Letters to the editor May 13

Whitefish rules

The May 11 issue of the online publication “Issues & Insights” states: “Biden...seems to be as devoted to his mask as an infant is to a pacifier...” Great line, wish I had made it up myself.

This brings me to today’s Daily Inter Lake and the article on the city of Whitefish and their chief spokesman Mayor Muhlfeld bleating about the Montana Legislature, which told the city what to do about their mask mandate.

But fear not, brave citizens of Whitefish, the City Council will not let you go about your business in peace for long. Next up at bat is a mandatory curbside recycling ordinance that will be paid for by every property owner. Since the city seems unable to manage a recycling spot, they will put the onus on its citizens in the form of a tax, whether they use the service or not. Collateral damage will be putting the independent recyclers out of business. But why should those solons care, they know exactly what’s best for the masses over which they rule.

How long will this meddling in the affairs of the good citizens of Whitefish go on? Cicero, in ancient Rome, said it best: “quo usque tandem abutere, Catilina, patientia nostra?” [How long, O Catiline will you try our patience?”] Until, I guess, the good citizens of Whitefish decide it’s time to reshuffle the deck, or, better yet, throw out the old deck and call for a new one.

—Cy Appel, Whitefish

‘30 by 30 ‘ a bad idea

On the front page of the May 7 Daily Inter Lake, “Biden unveils land conservation plan.”

Just the title of this article makes me very suspicious. What the heck is the president doing trying to tell people what to do with their land? Doesn’t the federal government control enough land already?

Then I get to the last two paragraphs that explain it all. “Meeting that target also has implications for mitigating climate change, O’Donnell said. The 30% goal is necessary to reach other international standards, including the 2015 Paris Agreement to limit global warming. We cannot meet the global climate targets without nature playing a major roll, O’Donnell said. So, on a global scale, unless we protect 30% of our lands and oceans, we have no way that we can reach the Paris Agreement goals.”

So it’s all designed to meet the Paris Climate Accord and not to help the American people. This should show you just how bad the PCA is when it requires us to take out of productive use 30% of our land and oceans. Do you think other countries will do this? Why should they?

This will be forced on the American people by presidential order and government bureaucracies as the Congress will never approve this. A huge bureaucracy will be created and cost millions of dollars just so we can meet an ineffective and unfair Paris Climate Accord. Our economy will suffer, and this will disproportionately affect the poor. Also the billions of dollars we will be sending to other countries so they can meet the PCA will be an additional drain on our economy.

Bad idea and bad leadership.

—William Fry, Kalispell