Content of their character causes concern

 

DearGary,

I’m writing in response toDan Dixon’s letter insinuating that I, along with other white men who didn’twant to see Sonya Sotomayor appointed to the Supreme Court now think we “arebeing turned into second class citizens.” The point in my last letter was thatS.S. is not qualified because she is an activist judge and that her decisionsas an appeallet court judge bear that out. She opposed a group of fireman in areverse discrimination law suit. But maybe, from her point of view there is nosuch thing as reverse discrimination.

I suppose that we need tolook at our judges not on their ability to interpret the law, but on theirgender and nationality. I guess in this way “a lot of racial injustice will beresolved” in Dan’s mind. The good thing about this appointment is, that ourlegislators replaced one lousy judge with another that could possibly be worse,and we can celebrate this selection because she has ovaries, and isn’t white,right Dan? The point to Dan’s letter is the same scab that Obama has picked atfrom time to time, it is something they can scratch at and then point atsomeone else and say you made it bleed, you’re a racist. Dan, ask yourself aquestion, would Sonya have even made it out of the ladies’ restroom if she wasstrongly pro life, pro family, pro constitution and pro America?

 Oh, and about my “paranoia” as you put it, I don’t think it wasdad’s fault, it was his grandfather’s fault. He came here from another countryto get away from the tyranny there, so the ability to spot it has been handeddown through the years. And with the 31 Czars in our current government itisn’t hard to miss. As “Dr. King’s dream” put it, it is not the color of theirskin but the content of their character that makes me concerned about the”future” of my “children’s, children’s lives.”

SteveLorz

Tonasket

 

Tax on toilet paper

 

Dear Editor,

Democrats are hitting usagain! Taxing toilet paper, cooking oil, toothpaste, cosmetics and otherproducts we dispose in our waste water, was proposed by Oregon’s DemocratRepresentative Earl Blumenauer. His tax will be aimed at the manufacturinglevel. H.R.3203 is called the Water Protection and Reinvestment Act of 2009 butwill further burden our economy.

Taxes at any level become apart of corporate expenses increasing corporate profit. His “financed broadlyby small fees” will multiply before it reaches you, the consumer. Toilet taxwill increase the profits for the companies by increasing prices far beyondthat of the original tax. The 3% excise tax will ultimately take much more outof our pocketbooks than just 3%.

As prices rise, the value ofour money declines. Democrats contribute to inflation with every taximplemented. Bigger government, more taxes and regulations become oppression tothe worker and the poor. The adage is that “Democrats are for the poor.” It soundsmore like the Democrats are for corporations, increasing their profits. Taxesand regulation increase inflation and unemployment rates. Democrats prove theyare not for the working family and the poor.

RogerW Hancock

AuburnWashington

 

Prefer to keep an open mind on Global Warming

 

Dear Editor,

A disturbing book-burner mentality has beengrowing in America, reminiscent of the ’30s German bonfire rallies where theNazis torched books by Jews and others who had fallen out of politicalcorrectness.

This is exemplified across a range of publicopinion from emotion-commanded editorial letter flamers for whom all opinionsbut theirs are “lies!!” to the eminent leftist economist Paul Krugman whorecently wrote in the Seattle Times that any opinion disputing man-made globalwarming is “treason.” All too typically of late, neither the flamers norKrugman offer support – let alone proof – of their own positions, they justseem intent on demonizing anyone who dares to offer an opinion they considercontrary.

Maybe it’s a little early to close the debatesand hang other debaters.

Witness Kimberly Strassel in the June 26th WSJ:”The collapse of ‘consensus'” [about man-influenced global warming] has beendriven by reality. The inconvenient truth is that the Earth’s temperatures haveflattened since 2001, despite growing concentrations of CO2. Peer-reviewedresearch has debunked doomsday scenarios about polar ice caps, hurricanes,malaria, extinctions and rising oceans.

Yet, Krugman, an economist, not a climate scientist,has evidently not only slammed his own mind shut on climate change, he’sactually seeking to cast anyone still keeping an open mind into theholocaust-denier role. “Treason” is Krugman’s term. This from a stalwart of thevery political party that wailed about charges of treason just for doing itsbest to try to lose the Iraq War, thus horribly extending its cost in time,money and lives.

I don’t know what the reality of climate changeis yet, but if I did I would think it of more value to offer my conclusionrather than to wallow in invective over someone else’s.

Can it be healthy for a free society when itssocio-political observers turn from the presentation of their own assessmentson issues, not to challenging contrary opinions on merit, but rather to adhominem tra
shing of any thinker who offers a stance apart from their own?

I think not. It’s too alarmingly easy to pictureAmerica’s glaze-eyed flamers gleefully hurling books on subjects, or bywriters, they don’t approve of upon fires in the night. A triumph of ignoranceserves none of us.

Isn’t the reality on an issue – whatever it is -what we need to identify for the sake of us all? How is that mutual goal servedby the slurring of others for their approaches to issues, as opposed tooffering constructive approaches of one’s own?

William Slusher

Okanogan

 

‘Dog comparison was too feeble a thrust’

 

Dear Editor,

In Joyce Emry’s latest column, she wrote, “Now,I didn’t say this, (but did think it funny) when a man said how could thepresident expect a health care bill to be passed in five weeks when it took himsix months to pick a dog?”

Leaving aside the FACT that it is, as planned,taking much longer than five weeks, it seems to me that the dog comparison wasmuch too feeble a thrust.

Consider that it took the Congress 117 years toadopt “The Star Spangled Banner” as our National Anthem, or that the Vaticanhesitated 489 years in canonizing Joan of Arc! Now those are some worthy goalsfor John Boehner and Mitch McConnell to strive for. (The Republican leaders inthe House and Senate).

Here’s to better health care for ourgreat-great-great-great-great- great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great- great-great-great-great-grandchildren. Hoorah!!!

Yours for moderation inall things,

John F. Connot

Everett

 

Dissent, as ourfounders intended it

 

Dear Editor,

            Ihaven’t read the 1000 some pages of HR 3200, the Health Care bill currentlycreating all the town hall hysteria across the country. Who has? Safe to say,most of our lawmakers, pro or con, who will ultimately vote on this bill, willnot have read it through either. Clearly, not several Republican lawmakers whohave joined the Chicken Little ranks of Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, SeanHannity and the like, whose fortunes are earned fanning the flames of such fearand ignorance. And then there is the new sage, Sarah. We can count on herincoherence. After listening to this sort of rant about “evil” and “deathpanels,” I looked at the portion of the bill referenced to discover the idiocyof the charge. It reminds one of the 2008 election cycle when conservativepundits and the conservative blogosphere were abuzz with similar egregiousmisinformation and slander that cost them Senate seats and the White House…because thinking voters were repulsed. As columnist Leonard Pitts recentlywrote, “how far can the GOP wander before it cannot find its way back?”

            HR3200 deserves to pass or fail on its own merits as defined by civil informeddebate. The cynical attempt to shout something down is what the fearful resortto when they have nothing more to offer. And we know that wealthy influences inour nation who have much to lose are investing huge sums in perpetuating thisfear. If America is to live up to that ideal we so fondly extol about being abeacon of light to the world, we need to first take care of our own. Doing sowill not transform us into a socialist- Marxist- communist state. But a hundredmillion dollars will be spent by a panicked special interest lobby to convinceus so.

            Thatsaid, we can be encouraged by one thing: Under Bush/Cheney, dissent was bothdisparaged and censored. [and referred to more than once on this page as”anti-American”] When GW Bush came to our State, and I joined a few hundredpeople on his motorcade route to protest his invasion and occupation of asovereign nation that did not threaten us, we were cordoned off ten blocks awayfrom him into a “free speech zone.” Audiences then were allowed to address Bushonly after being screened for their loyalty. Today, in town halls, dissent isagain encouraged without such censorship, as our founders, in framing ourConstitution, intended it.

Mark Lindstrom

LakeWenatchee