Letters for Tuesday, Feb. 10

Young people will save our democracy

Our young people will save our democracy. That’s my conviction resulting from considerable experience with them in retirement. And high school students are proving me true in protesting against ICE thugs’ cruel, racist assaults. Particularly students in the heavily Trump-voting Spokane Valley area have shown exceptional courage (Spokesman-Review, Jan. 21).

I’ve worked with high school students in after-school programs, primarily as math tutor, from 1998, when I retired from teaching college math, until 2020 when COVID closed the schools – and also in registering high school students to vote in Spokane County public high schools since 2017. These experiences are always uppers for me and I’ve often said young people will save our country.

For example, in a letter to the editor of the White Salmon, Washington, newspaper just after Barack Obama was elected president in 2008, I wrote about the younger generation: “From my experience they transcend many of the divisions that have haunted us as a nation. They are my ‘audacity of hope’ for the future of the country I love.”

Sorry, young patriots, that you’re required to be age 35 before becoming president.

But thankfully, you’re not required to be a cruel, 34-count convicted felon to be president.

Norm Luther

Spokane

Thank you Spokesman-Review for immigration coverage

I want to thank The Spokesman-Review for its Feb. 1 front page headline “Who Belongs in America?” The in-depth coverage of the sad and outdated state of our country’s immigration policies and the arbitrary way they are implemented has instilled fear in a large segment of this country’s contributing members. They may not be citizens, but they are not criminals. As you point out, they pay taxes, but don’t enjoy the benefits.

And then a Feb. 7 article enumerating the horrific treatment at the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma. Look out, Spokesman, you may be the target of an executive order shutting you down!

To protest the federal agents’ killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti and the deaths of people held in detention at the hands of ICE, I attended a solemn action of mourning for those deaths on Saturday. Many of us held gravestone signs with the names and dates of death of those who died in detention. Mine was Leo Cruz-Silva, who died Oct. 4. We received many honks of support from passing cars on the Monroe Street Bridge, which warmed me in the cold afternoon. However, one man rolled down his window despite the cold to yell, “Who is paying you?”

I’m just sorry there are people who actually believe Trump’s mantra that protesters are paid. Apparently, Trump and his followers can’t believe that somebody would willingly stand up for their values, not for money, but because it’s the right thing to do.

Linda Greene

Spokane

Baumgartner’s voting record

From all the griping about Rep. Baumgartner in letters to the editor, you’d think he was a misguided stumblebum rather than a congressman with a voting record of 60% on the Freedom Index (a measure of how closely one follows the Constitutional principles of limited government, fiscal responsibility, national sovereignty and a traditional foreign policy of avoiding foreign entanglements). Compare his score to Sen. Maria Cantwell’s 15% and Sen. Patty Murray’s dismal 11%. Perhaps words of encouragement, rather than repeated condemnation, can improve our state, our nation, our world.

Kathy Berrigan

Kettle Falls