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Let voters decide the candidate!

The news the other day included Lolita Zinke, wife of Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, being named the campaign manager for Republican candidate Troy Downing for the upcoming U.S. Senate race.

I am disappointed because this is so typical of the Republican leaders who try to pre-empt the process by not allowing the voters to decide who should win and who should lose. Sen. Daines has his choice and now Secretary Zinke (by proxy) has his choice. They are trying to decide for you who should run against Sen. Tester. If they don’t want the people to decide, then the state GOP should change from a primary system to a party caucus. At least then our GOP leaders would be up front about it.

With a healthy primary contest all the candidates could be put up on the platform and the people could see and hear them and then make their choice. The recent example of Congressman Gianforte being selected by party leaders just verifies that the powers that be want to make the decision for the people.

With Secretary Zinke now backing one candidate, it forces other possible candidates to either drop out of the race or consider running as an independent. As a former Reagan appointee and a retired lieutenant colonel in the Marine Corps, I was even considering running, but now that changes everything. Secretary Zinke should know better. —Gary K. Carlson, Victor

Why no statues of Longstreet? Here’s why ...

A recent letter bemoans the absence of Southern statues to Gen. James Longstreet and blames a racist reaction to his post-Civil War behavior and letters. Unfortunately, a salient issue is glossed over.

After Stonewall Jackson died of friendly fire following Lee’s amazing victory at Chancellorsville, Longstreet became the commander’s key field general. He vehemently opposed Lee’s aggressive offensive plan for Gettysburg and unsuccessfully argued for a prolonged defensive posture, then a flanking maneuver to the Union’s left to draw them out, and finally a crippling counter-attack — the classic rope-a-dope.

But following Lee’s greatest military blunder and the Confederacy’s devastating defeat on the hills of Pennsylvania, who could point fingers at God on Traveler, the South’s only hope, when Longstreet’s lukewarm support and dawdling battle generalship created a ready (and face-saving) target?

Gettysburg was the end’s beginning, and the scapegoat knew there would be no statues — ever. Longstreet took his program, as coaches say today, to a different team. —Andy Palchak, Kalispell

Where do you get the OK to tear down statues you don’t like?

I have another question for your readers. With the total acceptance of a few demonstrators taking down historical statues, where does it all end?

How many people need to assemble to take down statues they consider offensive? What will be next? Martin Luther King? Church statues of all religions except Muslim? School trophies as they offend the people who never played sports? Statues of Sacajawea as they offend many non-Indians? Mt. Rushmore just for the hell of it?

Do you get the gist? The powers to be that are behind funding all these riotous groups should be hung in the public square to set an example on stupidity and its consequences!

My point is simple: If everyone can destroy whatever offends them, then our country will be destroyed to its very core! Let the majority control the country and the other people can peacefully protest and change through the system for improved society. After all, there are places all over the world that will accept our troubled few! Mexico, Iran, Iraq, Somalia, Turkey, etc. So all the people unhappy here, feel free to make your reservations tomorrow. Call Glenn Beck as he has the jet fueled and first class flights leaving daily! Oh wait, all the loudmouths that said they were leaving are still here. Why? —Ron Albrecht, Kalispell

Set aside dry deserts for ‘tax anarchists’

In Utah and Nevada there are vast areas of public land that are bone-dry deserts. I’ve thought of a good use for these lands. I propose we create a homeland for tax anarchists. You know, the small-government fanatics who don’t want to pay for anything beyond their property line.

Don’t like fuel tax for road repair? Don’t like keeping the trees trimmed? Don’t like stormwater systems? Easy solution: live where there are none of these. I would even favor building a big, beautiful wall around your reservation, so you’ll never be bothered by people who prefer to live in good communities and are willing to maintain them. —Michael Merchant, Kalispell

U.S. in throes of revolution?

Presently, our military has been subdued, not by Russia or nuclear weapons, but by a sexual ideology that’s fraudulent.

There is no way that any hospital or doctor can determine the sexual identity commonly called homosexuality through the use of scientific blood sampling. Disease and chromosomes can be identified, but not indicators. Genetic determination by birth was first proposed in 1991 by Dr. Hamer, a Ph.D. biologist who was gay, but his theory was proven spurious by Ottawa University’s duplicate testing in 1999. This is a scientific hoax, although it has been accepted for a very long time.

Mentally ill soldiers are having sex operations in our military, including those convicted and incarcerated as spies, such as Chelsea Manning. This traitor, at the taxpayers’ expense, was rewarded by Obama with an operation and then a presidential pardon. The message to our military is that if you choose to surrender your self-respect and dignity, you will be rewarded by political scoundrels, and leftists.

The United States of America is in the throes of a full-fledged revolution. Guns have not yet been fired but that should be expected in a few years. Some part of it is promoted by transnational corporate thieves who recently demanded third gender restrooms to be implemented by Gov. Abbott in Texas. It was rejected, but those international plaintiffs were openly declared to be Facebook, Google, and the NFL, to name a few. Their undemocratic intrusion was meant to disorient the stability of this country, not liberate some minority.

We need to ask ourselves how much longer can America resist. Common sense has vanished. Compared to other nations America may be rich, but it is no longer respected. Can the president remain in power? There will soon be another tidal wave against Donald Trump in order to make America submit to a global control, and the loss of a nation, as we now know it. —Mike Donohue, Kalispell