Letters for Feb. 18, 2022

The system fails everyone

It has been incredibly sad watching people from Freeman tell the story of the pain they suffered because of the shooting at their high school.

My question is who will stand for Caleb Sharp and say I am sorry for how we have failed you because we have failed him. Who in the Freeman community, schools and churches, can, with an honest heart, say we have done everything we could possibly do to help this child? Yes, Caleb was a child. Some want him treated in his sentencing like an adult. That can only be people who have not lived with a teenager. If you have, you know they are not adults, especially in their thinking and choices.

Yes, we have failed this young man and I ask that we ponder this and see what we can do differently in the future.

Martha Nerpel

Spokane

Reinforcing a misconception

I am so tired of people simply agreeing that the Republicans are anti-government Christians while the Democrats are what? Over-controlling heathens?

Republicans may want to stop taxing people (taxes that are intended to make the country a better place for all), but they sure do try to insert themselves into our personal lives. They want to control who marries whom, whether or not a woman has to have a baby, what types of books children can read, etc.

It looks to me like the Democratic party is the party that limits the government to what’s necessary: They accept people for who they are, they try to help those who are less fortunate, they don’t try to impose their particular beliefs on the whole country (freedom of religion and all that) and they try to make policies that will improve the whole country for everybody, not just the select few.

Just saying that Republicans are anti-government doesn’t make it true!

Sara Preisig

Cheney

Trump takedown

Please stop oxygenating Donald Trump’s appropriately deflated image with undeserved media attention. His devotees will continue to follow inferior sources promoting Trump’s self-important political and social proclamations most critical thinking news-seekers ignore. This ex-president passed his sell by date long before the 2020 elections. Should the media seek opinions from educated, intelligent former presidents who understood the enormity of the oath of office, President Obama fits the bill.

Stop covering Trump. He can get required ego boosts from mirrors.

Susan Cross

Post Falls

Trump tragedy

Basically: In Trump, we’re not dealing with a fully formed self-actualized personality.

Thanks to his stentorian, distant, millionaire father, Fred, we are actually now dealing with a poor damaged fellow in son, DJT – with all his aberrational behaviors, attitudes and opinions.

And the money … senior Trump did two horrible things, in that regard, to young Donald’s psyche. First, senior Trump transferred his large monetary fortunes into young Donald’s separate bank accounts. Totally unearned. A kid with millions to his name. Dad did that to cheat the taxman – making his young son, Donald, an unwilling criminal accomplice.

Then, as Donald reached adulthood, daddy handed him, unearned and free – $1 million to send him on his career path. Later, Donald would refer to that as a “small” gift

His personality and morality were deformed at the hands of his father.

Donald, in his adult business practices, later took six bankruptcies to avoid his responsibilities to his creditors and employees … all the while falsely portraying himself on the phony show, “Apprentice,” as a sternly competent mogul.

It now causes many of us to recoil from what he’s become. Others … to pity, admire and embrace him in his uniquely dystopian projection of himself on the equally unnatural presidential stage.

We’re not dealing with a normally self-actualized person here in Donald Trump. He in no way realizes that our American president should be our SERVANT – NOT OUR LORD.

He never had a chance to develop into a good person.

Jim Kane

Reardan

Voter suppression

It seems that too many of the elected officials across our country are trying to make it way too difficult for many of our citizens to vote. And they’re trying, through a variety of ways, to make sure that such votes don’t count.

That’s not America to me.

James P. Jones

Spokane