Letters To The Editor
PEOPLE IN SOCIETY
Actively oppose hate, extremism
We attended the Yom Hashoah observance of the Holocaust at Temple Beth Shalom April 14 to remember the 1.5 million children killed by the Nazis.
Police were there providing security. Why was that necessary? What happened to religious freedom?
The very touching ceremony served to remind us that we can never allow such an atrocity to occur again; not to Jews, immigrants, homosexuals or any other minority groups. Let us not think it couldn’t happen here.
In the past few months the fearful rhetoric of political and “religious” extremists coupled with the silence of the silent majority parallel similar conditions that existed 51 years ago. The lethal combination of extreme rhetoric and silence allowed that most horrible of crimes against humanity to happen.
The silent majority ought to become the vocal majority so we do not repeat the tragic mistakes of the past. Extremists on the right and left do not hear one another. Consequently, peace and acceptance should be mediated by the majority in the center.
Wake up, America! The poignant experience commemorated at Yom Hashoah calls us to take action. If we want a peaceful world it is incumbent upon us to build bridges of love and compassion to people of all races, religions and lifestyles. It’s time to tear down the walls of hatred and prejudice.
We, as part of the silent majority, are willing to let our voices be heard. Are you willing to do the same? Revs. Austin and Mary Hennessey Spokane
Counter coldbloodedness
Re: The April 16 article, “Detective says he saw no remorse in Loukaitis.”
I am a high school freshman and I recently read the book “Night” by Elie Wiesel. I am amazed at the similarities between today’s murders and those carried out by the Nazi Party in Germany just over 50 years ago.
Today’s killers are strikingly similar in many ways to those in Germany during World War II. Killers today show no remorse. Similarly, the SS men and even many ordinary German citizens were without remorse.
Just as Barry Loukaitis remained calm, showed no facial expression and seemingly killed without any thought of the victims, Germany’s SS men killed thousands of Jews every day. When the war ended and the camps were liberated, they denied any wrongdoing.
Many killers today also kill for no logical reason, as did the SS, or kill for something that surely doesn’t merit revenge as severe as death.
There are many examples of senseless violence directed toward innocent people plaguing the media today. As seen in the Loukaitis case, teasing provoked a murder. In many cases, the killing happened without provocation. In concentration camps, innocent people also were killed for reasons that most definitely do not justify killing.
Brutal, senseless, unprovoked violence is becoming a real problem today. Is our country becoming Nazi Germany? No, but if this violence isn’t curbed the situation could get much worse. Action should be taken to stop this violence. History does repeat itself. Parker Barrile Chattaroy
GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS
Feinstein one of the best
While I share Gary and Virginia Tucker’s concerns (“How Nazi-like we’re becoming” Roundtable, April 19), I was stunned to see Sen. Dianne Feinstein accused of dabbling in such goings on.
Being a Jew, Sen. Feinstein, a Democrat, is highly unlikely to be a supporter of anything reminiscent of the Nazis. She is also one of the ablest administrators alive today in the United States and strongly qualified to be president.
Maybe it’s a measure of our “Nazi-like” attitudes that being both a woman and a Jew, she probably could never win a presidential election. That’s our loss. Jim McDonald Spokane
Foley gave little, took much
In a May 1996 Reader’s Digest special report, “Living it up on Capitol Hill,” Trevor Armbristor leads with a quote from Thomas Paine:
“When extraordinary power and extraordinary pay are allotted to any individual in a government, he becomes the center ‘round which every kind of corruption generates and forms.”
Former House speaker Tom Foley referred to one pay hike of $37,900 as “slight change.” Cleta Mitchell from a Washington, D.C., watchdog group discovered “that the median household income in Washington state’s 5th Congressional District, Foley’s own, was $25,107. The speaker’s ‘slight change’ was more than the entire household income of most of his constituents.”
Foley was a paid public servant earning $171,500 annually plus benefits to do his job. I wonder how much the taxpayers pay each year for his pension? Foley is the consummate General Bullmoose motivated by the ethics don’t do as I do, do as I say.
Paine pegged all the Foleys for all time. Washington State University canonized Foley as a great hero. Reality dictates Foley is a man who has given little while feeding lavishly at the public trough. We should count our blessings, cut our losses and breathe a sigh of relief that at least he doesn’t appear to be another Rostenkowski. Chuck Huffine Pullman
ENVIRONMENT
Apply the Golden Rule
Environmentalists claim conservatives are out to scuttle regulations saving our planet from destruction. They tell city dwellers that farmers, ranchers, loggers and rural types are killing our planet and its wildlife. They tell them that city folks should demand tough regulations and make rural types pay!
Are you sure you’re not responsible? You’ve never logged a tree or plowed a field but you live in a wood house and eat very well - and very cheaply. Your property was once home to a variety of native wildlife and plants. Your car was mined from the ground.
Maybe we just need to uniformly enforce our existing environmental regulations. It’s time for an environmental survey to come to your neighborhood! If wildlife in your area isn’t at historic levels you can tear down your buildings and streets to mitigate your damages to the environment. You’ll pay all the costs, but that’s OK; you’re responsible, too.
You can restore native elk herds on the South Hill. Bring back those historic salmon runs that are now blocked by Riverfront Park, as well as the grizzly bears that used to feed on them. Your lot will be declared critical wildlife habitat. Don’t worry about reclamation costs, we’ll just bill you.
Consider fairly your part in the environmental problems that we all face and the motives of those who claim to have all the answers. Think about it critically. Could you accept and afford the same regulations that sound so good when they apply only to others? Paul Stearns Rockford
Who knows what God has in mind?
Well, another Earth Day observance and the rhetoric by certain conservationists continues to elevate kangaroo rats, spotted owls, tortoises and sickly trees above human beings.
The same persons who, for other purposes, will extract from the Declaration of Independence the words “endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” will yet on Earth Day amend or restrict its meaning to go ahead and pursue happiness but if in that pursuit you accidently plow over a kangaroo rat, cut down a sickly tree near a spotted owl habitat or build a house too near a tiny pool of water, the inalienable rights are suddenly shifted and assigned to the lower species of God’s creation.
In their intrepid and compulsive need to fashion their own grand design to be congruent with some way out “balance of nature” theories, conservationists always manage to tip the balance away from the human species to anything burrowing in the ground, floating on the water or perched on a tree.
Nothing on God’s earth should be killed maliciously, but we human beings should avoid presupposing that our still finite understanding of life can fathom just how this very precarious interaction of God’s earthly species actually fits into his ultimate grand purpose and design for His universe. Ken Van Buskirk Spokane
We mustn’t backslide now
Earth Day is the time to look back and ahead. As George Santayana said, “Those who cannot learn from the past are condemned to repeat it,”
Twenty-five years of U.S. environmental activity have cured a near-dead Lake Superior, made rivers swimmable and given many people pollution-free drinking water.
In the developing world, 80 percent of all disease is spread by consuming unsafe water and one-third of all deaths are caused by bad water. No Clean Water Act there!
One of Congress’ anti-environmental efforts has been to try to gut our Clean Water Act in the interests of a free market economy. How well does the free market work? Well, sayeth large corporations that provide one-quarter of the world’s economic output while employing less than .05 percent of the world’s people. Lousy, sayeth the poorest one-fifth in the world who share 1.4 percent of the world’s income.
The militia movement, estimated by Time magazine as having 12 million members in 441 groups located in all 50 states, is motivated by distrust of government.
Both the environmental backlash and militia movement are societal problems that require a solution or we will all lose. Are these issues disparate? From my reading, no.
Social and environmental disintegration in U.S. and global societies is being driven by corporate greed masquerading under the cloaks of the free market and “wise use” of our natural resources.
Political activity by mainstream Americans is needed. Use it or lose it applies to our democracy and our environment. Julian Powers Spokane
PEOPLE AND WILD ANIMALS
Humans err and animal pays
It’s a shame when a child is hurt due to a parent’s ignorance. It’s an even greater shame that the animal who was doing what comes naturally has to pay the ultimate price.
Even with the owner’s permission, Kannon Langley should never have been left alone to pet a caged animal. Even a dog might have reacted the same way to a strange child. The blame, as well as the expense, should be shared equally by Charlie’s owner and Kannon’s parents. Louise Long Spokane
Leave wild animals in the wild
I am really outraged that this had to happen (“Pet cougar attacks 5-year-old in Valley,” News, April 20), and I’d like to know when people are going to learn not to mix wildlife with humans. Wild animals belong in the wild, not with humans. Carola Lyons Spokane
Father’s negligence appalling
What kind of mental midget would keep a wild cat in a cage or let their children pet it? One must certainly question the scruples and mentality of anyone who would keep a carnivorous pet for personal gratification. (“Pet cougar attacks 5-year-old in Valley,” News, April 20)
We should take a harder look at the parent who allowed his 5-year-old child to pet such a cat, and be so trusting that his attention was diverted, only to be pivoted back by a “bloodcurdling scream.” This is inexcusable.
Now they want to destroy the animal for an incident that was totally avoidable, especially since it was probably a whisker-pulling, rather than rabies, that precipitated the bite.
Randy McGlenn is now paying medical expenses rather than being sued by Kevin Langley, which is still a possibility, and Langley probably will not be called to account for neglect.
What is wrong with this picture? Lenore Koch Spokane
FIREARMS
Kids just imitating adults
For the student services supervisor of District 81 to say, “Kids are going to get tired of being kicked out of school” as an encouraging outlook on guns in schools is horrifying. How many times will one child be kicked out?
Young people won’t be ruled by threats from school officials when the greater threat appears to come from their peers. Besides, the message is loud and clear from our leaders that weapons make us safer. Spokane’s chief of police believes he can only hide and hope for the best without a shotgun to protect himself and his wife. Congress insists that the Pentagon buy $7 billion more in weapons so we can all be safe from some enemy that must be lurking out there somewhere. And President Clinton sends off peacekeeping troops with plenty of weapons and weapons training but not clue about what peace looks or sounds like.
As long as the weapons business is making somebody rich, the myth that weapons provide safety will be perpetuated. As long as some violence is applauded, other violence will be justified by somebody. If adults won’t be without guns, can we expect youths to act otherwise? If a police officer feels helpless without firearms, how do we expect a vulnerable student to feel?
The situation is grim but not hopeless. We need more understanding about why students dare to pack guns and less tolerance for trigger-happy government officials and law officers. Our dependence upon weapons in this country is killing us. Rusty Nelson Spokane
Media out to get our guns
The gun-ban lobby/media’s $50 million war on our right to bear arms continues with daily cartoons, articles and editorials. Naturally, National Rifle Association responses are censored. And local anti-gun activists ignore facts and even dismiss Supreme Court cases like the 1886 Presser vs. Illinois.
In 1986, Congress declared that the rights of citizens included the right to keep and bear arms, under the Second Amendment.
The January 1996 Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology reports that firearms are used defensively by Americans 2.5 million times yearly, and that the defensive use of firearms is four times greater than the criminal use of guns.
The “assault rifle” lunacy is apparent when certain .22s, the 1861 Civil War Henry rifle and even some BB guns are banned as “assault rifles.”
Anti-democracy gun abolitionists scream that the Republicans have sold out to the NRA, while they spend untold thousands to buy Democrats like Rep. Charles Schumer. The Republicans likewise defused the “antiterrorism” bill. Why? To Clinton, all gun owners are domestic terrorists.
Over 28 states allow private citizens to carry concealed handguns. These programs have been totally successful, despite predictions of doom from gun haters. In a media backfire, 34,000 people responded to a Dec. 29, 1995 USA Today poll about carrying concealed handguns, and 82 percent said they felt safer knowing that concealed weapons permits were available to honest citizens. Another poll, by Police Magazine, found that 85 percent of its readers rejected gun control.
The medias’ one-sided coverage of the gun debate is a national disgrace. Curtis E. Stone Colville, Wash.
Wild shots not appreciated
Edward Keeley (“Get a load of those gun letters, Letters, April 16) attacks pro-gun writers, misquotes their letters and cavalierly dismisses well-documented facts.
Vern O’Farrell had refuted the Handgun Control Inc. claim that guns are killing children. O’Farrell showed that a majority of these “children” are actually young criminals with lengthy arrest records. Many of these “children,” some as old as 24, belonged to gangs or were drug dealers.
It’s silly for Keeley to say that O’Farrell thinks those kids “deserved to die.” O’Farrell was only trying to expose the lies of the gun control lobby. Next, Keeley assaults Loue Stockwell’s letter, and again mislabels semiautomatic rifles as “assault rifles.”
Lacking truth, gun control advocates resort to emotionalism, fear and hysteria, along with shock phrases like “cop-killer bullets,” “Saturday night specials” and “assault rifles.” It seems to make no difference that these things have little factual basis. Lu Haynes Kettle Falls, Wash.