Shawn Vestal’s recent column, “‘Constitutionalists’ are in name only” (Nov. 18), really hit home to me and the other members of the former Stevens County Task Force On Human Relations, greatly assisted in 1991 by the Kootenai County Task Force On Human Relations, mainly because the head of the Washington State Aryan Nations, Justin Dwyer, along with his girlfriend Elizabeth Bullis, and Chevie and Cheyne Kehoe, were meeting in our local city park, hoping to recruit vulnerable youth from our alternative high school with their subtle and seductive message of anti-racial minorities, and anti-establishment rhetoric, to include opposition to duly authorized law enforcement, i.e. the Stevens County Sheriff’s Department.

State Rep. Matt Shea of Spokane Valley and Stevens County Commissioner Steve Parker heavily supported their candidate for Stevens County sheriff and he lost. It was close, however, thus my concern that these “true believers” will be sore losers and their attempt to mainstream the far-right and ultra-right that they support, based upon their twisted interpretation of the Bible … is something that we will just have to wait and see about. For some reason, I am reminded of my friend Morris Dees, one of the founders of the Southern Poverty Law Center, who said: “They have a right to hate, they do not have a right to hurt.” I suppose that we will have to just wait and see.

To me, if you are a constitutionalist and you don’t think that you need a driver’s license or have to pay taxes, stay the hell off the road.

James Perkins

Colville