Our leaders need to make better choices

To the editor:

As hard as it maybe to admit, not only may our president maintain a sense of entitlement and hard-heartedness toward the rest of the world, but I think a great many Americans have the same attitude and wouldn't admit it or recognize that it exists.

Many of those who are considered the Greatest Generation also lived through the Great Depression, segregation and a very real threat to the world from fascist dictators. That generation lived without some material, political and perhaps spiritual liberties we now mostly take for granted. I live on a material shoestring and am blessed with liberties that are likely unheard of for most of the world.

It seems we should be focused internally. I do not mean political isolationism. Rather, we may all benefit from adopting a stance of personal self-reflection in which we ask ourselves how many choices we make from total self-interest, how many of us ask questions that go to the core of our humanity and what are the small steps in our own lives that we take to balance a sense of entitlement with the concern for the betterment of the nation and our world.

I know I quite often fall short in this regard and wish I could do better. I wish also that our political leadership could do better, especially with regard to choices that may potentially absorb huge human and material resources and for an outcome which seems indeterminate.

JOHN W. FORD

Jackson