Letters To The Editor

INTOLERANCE

Show parade the respect it deserves

In response to Pastor/Col. Teague’s letter of Feb. 18, I find that I must be in agreement with him and his people. In principle and nothing else.

If we allow the Aryan Nations’ parade, we reinforce everyone’s concept of North Idaho as a haven for supremacists. If the parade is not allowed, we become no better than them.

Of course, there just might be a way to let them have their parade and let the rest of us make a statement, too.

If no one went to the parade (this must also include the media), what difference is there if they march downtown or in their own compound? It’s sort of like a tree falling in the woods with no one around to hear.

However, if you must go to the parade, we should all show our support. We should all turn our backs to the parade as it passes, as a demonstration to the rest of the country and to those the Aryans would persecute, that the majority of North Idaho people do not support, condone or advocate the ideals, policies or hatred of these so-called Christians. Glenn Kitselman Coeur d’Alene

Laughter is the best medicine

Well, the Aryans want another chance to display their presence, and if it’s anything like the last time they stumbled down the boulevard, I’m going to be there for nothing more than a good laugh.

They gave us an exposure of total stupidity in their debut some 12 years ago, in what they insisted was a march. If any of them reminded you of a Nazi or any other bona fide soldier, then Luciano Pavarotti can put on a pair of bikini shorts and remind you of an Olympic diver.

To march in perfect cadence can be awesome proof of great discipline and physical training. Staggering along out of step and certainly out of place can make someone an outright laughingstock, which is exactly what they did their last time out.

If Richard Butler and his goofs get another chance to take a stroll down Sherman, it would be a slap in the face to those who fought the Nazis in World War II and a painful embarrassment to the German people who pulled a nation out of its darkest decade with commendable fortitude. However, if those who maintain that laughter is the best medicine are correct, then it could be the greatest boon to my health since I severed my partnership with the Camel filters man. Matt J. Mayo Post Falls

Nazism the antithesis of democracy

I am responding to Aryan Nations Pastor/Col. Mike Teague’s letter espousing the group’s constitutional right(s) of “Expression, assembly, speech, press and religion.”

Teague is absolutely within his rights to expect his marching permit. However, allow me to add this quote from Adolf Hitler, as he addressed the Duesseldorf Industry Club, Jan. 27, 1932:

“Thus democracy will in practice lead to the destruction of a people’s true values. And this serves to explain how it is that peoples with a great past, from the time when they surrender themselves to the unlimited, democratic rule of the masses, slowly lose their former position.” Hitler did not think much of democracy.

Teague asks at the end of his letter, “Who lives by and upholds the Constitution of the United States of America?” Hitler felt that democracy would lead to “the destruction of a people’s true values.”

Teague, if you believe in democracy, how can you believe in what Hitler said? Moreover, if your values espouse those of Hitler, you must not value the freedoms democracy has granted you. You have the freedom to march in a democratic manner. You also have the freedom to devalue democracy. You have the freedom to mock all the respect that democracy grants its smallest followers. Those acts of respect are extended to even you, Teague.

But in the end, you are only mocking yourself if you march under the banner of democracy - a banner you are sworn not to believe in. Christopher Vogel Marshall, Wash.

SPOKANE MATTERS

Regulations boost housing costs

Re: Affordable housing in Spokane County.

I’m a home builder and remodeler. I belong to the building industry that is trying to build affordable housing and affordable remodeling in the Spokane County. Everyone blames the building industry for not being concerned about affordable housing. This is not true at all.

The misinformed, uninformed general public gets talked into voting or misled into voting for regulations that increase the cost of housing and they don’t know it. The building industry tries to inform the public, but it doesn’t always work.

County commissioners are considering a proposal that prohibits all landfills in Spokane County from expanding. If this happens, the general public will see major increases in disposal fees for getting rid of all types of construction debris from new homes and remodeling jobs. Now, tell me who is to blame for the cost of housing. Jim Cole Cole Construction, Spokane

Complaints utterly without merit

As a developer, I was extremely interested to read Bart Haggin’s requiem for Spokane’s neighborhoods (“Developers maximize profits at community’s expense,” Feb. 12). The chorus about greedy developers hits all possible notes.

Sadly, the column demonizes thousands of citizens employed in the real estate and construction industries, most of whom are civic minded and work hard at creating affordable homes and quality neighborhoods.

Haggin’s composition is the uneducated babble of a no-growth activist who apparently knows nothing about the issues of affordable housing and community development. Does he think J.P. Graves and Aubrey White were enviro-warriors? Could it be that he thinks that Manito and Cannon Hill parks and the surrounding neighborhoods are the work of a farsighted planning director? Or is it just recently that greed “overwhelm(s) community responsibility, community pride and corporate ethics”?

The issues of growth management, affordable housing and community development need thoughtful debate, not mudslinging. Haggin wasted not only the opportunity you gave him but the public’s attention. I think it’s time we hear another perspective. Jim Frank Greenstone Corp., Spokane

Support Mead school bond, levy

On Feb. 5, state Superintendent of Public Instruction Terry Bergeson addressed a Spokane breakfast crowd of several hundred parents, educators and community leaders. Bergeson generated rousing applause as she congratulated people of this part of the state for their enthusiastic support of public education.

Just two days earlier, districts throughout Spokane County had overwhelmingly approved local levies and bonds. It was obvious that people in that room were proud of their children, their schools and communities. We are fortunate to live where people do care.

We encourage our fellow Mead School District patrons to show the same community resolve as our neighboring districts. The need for renovation of Mead High School and Colbert Elementary is dramatic. Additions and improvements to other facilities are warranted and overdue.

The Mead Citizens Planning Committee worked very hard over the last 18 months to assess needs and recommend the best solution. Their reasoned approach has resulted in a school bond proposal that is both prudent and timely.

Please support our children and make a wise investment in our community. Vote yes twice on March 10: for the Mead School levy and bond. David and Bonnie Stenersen Spokane

SECURITY

Communal arrangements offer hope

The East Central neighborhood isn’t the first area in Spokane to worry about crime and safety. Besieged urban neighborhoods need to take back the streets - literally.

Ownership of local residential side streets should fall to the residents. They could limit access with security gates, voluntarily enact property use covenants, hire private security and snowplow streets promptly. Property values and rental rates would rise.

Crime would cease. Neighbors working together would create a community, and drug houses would fail or be geographically excluded. Families would feel safe again.

Is this so revolutionary? In fact, one of today’s hottest housing options is private, usually suburban community developments with collective private ownership.

Condominiums can also brag of effective nongovernmental ways of maintaining the neighborhood.

There’s no reason urban property owners shouldn’t be able to get together and take back the streets. The individual cost of enacting collective security measures would be a minimal monthly amount if costs were spread over the homes on several blocks (probably gladly paid by crime-weary homeowners and rental providers).

The city should offset costs by refunding taxes paid for failed police protection and street maintenance.

This libertarian, free-market approach of allowing neighborhood self-organization could rescue countless poor and rundown neighborhoods all over America from the scourge of crime fostered by failed government management of “public” areas.

Shouldn’t Spokane city officials offer to give up control of neighborhood streets to organized homeowner groups, so the city’s children can play safely in their own front yards? Greg D. Holmes Spangle, Wash.

U.S. AND THE WORLD

Attacking Iraq illegal and immoral

Let’s see if I understand the present U.S. posturing against Iraq.

The United States is prepared to go to war to prevent Saddam Hussein from using chemical or biological weapons of mass destruction against innocent people. Correct?

U.S. strategy, as stated publicly by President Clinton and national security adviser Sandy Berger, would be to use “smart” bombs and missiles, launched from great distances. Berger, for one, has publicly said that some Iraqi civilians might be killed.

Civilians are described in numerous Geneva conventions as innocent people. Thus, the United States would, in effect, be initiating a war, declared or not, in which some innocent people would be killed so that other innocent people might not be.

Does that correctly describe the U.S. position?

Clinton, and all government officials, take an oath “to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution,” part of which is Article 6, which makes treaties the supreme law of the land, which the president has sworn to uphold. In Geneva conventions and other treaties to which the United States is signatory, war may not be waged against innocent civilians.

More than 50 years ago, leaders of another nation were tried and convicted of waging illegal warfare and crimes against humanity. Some were executed, some imprisoned, a few acquitted. The principle was established then that government officials, regardless of rank, are responsible for obeying international law as stated in treaties.

Have we, as a people, grown so callous over the past 50 years that the taking of innocent life is not only acceptable but endorsed? Al Mangan Spokane

Don’t make U.S. a rogue state

I strongly oppose military action against Iraq.

Yes, Iraq probably does have biological and chemical weapons. But they are no more likely to use them than are any of the many other nations of the world that have weapons of mass destruction. A military strike is more likely to provoke than to prevent their use.

A military strike will not end Iraq’s capability of obtaining, storing or manufacturing these weapons. All it will accomplish is to kill innocent people and inflame ethnic and anti-American passions.

Use of brute military force against smaller and poorer nations is not the kind of leadership appropriate to the world’s only superpower at the end of the 20th century. If we launch unilateral aerial aggression, we will have taken a step toward becoming the kind of “rogue state” we claim to be fighting against.

Let’s give some credence to international opinion. Let the United Nations negotiate a settlement acceptable to the world community. Rod Stackelberg Spokane