over debates) begin,” Jan. 30) alleges that President Joe Biden is “getting queasy” about debating former President Donald Trump and “looking for a way out” of it. He urges Trump to force the issue, saying “the TV networks want it and the public deserves to see ‘them’ go at it for three nights.” He further claims that “only then will the public really be able to judge who is fit to be president.”

He’s entitled to his opinion, but I disagree. The public has seen both men in action as presidents and as citizens. I certainly don’t need to see them on the same stage for even one minute to know the vast differences between them and to determine for whom I will vote.

It doesn’t matter to me what their slight difference in age might mean. I don’t need my POTUS to be able to do cartwheels, run a marathon, or ascend and descend stairs without a handrail. I need my POTUS to understand how the government functions and what its purposes are, and how American actions impact the other countries of the world.

I don’t need or want my POTUS to denigrate others with foul language and derogatory nicknames. I do need my POTUS to respectfully address America’s problems and seek ways to remedy them.

No, please. A debate between Trump and Biden is not necessary.

Loren W. Brabec, Braham, Minn.