Letters to the editor Jan. 28

Ducks unintended victims

In October 2020, the Kalispell City Council passed Ordinance #1848. This ordinance made feeding waterfowl in Woodland Park a civil offense. This all transpired due to domestic geese being dropped off at the park and multiplying in large numbers. Thus, they became a nuisance that needed to be corrected.

With help from volunteers, these geese were removed and relocated. The removal of the geese was an immediate and effective solution to the problem. Due to a typical knee-jerk over reaction of the powers that be, the ducks at the park were also targeted as a nuisance. This was all determined to be the fault of the citizens who fed them. This was confirmed by so-called wildlife experts.

The reality is, ducks that have lived year-round in any city park for decades are not truly wild. The Kalispell Parks Department has maintained a fresh water supply and small pond at the east end of Woodland Park that these ducks have depended on for survival in winter, for years and years. Now, their water supply has been shut off. These bewildered ducks are now trying desperately to survive by maintaining their own puddle on the west end of the park by the hockey rink. In my opinion, it is nothing short of ASPCA treatment. I invite you to go see these unfortunate creatures before they die.

If you care, please call the Kalispell City Council at 758-7756 and Kalispell Parks and Recreation Department at 758-7718. These ducks need their water supply turned back on!

—Bert White, Kalispell

Mortgage the future

In recent months I have been haunted by a question. Even though it is a question that seems a bit facetious at first glance, I think it is a question that should cause us all to pause.

The question is this: Is it a greater evil to end the life of a person before she or he is born or to just take and spend their money?

Obviously, the answer is it’s better to take someone’s money than their life, but morally speaking, it’s not that much better, especially when the amount being taken is roughly the equivalent of the value of a house!

Our national debt currently stands at over $27,800,000,000,000. That is roughly $222,000 for every future taxpayer in this country. That is debt that will saddle our children and grandchildren. We have at this point stolen from them the equivalent of the price of their future homes to pay for things we want now but can’t afford to pay for ourselves. That is unconscionable.

What makes my question so much more troubling to me is that the issue of taking the life of a preborn person is still, at least between the two political parties, a live issue in this country. Tragically, both the outgoing administration and the incoming administration appear pretty equally complicit at this point in the taking and spending of yet-to-be-born people’s money.

As a father and one who anticipates eventually becoming a grandfather this haunts me. I for one want to leave my children and grandchildren a country that is no less solvent, prosperous and strong as the one I inherited. It is inconceivable, though, that it will remain so if we continue to mortgage their future away with such wild abandon for our own present wants and “needs.”

A corollary thought for those who aren’t as disturbed as I am by my first: Every dollar we have to spend today to pay the interest on the dollars we borrowed yesterday is a dollar we don’t have available to spend on what we want our federal government to do now. And that’s getting to be a lot of dollars – a second mortgage for each of us taxpayers!

—Matt Bailey, Whitefish

America’s cultural revolution

China’s cultural revolution was a purge of all non-Maoist thought, speech and ideology from Chinese society and economy. Several million Chinese were killed and hundreds of millions more were subjected to cruel and inhuman treatment. The Great Leap Forward, Mao’s own plan to Build Back Better, killed some 36 million people by famine.

We are experiencing our own cultural revolution. There is a call to purge all of the conservative, traditional and moral values of millions of Americans. And purging is not enough; the Democrats want those beliefs criminalized.

There is a concerted effort to tar every Trump supporter with the brush of Capitol mob protester, which is a lie. Ordinary Americans who supported President Trump, and there are at least 75 million of them, are being demonized. They are radicalized extremists like al-Qaeda and ISIS. As domestic terrorists, they are the biggest threat to our democracy. They are all violent white supremacists who are a threat to the lives of every American. They are all seditious traitors, the penalty for which, as Don Lemon gleefully reminds us, is death.

Democrats have called for “reeducation camps,” for the removal of children from conservative parents for “deprogramming,” for conservatives to be stripped of their civil rights, removed from their jobs, denied access to services, and their passports revoked. They are to be beaten into submission and erased from public discourse. No doubt they will be stripped of their assets in retribution for their refusal to bend the knee.

Regardless on which side of the political spectrum you sit, this should scare the hell out of you. This is what Stalin, Hitler, Mao and Castro did. Is this what we want our nation to be? This is evil and obscene. We must all stand together and vehemently denounce this madness.

Cynthia Granmo, Whitefish

Accountability before healing can begin

On Jan. 6, a riotous mob of Trump-supporting Republicans violently and brutally murdered a cop at our nation’s Capitol. There is no other way to frame this. Republicans did this.

While they were at it, these “law and order” Republicans violently broke into the Capitol building, ransacking the facilities as they were looking for their “enemies” to “bring to justice.” “Hang Mike Pence” they screamed. Vigilante justice.

Republicans, the self-proclaimed party of “law and order.” Ha.

I ask you: Where are the “conservative” thin-blue-line flag-waving, gun-toting patriots assembling at Depot Park, denouncing these atrocious and barbaric acts and supporting our fine peace officers? Where are all the letters to the editor from our “law and order” Republican voters, filling page after page of our local papers with their disgust and condemnation?

We don’t see them because Montana Republicans are one of two things: Either you’re (1) too damned embarrassed and ashamed to say anything hiding in your homes, snugly wrapped up in your American flags or (2) you actually don’t have any problem with and actually support the illegal and insurrectionist actions of that mob and the brutal murder of a U.S. Capitol Police officer. In either case, your silence speaks volumes.

The tepid, namby-pamby Republican response is nowhere better illustrated than this statement by Montana GOP chair Don Kaltschmidt, who offered: “today’s events at the U.S. Capitol fell far short of what makes this country great.” That’s it? It fell far short? My God, man.

As the push to once again impeach Trump gains support, the vast majority of Republicans on Capitol Hill are predictably crying for “unity” and “healing.”

Well, there simply can be no “unity” or “healing” without accountability first.

—Mark Paulson, Kalispell

Two perspectives on freedom

When I hear the word “freedom” in the political sphere it makes me bristle because I believe the word too generalized and non-specific. I believe that we would benefit as a nation, state and community by contemplating two major contrasting philosophies of freedom that we struggle with.

Freedom was also a word that Abraham Lincoln was struggling with during 1864. The following quotes by Lincoln articulate the contrast of “dueling freedoms” and address a concern that I have had for many years.

“For some, the word liberty, may mean for each man to do as he pleases for himself, and the product of his labor, while for others, the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the products of other men’s labor.”

Lincoln gave us an allegory to clarify the point: “The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep’s throat, for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as a liberator, while the wolf denounces the shepherd for the same act as a destroyer of liberty.”

Let us reflect on the difference between the symbolic shepherd and the wolf. Let us be skeptical when we hear the rhetoric of those who spout the word “freedom” without clarifying if they are a wolf or a shepherd.

— Steve Eckels, Kalispell