Letters to the editor Sept. 16

Be a patriot, get vaccinated

I have always been a patriot. Three of my four grandparents served in the military and both of my brothers currently serve in the Marine Corps. I am in awe of the hardships and sacrifices my forefathers endured to make the United States what it is today. As I’ve grown older, my conception of what it means to love one’s country has changed. I believe that patriotism requires individuals to make occasional sacrifices that benefit society. Military service is patriotic, but there are countless other ways to demonstrate love of country. Being a public servant, volunteering, and donating blood, are just several of the myriad ways one can express their love of country.

I have recently become confused and disappointed by my fellow citizens’ lack of consideration for their countrymen and communities as scores of Americans turn down vaccines and in turn, prolong a pandemic that could have been under control earlier this summer. A common refrain from those refusing to get vaccinated is “my body, my choice.” What do these citizens believe about the draft? I would bet that they support it and would not hesitate to serve in the military if our government called upon them. What is their stance on abortion? I’d wager that they vehemently oppose it, arguing that all Americans have the right to life. Do the unvaccinated not understand that their refusal to get vaccinated deprives their fellow citizens of the right to life? Unvaccinated Americans are getting infected with covid and stripping hospitals of their capacity to care for vaccinated patients with health issues unrelated to covid. As a consequence, the unvaccinated are leaving their countrymen to suffer and die because they refuse to have their right to choose infringed upon.

As the delta variant ravages communities across the United States, I urge anyone who considers themselves to be a patriot or who cares about their community to get vaccinated. The benefits of vaccination are well worth their minimal risk, and the individual sacrifice required to get the shots pale in comparison to sacrifices made by health care workers during the pandemic, soldiers in wartime, or public servants upholding American interests at home and abroad.

—Matthew Egger, Rollins

Fair coverage

Kudos to the Daily Inter Lake for its great Northwest Montana Fair coverage — especially to the photographers taking fantastic pictures of the kids with their projects.

— Marilyn Hedstrom, Kalispell

North Fork bears

What an impressive photo of the mama grizzly bear and her three cubs in Thursday’s paper. Unfortunately, the accompanying story was both disturbing and maddening.

I will leave it to wildlife biologists to determine when wildlife must be removed, but what was left entirely vague is by whose fault. Clearly, this outcome was due to the negligence of North Fork property owners who should know everything about living with grizzly bears, bears being their next door neighbors.

If Fish, Wildlife and Parks determined it was too late for “Monica” and her cubs to be reconditioned, it certainly is not too late and entirely appropriate for the Polebridge residents and businesses to be held responsible.

Why not a fine levied on those who condition bears with their garbage unsecured? Who doesn’t know about that! And for the business owners of Polebridge, if it was through their carelessness these bears were food conditioned, then not only a fine but a business closure for the remainder of the season.

By these means we would hope North Fork folks might be conditioned to take responsibility for where they live, where they do business and finally prevent another unnecessary killing of a beautiful animal--and her cubs.

— Leo Keane, Whitefish

Afghanistan withdrawal

I was searching for an uplifting, patriotic article commending our brave heroes and those who were killed on 9/11 when the Twin Towers fell, along with those that died in the Pentagon and the Pennsylvania attack. I was greatly disappointed with the Associated Press article “From 9/11’s ashes, a new world took shape.” It bordered on disrespecting our men and women who have served in Afghanistan and made it sound like the past 20 years were squandered. The article was full of put-downs, bias, propaganda, and slanted against the view of why we went to war.

I am proud of our men and women that have gone to fight for our freedoms. Including the wars that were fought in the Civil War, WWI, WWII, Vietnam, the Gulf.

Why not spend time on explaining why our country left millions of dollars worth of planes, tanks and ammo for evil terrorists to use against us? Why our country has turned a blind eye to the people that are crying for help in Afghanistan that helped us? What happened to the motto “No man left behind?” When we have left Christians, women and children to the atrocities of the terrorists? Why the border is wide open to terrorists to infiltrate our country to do the same thing or worse as 9/11?

Maybe it’s not our country over there, but there comes a point in time to take a stand to protect the innocent, the widows and orphans and live by the values and morals that our country was founded on. We can not to stand by, close our eyes and allow evil to overtake others, or it will overtake us.

—Ronda Neitzling, Kalispell

Where are your brains?

Sitting with my coffee this morning reading the Sunday Inter Lake I looked up at the “Flathead Creek” that used to be a river, and the vanished Columbia Mountain, and wondered how we allowed this to happen. Not God. Not nature. Mankind, “we.”

Even as Fox News Sunday, Meet the Press, and Face the Nation interrupted my reading with horrendous reports about the debacle in Afghanistan, a devastating earthquake in Haiti, and the raging delta Covid-19 variant, the reality out my own safe and privileged window looks grim.

Looking back at my paper I saw the letter to the editor about the carbon tax being wrong. Not understanding the intricacies of this policy I hoped to learn why it’s wrong. But the letter writer doesn’t argue the pros or cons of this “tax.” Instead he starts out writing, “What’s wrong with you people? Where are your brains?”

Thus challenged, I continued to read, only to be disappointed by his argument that scientifically, we can’t tell the difference between “natural” carbon emitted by the earth into the atmosphere, and carbon emitted by the burning of fossil fuels. Ok, that makes sense. But what does that have to do with the so-called carbon tax? Or climate change?

In fairness, I should read the article in the Houston Chronicle the writer cited. But also, in fairness, he should look out his window and read this week’s report from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and consider what has happened on earth since the Industrial Revolution.

Full disclosure: I haven’t read the UNIPCC report. But I did read about it in our paper and hear about it on the Sunday news shows this morning. And those reports lead me to wonder, “What’s wrong with you people? Where are your brains?”

— Roger Hopkins, Columbia Falls