Letters to the editor Feb. 14
Freedom of expression
What’s next? What is the next restriction that the ImagineIf Libraries board will place on our search for inspiration, education and information? We have given them the power to govern, and they have transformed it into a power to control. Their arrogance restricts our education, our curiosity, our education and our spiritual growth.
Truth pursued, not Truth possessed, is the mission of individual search for knowledge, information, wisdom and enlightenment. Our library board and the Flathead County Commissioners are restricting our search. They are claiming the right to curtail our search for knowledge by blocking information that is available to us in an institution that is supported by our taxes and contributions. More than that. They are restricting our freedom of thought.
What’s more, their elimination of the books we can read is not new. In my lifetime, I witnessed this kind of arrogance on a dark night in Germany. Kristallnacht – the Night of Broken Glass, when Jewish businesses were destroyed, and their freedoms revoked. That same night, there were book burnings in the streets of the cities. Restricting peoples’ minds has been the first step in dictatorship throughout history.
Election to office is a privilege. It is not a right to govern our ideas, our information, our creativity, our speech, our communication, or our sense of right and wrong. Flathead residents have come together in the past to defeat this arrogance of control and to support those threatened because of their beliefs. We are coming together once more under the same banner of freedom of expression.
You have all betrayed our trust.
— Ina Albert, Whitefish
Running for school board
I would like to introduce myself to the Somers Lakeside School District community and ask for your vote in the upcoming school board election. My name is Matt Shaffer and I am running for the Somers Lakeside School District 29’s School Board.
While serving in the Army in Iraq during Operation Enduring Freedom, I gained an unique appreciation for our public schools after seeing the limited educational opportunities Iraqi children had at that time and I want to play an active role in making sure that the Somers and Lakeside schools continue to serve our students, teachers and the surrounding community.
I am uniquely suited to sit on the Somers Lakeside School Board because of my recognition of the importance of a strong school system to the Lakeside and Somers communities.
While working for a land management agency guided by Gifford Pinchot’s belief of the greatest good for the greatest number, I have learned the value of a public institution, funded by the public, serving the greatest number of people in the public. I understand the value of working with different perspectives and know the importance of listening and dedication to a greater good.
It is my recognition of the importance of the Somers Lakeside School District to the Somers and Lakeside communities and admiration for the educational opportunities we have in America that makes me uniquely suited to be a school board trustee.
Please don’t hesitate to reach out to me at MattShaffer4SD29@gmail.com if you would like to discuss my qualifications and perspectives that make me an ideal school board trustee for the Somers Lakeside School Board and thank you for voting for me on May 3rd!
— Matt Shaffer, Kalispell
Big government senator
When I read of Sen. Jon Tester’s latest expenditure of my tax dollars, it is just too much. Now he has a bill for veterans exposed to burn pits. You’ve go to be kidding me. There is no end to this blowhard’s PR stunts. There isn’t one rock, however small, that this guy won’t turn over to find a reason to spend our money. He makes drunken sailors look like teetotalers.
Enough is enough. The big government senator needs to know he represents Montana, the one that voted Republican this year. His support of out of control spending is embarrassing. Nearly every single week there is a newspaper headline touting how big Jon just got this outfit or that millions of dollars. Well, Jon, they’re our dollars not yours and we’re sick of it.
Given the current deficit, it’s time to put that chained wallet of your back in your pocket. It’s time to quit spending and start fixing the problems you helped create by supporting the people destroying our country. I’d love to see a headline once, just once, where you did something other than “award” my money to someone.
We all know every year you’ve been in there your net worth has climbed until it’s now up four times what it was when you started. It’s time to represent the little people you so often claim to represent and never do.
And by the way, I’m a Marine veteran and despite all your rhetoric, the VA is the same as it was 10 years ago. I’m reminded of what Alfred E. Newman said many years ago … “Just because everything is different doesn’t mean anything has changed.”
It’s time to tighten your belt, big guy.
— Ed Kugler, Kalispell