A16 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.FRIDAY, AUGUST 23 , 2019
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR[email protected]LOCAL OPINIONSJoin the debate at washingtonpost.com/local-opinionsT
HE STANDOFF between Hong Kong’s pro-
democracy movement and China’s Commu-
nist rulers continues to escalate. Last Sun-
day, organizers estimated that 1.7 million
people — or nearly a quarter of Hong Kong’s total
population — marched through pouring rain to
demonstrate their continuing support for the terri-
tory’s autonomy and to demand greater freedom.
Authorities in Beijing responded with more hints of
armed intervention, even as militarized police forces
conspicuously drilled in the neighboring city of
Shenzhen.
The threat of a mainland invasion might be bluff-
ing by the regime of Chinese President Xi Jinping,
which surely realizes that it would incur huge eco-
nomic costs and shred its pretensions to global
leadership. Nevertheless, it must be taken as a real
possibility by Western democracies, which support-
ed the territory’s return to Chinese sovereignty two
decades ago on the basis of Beijing’s guarantee that
its independent legal system and rights of free speech
and assembly would be maintained for 50 years.
This weekend’s summit of the Group of Seven
industrial democracies offers an opportunity for
those governments, including the United States, tosend Mr. Xi a clear message: If he chooses to crush
Hong Kong’s democracy movement, there will be
far-reaching consequences for China’s political and
economic relations with the West. The G-7 leaders
should make clear that they will not hesitate to adopt
punishing sanctions, including the immediate revo-
cation of Hong Kong’s special economic status, which
facilitates flows of trade and investment to the
mainland.
Such a declaration is needed because, until now,
the West’s response to the Hong Kong crisis has been
weak. Official statements, such as one issued last
week by the European Union and Canada and an-
other by the State Department, have mostly stuck to
generic diplomatic calls for “restraint” and “deesca-
lation” and “dialogue.” While supporting Hong
Kong’s “fundamental freedoms,” neither the
E.U.-Canada statement nor the State Department’s
explicitly backed the mass protest movement or its
entirely reasonable demands.
Worst of all has been the performance of President
Trump, who has repeatedly made statements siding
with Mr. Xi. In July, he declared that the Communist
ruler had handled the protests “very responsibly”
because “he has allowed that to go on for a long time.”A couple of weeks later, he called the demonstrations
“riots” and mused that China might “want to stop
that” before flashing a green light: “But that’s be-
tween Hong Kong and that’s between China, because
Hong Kong is a part of China.”
Last week, stung by criticism of this blatant abdica-
tion, Mr. Trump bemoaned that “many are blaming
me” before weakly expressing his “hope it works out
for everybody.” He later claimed, ludicrously, that
Mr. Xi could end the crisis in 15 minutes if he negotiat-
ed with the protesters. Last Sunday, Mr. Trump finally
said it would be “very hard” to conclude a U.S.-China
trade deal if there were a crackdown in Hong Kong,
but he disassociated himself from such a response:
“I’m the president, but that’s a little beyond me
because... I think there would be tremendous politi-
cal sentiment not to do something.”
Mr. Trump’s stance may encourage Mr. Xi to
believe he will pay little price in the West if he orders a
crackdown. That’s why G-7 leaders ought to prevail
on the U.S. president this weekend to join them in
dispelling that impression. They cannot directly
defend Hong Kong or its people if China elects to use
force. But they can do far more than they have so far
to deter Mr. Xi.A stronger response to Mr. Xi
Western leaders need to make it clear that a crackdown in Hong Kong will come at a price.
In Easton, Md., in Talbot County, in front of the
county courthouse stands a relic of early 20th-
century Jim Crow white supremacy.
The bronze “Talbot Boys” statue sits atop a memo-
rial to 85 Talbot County residents who fought for the
Confederacy. The memorial to those soldiers was
completed in 1914, but, in 1916, the bronze statue of a
flag-bearer holding an unfurled Confederate battle
flag was added atop the memorial.
The Charleston massacre was enough of a tragedy to
sway the Republican-dominated South Carolina legis-
lature and governor to remove the Confederate battle
flag without delay to demonstrate the relationship
between the white-supremacist murders and the flag.
That a Confederate battle flag (in bronze) stillstands in front of the Talbot County courthouse
symbolizing the same sordid principles it did more
than 100 years ago is shameful. It is no small irony that
Maryland state Sen. Stephen S. Hershey Jr. (R-Queen
Anne’s) has received strong pushback from some
Republicans over his condemnation of the recent acts
of terrorism in Texas, California and Ohio. But there is
a difference between condemning white supremacy
and the sensible gun laws he would propose.
I call upon Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) to act
without delay on behalf of forward-thinking Mary-
landers and have the “Talbot Boys” statue and the
Confederate flag removed and placed elsewhere,
leaving the memorial base in its place.
Dominic “Mickey” Terrone, Oxford, Md.Remove the ‘Talbot Boys’ statue and Confederate battle flag
ABCDE
AN INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPER
A
FTER LAST year’s mass shooting at Marjory
Stoneman Douglas High School, it quickly
became clear that students who had survived
the horror weren’t willing to let their mur-
dered classmates and teachers become just another
statistic in America’s unending carnage of gun vio-
lence. They demanded change and ignited a grass-
roots movement that has given youthful new vigor to
the fight for gun safety. Now, these young activists
have put forward a bold gun-control proposal that
aims to reframe the debate on gun policy.
The ambitious agenda unveiled Wednesday by
March for Our Lives, a group led by student survivors
of the Valentine’s Day school shooting in Parkland, Fla.,
in which 17 people were killed, comes in the wake of
this month’s back-to-back mass shootings that killed
31 people in El Paso and Dayton, Ohio. “A Peace Plan for
a Safer America” calls for a ban on assault-style weap-ons and high-capacity magazines, a national licensing
and gun registry, a mandatory gun buyback program
for assault-style weapons, a rigorous licensing system
and other measures to combat not just mass shootings
but also suicides and domestic and urban violence.
“It’s nothing like anyone else is proposing,” said
Parkland survivor and March for Our Lives board
member Tyah-Amoy Roberts. Indeed, the plan would
go well beyond the modest gun-control measures
such as expanded background checks and “red flag”
laws that have been the focus of the current debate.
Given the difficulty of enacting even those bare-
boned safeguards — thanks to the sniffling obeisance
of President Trump and other Republicans to the gun
lobby — one might wonder if there is a pie-in-the-sky
aspect to the students’ agenda.
“We know this seems ambitious, given Washington’s
apathy to decades of bloodshed in our schools, neigh-borhoods, and even our houses of worship,” March for
Our Lives co-founder and Parkland survivor David
Hogg wrote on Twitter in a clear-eyed acknowledg-
ment of what the group faces. But the refusal of these
student activists to accept the status quo and to instead
fight for what makes sense has already produced
results, including modest gun reforms in Florida and
other states and the mobilization of young voters that
helped Democrats in last year’s midterm elections.
The students have now set their sights on the
2020 elections and hope their plan sets the tone for
debate in both parties. As Ms. Roberts explained, “We
are changing the conversation around gun violence
itself because we don’t want the narrative to come
from people who haven’t experienced it — to come
from people who benefit from the sale of guns. We
want the narrative to come from people who under-
stand it from its very root.” Good for them.From student survivors, a bold gun-control plan
Parkland activists hope their proposal sets the tone for debate as 2020 approaches.
T
HE FIRST time the Trump administration
attempted an end-run around a two-
decades-old federal court decree that man-
dates humane treatment for immigrant chil-
dren — and by extension, the practice of releasing
asylum-seeking migrant families — it employed fam-
ily separation. That didn’t go well.
Now, apparently hoping that gambit last year has
receded in memory, along with the nation’s revulsion,
the administration is pushing another workaround
of the rules that ensure minors’ welfare. It would
scrap the 1997 consent decree known as the Flores
settlement, which established standards of care and a
20-day limit on detaining families with children in
immigration jails. In place of those rules and the
judicial oversight that enforced them, the adminis-
tration proposes a new system that would allow the
detention of families indefinitely while their cases are
adjudicated.
That won’t fly. Where it concerns the treatment of
immigrants generally and migrant children in partic-
ular, the administration’s credibility is nil. U.S. Dis-
trict Judge Dolly M. Gee, who oversees the Flores
agreement, last year refused the government’s re-
quest to permit the long-term detention of families,
on the grounds that it is harmful to children. She’s
unlikely to allow it now; that would set the stage for
what could be a drawn-out court battle.
The administration is right that the Flores agree-
ment — and its legal outgrowth prohibiting the
jailing of migrant minors for more than 20 days —
provides an incentive for unauthorized immigration.
Knowing they will be released pending their cases’
adjudication, Central American parents cross the
border with their children and apply for asylum.
Those rules, along with hardships in Central Ameri-
ca, have impelled the recent surge in migration.
However, recall what produced the Flores rules in
the first place: the abject failure of government — the
Clinton administration at the time — to protect
children’s welfare. The Flores court file is replete with
hair-raising instances of abuse: cavity searches of
boys and girls at the hands of officials; confinement inrisky, jail-like facilities; and an absence of basic
educational resources.
Now, administration officials say, Immigration
and Customs Enforcement is capable of running
full-service centers with “top-notch” food to accom-
modate migrant families with children — in line with
regulations it writes itself. No more need to quickly
release families or transfer unaccompanied children
to state-licensed shelters overseen by the Department
of Health and Human Services, as Flores requires.
Yet it’s anyone’s guess how long parents and
children would languish in such centers. Nor does the
Department of Homeland Security, under whose
auspices ICE operates, plan to add to the 3,000 or sobeds in three existing detention centers for migrant
families. Officials say the centers would be monitored
by independent outsiders to assure compliance with
high standards. Given this administration’s track
record, that’s meager assurance.
Even with the new rules likely tied up in court,
officials hope they will deter a future surge of migrant
families. The better means of deterrence is to add
judges so that immigration courts can adjudicate
asylum claims quickly, and to help migrant-
producing countries in Central America surmount
the problems driving people to leave in the first place.
Those steps will take time, but they are more likely to
work than the quick fix the administration seeks.A new assault on
migrant children
The Trump administration’s wish to
detain families indefinitely won’t fly.ABCDE
FREDERICK J. RYAN JR., Publisher and Chief Executive Officer
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The Washington Post
1301 K St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20071 (202) 334-The Aug. 18 front-page article “The ‘follow-up
appointment’ ” described, viscerally, the carnage of
corporate-run health care in rural America.
Yes, rural hospitals are going bankrupt, hundreds
more “buckling” under bad debt — but first they
ruin the financial lives of the small-town patients
they treat. The article included interviews with
some of the dozens of patients in court one
Wednesday in Poplar Bluff, Mo. (Mondays it’s
Kirksville; Tuesdays it’s Bloomfield), some of the
thousands of lawsuits brought by the county hospi-
tal, which has buried 35 percent of the county’s
43,000 residents in medical debt.
The article told the story of rural cham-
pion Daniel Moore’s heroic pro bono efforts,
helping patients fight unconscionable hospital
bills typical nationwide: $75 per surgical mask;
$23.62 for two ibuprofen; $592 to culture strep
throat. Why so much? Corporate-run insurance
wastes about 30 percent of our health-care dollars.
Profits drive prices — and profits increase with
hidden waste. For-profit health care prioritizes
shareholder value over Americans’ health. It kills
hospitals, doctors and patients.
Medicare-for-all would protect patients and pro-
viders — and stop the financial carnage.
Barbara L. Estrin, New YorkThe article “The ‘follow-up appointment’ ”
highlighted the crisis of rural health care and high
costs driving patients to collections court and
bankruptcy. In states that expanded Medicaid, rural
hospitals have been surviving. Missouri did not
expand Medicaid.
The featured hospital is for-profit. It is not
required to have a financial-assistance program
under the Affordable Care Act, as nonprofit hospi-
tals are. Patients who may not be able to pay based
on their income have no way of getting those bills
written down. They are forced into debt collection
and court.
Several of the patients in the article had high bills
from emergency room visits. These are often the
result of balance billing, which makes the patient
responsible for what the insurance plan does not
cover. Though Missouri has protections against the
practice, they apply only if the provider and insurer
agree to participate.
The high costs of care often drive patients into
collections court or worse, bankruptcy, eviction and
foreclosure, which is rightly cited in the article.
However, there are more complex systems operating
under the radar of most that should have been
explained.
Tracy Douglas, O’Fallon, Ill.There is a Kafkaesque tone to the tale of
providing health care in southeast Missouri. Otto
von Bismarck was able to inaugurate a workable
health-care system in Germany in the 1880s that is
still going strong and costs a fraction of the
U.S. effort.
But in the 21st century, the Americans soldier on,
alas, perhaps hoping against hope that someday
they will get it right and be able to provide the
necessary care for their own population. Let us wish
them the best of luck.
Wayne Bert, ArlingtonThe carnage of corporate health care
Regarding Elizabeth Bruenig’s Aug. 18 Opinions
Essay, “In God’s Country”:
Evangelical Christian support for President
Trump has been overanalyzed. Evangelicals and
others will vote for him in 2020 for the simple reason
that, of more than 20 major, announced presidential
candidates at this point, he is the only one who is
publicly pro-life and pro-religious liberty.
Noel James Augustyn, Chevy ChaseI am white. I am evangelical. I love Jesus, and I
love the Bible. I am fiscally conservative but socially
progressive. I find it offensive when someone says
white evangelicals see President Trump as their
protector. I do not.
Black, Latino, Asian and other ethnic groups that
help make up the beautiful diversity of the United
States and who also believe in Jesus and the Bible
(i.e., evangelical Christian tenets) find Mr. Trump to
be an abomination of the ideals of liberty, freedom
and equality that the United States is supposed to
represent.
At the upcoming gathering in Chicago
called “Liberating Evangelicalism: Decentering
Whiteness,” many of the leaders of whom I am
speaking will be upholding their ideals of evangeli-
calism while also promoting principles of love,
mercy, compassion and justice.
Mae Elise Cannon, Colorado Springs
The writer, a minister, is executive director
of Churches for Middle East Peace.Evangelicals and Mr. Trump
Michael Gerson’s excellent Aug. 20 op-ed,
“ ‘America First’ won’t stop Ebola,” underscored the
point that our health security is dependent on
external global collaboration. The World Health
Organization, UNICEF and the World Food Pro-
gram are critical in effective responses to danger-
ous infectious diseases, along with the World Bank
and other multilateral institutions. The effort to
reduce U.S. contributions to crucial U.N. organiza-
tions is a poster example of “cutting off your nose to
spite your face.” Congress is again asked to protect
funding when it should simply be automatic.
Richard Seifman, Washington
The writer, a member of the technical review panel
of the Global Fund, is retired from
the World Bank senior health staff.Protect funding for U.N. programs
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.)
might want to consider the latest Chinese online
disinformation campaign, described in the Aug. 20
front-page article “Twitter, Facebook act to curb
China disinformation,” as he continues to block
meaningful legislation to protect our elections.
The Chinese have all the cyber capabilities of the
Russians and, by next year, their tolerance for
President Trump’s trade war might be wearing thin.
If they decide to use their online tools “bigly”
against Mr. Trump and his supporters in Congress,
Mr. McConnell might wish he had been more
foresighted about the global threats to our election
systems.
George Kaplan, Colora, Md.A heads-up for Mr. McConnell
EDITORIALSTOM TOLES