Letters for Aug. 5, 2022

Intentions assessment

Editor’s note: This letter was accidentally truncated due to an editor’s error. Here it is in its entirety.

In response to “Be grateful for people who embrace extremism and then reject it” (Letter to the Editor, July 26): With his background, the Rev. Robert Crosby must know about the road to hell being paved with good intentions. But back here on earth, the long history of trying to accurately assess whether a human’s intentions are essentially “good” or “bad” have been fraught with trouble. Remember the Salem Witch Trials, Joan of Arc, the Inquisition, etc.?

More feasible and more useful are the determination of the consequences of actions. While it probably can be agreed upon that nobody is all bad all the time as in “honor even among thieves” and “fallen women with hearts of gold,” all such propositions focus on the perpetrator instead of the victim. More important for a society is the fact that human choices eventuate usually in either harm, help or some mixture there of.

By attempting to explain harmful choices mystically as the working of some invisible disease that secretly overtakes healthy people, (“fascism creeps into the fabric of society on the backs of ‘good’ people”) we are thrown back into a satanic explanation of human behavior as in “the devil made me do it.” The fact is that all humans are capable of doing harm or not as a function of their character operating within a set of personal and social circumstances.

While the satanic explanation may facilitate forgiveness of the perpetrator, the psycho social explanation instead focuses on the possibility of practical changes which may be of much more substantial benefit for those “sinned against” as well as “the sinners.” Let God dispense grace.

Peter Grossman

Spokane

Love the print paper

Here is an echo of the letter “Sharon” wrote you in May (“More expensive, less efficient paper,” Letters to the Editor) regarding her non-techy self not being able to afford The Spokesman-Review newspaper when the prices rises.

Personally, although my adult children have encouraged/forced reluctant me to join the digital age and have provided me with computers and smartphones, I also begin my day with coffee and the print newspaper.

When I go off to work five days a week at age 82, Mondays, Tuesdays and Saturdays are unwelcome because of the lack of The S-R. (I’m a four-day subscriber because of cost.)

I will continue to be a print subscriber unless the prices escalates hugely, as I value the broadly covered national and local news. TV news is not for me. Your wonderful newspaper, to which I have been a constant subscriber since moving to Spokane 42 years ago, is vital to the democracy in which I reside and I will find a way to pay for it somehow. Although my social security and work income is small, I consider The S-R an essential expense.

Dianne Cook

Spokane

Our freedoms restricted

Our freedom in our country is currently becoming more restricted. The last July 4 parade in Highland Park, Illinois, a mass shooter killed many people. Of course, this caused residents there to rethink about moving around in their community. So, on a day to celebrate our freedom, we lost some freedom.

Gun safety laws are sadly lacking in the U.S. For an 18-year-old male to be able to purchase a weapon of war (AR-15) is totally ridiculous. Most Americans would agree. We can expect more carnage.

Another freedom lost is a woman’s right to control her body. A woman’s choice to have an abortion should be between her and her doctor, not how Big Brother dictates.

Then, there are Americans losing rights because of their sexual orientation. More loss of freedom.

Finally, our basic right to have free and fair elections is being infringed upon. The Jan. 6 committee is revealing how close we came to having the will of the people being overturned. If enough Americans don’t pay attention to this committee’s findings and recommendations, seriously, we could easily lose our democracy in the near future. We are in historic times.

John Gary Kavanagh

Spokane

Good guy with gun

Well, Shawn Vestal really outdid himself this time. He used a really boring scientific paper written by four academics to prove right to carry is bad. Anyone interested in reading it, let me save you: Don’t. It is filled with charts, graphs and page after page of math formulas.

To a nonacademic like myself two things jumped out. Like Shawn, none of these professors has ever worked in law enforcement and have disdain for the police. They claim police are hesitant to approach suspicious people as they may outgun the cop. Really? How do you prove that?

They also use Parkland and Texas as proof of police hesitating. Sorry, abysmal leadership is not proof of hesitation. Want to see how cops really react? Watch video of Las Vegas, or the latest shooting in Illinois; those cops ran to the gunfire.

Retired Deputy Resource Officer Ron Nye raced into Freeman High School without any thought of his own safety. Shawn concludes good guys with guns don’t stop bad guys with guns. The statement from (disgraced) Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre of the (bankrupt) NRA, although poorly worded and horribly timed, after Sandy Hook, does not make it wrong.

I can only think of three times shooters were stopped by bystanders. Bad guy shoots, cops arrive, shooter surrenders, is killed or wounded by cops or commits suicide.

In Shawn’s world, cops are bad guys, so when bad guys shoot, more bad guys arrive and the shooter is stopped. Strange.

Steven Stuart

Spokane

‘Affordable’ Catholic Charities living

Dear Catholic Charities,

I’m writing today because unfortunately, while working full-time, I am unable to find affordable housing. I’ve searched from Division Street to Stateline for anything that would fit that description and found nothing above 1 star. We used to know the value of a dollar in this country. We did back in the 1970s when I started paying Supplemental Security Income.

After your $6 million windfall, will the Pope be granting absolution to the entire city or just the civic leadership? (That’s a trick question. His services are only for the devout.)

As much as they claim to be compassionate and worldly, there’s got to be a reason Francis is on a worldwide apology tour. There also has to be a reason the more persuasive you are to their religion, the further up you are in the line.

I, for one, knew this church and state idea to shove Jesus down their throat was in full swing. Just think if Trump were in office right now, we’d be in refuge camp Stage II. I guess we should be a little thankful they only emptied the bank account for a salvation dog and pony show.

The least you could do is quit using the airwaves to claim everyone’s a commie welfare queen. Have you looked in the mirror recently?

You do know your temples and towers will crumble to dust before the meek inherit the earth. Blessed are you who the truth sets free.

Steven Reynalds

Otis Orchards