June 01, 2011
Overall, The Sun's Mary Gail Hare's article on rat eradication ("Kids target rats in Dundalk," May 31) was outstanding, which is the norm for her work. Granted, rat eradication is and should be a cooperative venture between residents and government. What is new here, however, is that Dundalk is not an historically rat infested area, but rather the site of a recent rodent invasion over the last several years.
That said, the traditional goal of such campaigns in the past has been wrong. By making rats "leave" one area, they simply go elsewhere. That's not how to win a war, and we are in a massive health war with rats, and always will be, too.
To win this war, we must kill all the enemy, allowing none to escape. It has never been done yet, to my knowledge, anywhere by anybody. Are we in a war with them? Does it matter? Yes. Government exists to do for us collectively what we cannot do for ourselves individually.
A lot of spending by government is justified with the words, "national security." Do rats threaten our national security here at home? The Bubonic Plague that almost destroyed all of Europe comes to mind. So does, more recently, the 1918 flu epidemic that ravaged Baltimore and killed more people than died fighting World War I.
All of this is just one more cogent reason to end all our foreign wars overseas and deploy those funds and that human power to win this very real health war here at home. If we succeed, that would really be a first for the 21st Century! USA! USA!
Blaine Taylor, Towson
