Letters To The Editor
VETERANS
Welcome home, Vietnam vets
He was wearing a cap with the words, “Vietnam Veteran and Proud of It!” at a softball tournament last weekend where I was serving as an umpire. I walked up to him, stuck out my hand and said, “18th MPs, 1968.” He gripped my hand hard and replied, “First of the Seventh, 1965 and ‘67.”
We chatted for a few minutes, never introducing ourselves by name. He’s had some Agent Orange-related illness; I shed a little blood, but we’re both whole and thankful. As we parted, he said, “Welcome home!”
It’s been almost 31 years, but none of us will ever forget the loneliness and isolation we experienced upon our return from Vietnam.
On this Memorial Day, find a Vietnam vet and tell them something they missed so many years ago. Welcome home, my brothers and sisters, welcome home! C. David Rhone Sandpoint
GUNS AND SOCIETY
Keep that light shining
Re: “Quit belaboring school violence” (Letters, May 25).
How do you get rid of a shadow? Shine the light. This is the media’s job in American society. Television and print news people have taken a hit for their coverage and commentaries of shootings in Littleton, Colo., Moses Lake and other cities around the nation over the last few weeks and months. Many people have criticized coverage of the bombings and shootings as “glamorizing” school violence.
But don’t the media just give us what we ask for? Even though I’ve heard about the shootings, I still don’t know all the details that I would like. And I don’t believe Americans have become fed up with school shootings quite yet. The issue of teenage violence is one of the most serious issues facing Americans today. And if we refuse to shine the light on the shadow of teen violence, that shadow will persist. By repeatedly putting down violence, whether teen, domestic, or racial, we get the idea into people’s heads that violence is wrong. As long as these senseless acts of violence continue, they should receive coverage. Joel R. Ewen Cheney
Gun laws only aid tyrants
Re: Keith W. Bean’s May 25 letter, “Make criminals target of tough laws.”
In the sixth paragraph of his excellent letter, Bean asserts that new gun laws will affect only law-abiding citizens, not criminals. Then he goes on to ask, “So, why should good, honest, productive citizens be hampered in any way in a misguided attempt to short-circuit criminals?”
I will answer that question: So that a Hitler or a Stalin, achieving the necessary position of political or military strength in our system, will be able to disarm the citizenry.
It would then be an easy matter to round up the Jews, blacks, Amish, Catholics, homosexuals, whites, Asians or any undesirables which may need exterminating so that ethnic, religious or political cleansing can be achieved.
Anybody who believes that tyranny cannot occur in this country is ignorant or in denial of our own history.
Those, such as Bean, who have learned from history realize that it is much more difficult for a tyrant to seize control of a nation with well-armed citizens.
Those who have not learned from history are willing to disarm and rely on the government to protect them from criminals and other tyrants, not realizing that a government “protecting” a disarmed citizenry is the greatest threat of all. Bob Carlsen Spokane
An attack on liberty
Along with its daily assaults on guns, gun owners and the National Rifle Association, the media gleefully report “setbacks” for the NRA and the Republicans. These aren’t serious setbacks for the NRA. They’re setbacks to liberty.
The public has been inundated with so much gun-hating drivel from the White House and the media this past month that they’re about to set aside one of our most sacred rights: the right to bear arms.
The socialist Democrats are once again calling for gun owner licensing and gun registration. But, only the law-abiding will comply with such schemes. Besides, Clinton is already registering newly purchased firearms. Licensing gun owners and registering guns has always been a prelude to gun confiscation. Ask the Australians. Doing paperwork on guns, for future confiscation, is the real reason that the leftist Clinton administration is carping about gun shows.
Speaking of gun shows, there were four convictions for criminal activity out of 4,400 gun shows last year. What a crime spree!
The May 23 Perspective piece by Edwin Feulner, president of the Heritage Foundation, said, “To believe that gun control or any other government program would have stopped the Columbine killers is to indulge a fantasy. That incident is rooted in a larger and more disturbing trend: the breakdown of a civil society.”
Don’t be deceived. Anything short of a total ban on privately owned firearms is unacceptable to the gun-ban lobby and its lackeys from the White House to Spokane. Curtis E. Stone Colville, Wash.
How about some media discretion
As the 21st century approaches, our public schools are turning from learning fields into killing fields. The media are replete with news. I counted eight items in the May 22 Spokesman-Review:
1. “Gun control far from over”; front-page article headlining Congressional debate, asking “whether the political will exists” to license and register firearms
2. “Hair-trigger youth” (A2); the youth in Georgia “had a .357 magnum revolver and a sawed-off rifle.”
3. “Publisher will stop selling hit-man manual” (A3); discusses “step-by-step murder manual.”
4. “Convictions of four men upheld in clinic bombing” (B2); about the bombing of Planned Parenthood clinic and newspaper in Spokane.
5. “Parents angry with boy with rifle scope” (B3); youngster “watching children board the bus through a rifle scope.”
6. “Springfield students mark anniversary” and “There still are bullets inside us” (B5); about the Oregon school tragedy last year.
7. “High road is the only way to go” (B6); “Facing a gathering storm of bad-PR and legal consequences, the beer industry got smart … it helped save many lives, as the NRA should now … (it) should go have a beer and think about that.”
8. “Fear must not paralyze and destroy” (B6); the writer fears about her kid’s safety, but won’t let it spoil the joy.
All this coverage focuses on guns-induced violence. But, here is the irony. The front-page story continues on page A7. Then the same page has this advertisement: “Gun Show, Kootenai Fairgrounds. Thousands of bargains you can buy, sell and trade.” Shouldn’t our media use some discretion? S.M. Ghazanfar Moscow, Idaho
NATIONAL SECURITY
More fuzzy reasoning from Clinton
Let me get this straight. President Bill Clinton and Attorney General Janet Reno were never informed about the Chinese stealing, or in the case of this administration, being given or sold every weapons technology secret this country possessed. Yet once they were not informed, they took action to curtail these practices.
Typical bravo sierra coming from a totally corrupt administration that would sell its own country out for campaign contributions. Of course the “sheeple” of this country, who have bought into all of the other outright lies and cover-ups, will buy into this barnyard excrement also.
Really makes you wonder if this country can survive two more years under this bunch. Bill R. Klein Nine Mile Falls
Clinton sold out nation
How can The Spokesman-Review run the “China catches up with our bomb” story and not mention that it is President Clinton who has been accused (within two weeks) in a formal speech by a senator to the floor of the U.S. Senate?
At the very least, Clinton is accused of knowing about it and covering it up for several years. The worst accusations (and more likely) run to Clinton basically signing over access for U.S. tech corporations to “consult” (read: sell) information pertaining to top secret satellite radar for nuclear sub tracking, communications infrastructure for China’s military, our most sophisticated micro-ballistic warhead technology, guidance systems, etc. All this was supposedly in the payoff for major campaign donations for Clinton’s re-election.
By the way, no one is accusing Clinton of handing this information over in a suitcase. It is all done basically with a pen and doing things such as firing all the U.S. attorneys and director of the FBI, Bill Sessions, after his inauguration, carefully placing Janet Reno, etc.
As usual, you quote only Joe Lockhart, the White House human parrot. Do you think that we really care, much less believe what Joe is told to say? Timothy Kell Hayden Lake
NETHERCUTT AND TERM LIMITS
One is as good as the other
If Rep. George Nethercutt decides to run for a fourth term in Congress after pledging to step down after three terms, using his definition of “pledge” I hereby pledge to vote for him. Leo J. Fagan Spokane
Term-limits people should back off
While I acknowledge the right of the U.S. Term Limits people to use paid advertising in an attempt to further their own narrow political agenda, I was especially offended by their full-page ad of May 26, “Saints, sinners and the bashful.”
It is my contention these do-good busybodies don’t understand the basic political principle that by the second or third term representatives rank with enough seniority to chair important committees which can help their constituents immensely.
In particular, I refer to Reps. George Nethercutt and Helen Chenoweth, who have served with distinction and honor. While Chenoweth is honoring her self-imposed term limit and now regrets the promise, her constituents are utterly devastated at the prospect of losing her.
I have watched the jihad against Nethercutt, trying to hound him out of office when he, too, has served his constituents well and they are pleased with his service.
The U.S. Term Limits people are trying to throw the good out in attempting to throw the not-so-good out. I really resent these uninformed people trying to cram their agenda down my throat. We already have term limits and they are called elections. My wish is that these meddlers would back off and find another cause. Marilyn Stamps Lewiston