Letters To The Editor
Flag law just window dressing
As an American, I am proud to fly our nation’s flag. The first thing I do every morning when I get to work is run the flag up the pole. Having a law requiring me to respect this national symbol serves only to diminish my respect.
Respect is not something that can be forced by legal mandate. Like honor, it must be earned.
Our laws were established to protect people and their property. Any law that does not serve this purpose is a bad law. This flag burning amendment flies in the face of 219 years of such legal precedent, by protecting not flesh and blood, but a symbol.
Many of the supporters of the flag burning amendment voted against the proposed increase of the nation’s police force by 100,000 officers. It becomes apparent our honorable senators believe symbols are more important than people.
We can’t have affordable health care, but we can increase our prison population with flag desecrators (where they will receive health care at the public’s expense). Why can’t our honorable congressmen concentrate on real issues instead of popular political ploys?
If my car is stolen, will the police response be faster if I claim the thieves also desecrated the stars and stripes? Paul Yost Spokane
Wrecking yard not such a bad site
Seriously, folks, why not quit whining about Spalding’s “unsightly” wrecking-recycling yard?
Too bad about the trees, but where can you find a neater, cleaner auto yard? By the way, who was first, Spalding’s or the freeway?
Driving a car or truck? Some day you may need a used part. This yard does not offend me.
For the offended, please continue westward on Interstate 90 about a mile and rest your weary eyes on a big pile of manure that is unobstructed by trees. Darrell Rosenkranz Spokane
Clark needs duck test refresher
In reference to Doug Clark’s June 27 article, “Waco, Weaver …,” it was nice to see he gave the location of John Thamm’s exhibit. I had heard about his paintings but did not know where they were exhibited.
Now that the niceties are out of the way, I offer my criticisms (based on my perceptions) of Mr. Clark’s column. It seems that Mr. Clark took umbrage at Mr. Thamm’s associating segments of the federal law enforcement community with Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. Yet Clark associated Thamm with “the radical right: militia movement ideology.” Is this attitude of I can paint people with a broad brush but you can’t just a normal egocentric attitude, or is it a normal ethnocentric journalistic attitude?
Clark also seems a bit proprietary about the use of these pejorative comparisons and appears to be correcting Thamm’s “misuse” of such comparisons. Mr. Clark, may I remind you of the duck test, which I will paraphrase for you: If it looks like a Nazi, walks like a Nazi and quacks like a Nazi, it’s a Nazi.
I am also intrigued by people associating the Nazis with the political right. I have dictionaries that state a Nazi is a member of the National Socialist German Worker’s Party. Isn’t socialism normally associated with the political left? Francis E. Kent Four Lakes