Letters to the editor June 21
Country has lost its soul
What a pathetically weak, cowardly and self-serving response by the U.S. Senate to the carnage in this country caused by unlimited access to firearms.
Children slaughtered in their classrooms, their small bodies ripped apart by weapons of war, and the Congress talks about mental health services and turning our children’s schools into fortresses. Are members of Congress so deep in the pockets of the NRA and similar interests that their own re-election takes precedence over the lives of innocent children?
Not to mention all the other tragedies that take place on a daily basis in this country but in no other country on this planet. No other country tolerates these meaningless deaths except ours. After all, everyone is somebody’s child.
When a country allows this, when a government allows this, it has lost not only its heart but its soul. Everlasting shame on them for their cowardice and on us for not putting our children first and voting them out.
— Ann Halter, Columbia Falls
Truth from lies
I know there are still some people who strongly believe the earth is flat (1% in a 2017 survey), that the moon landing was staged (5% in 2019), and that the 9-11 attacks were perpetrated by the U.S. government (11% in 2019). But the ongoing, active, day-to-day belief that the 2020 election was rigged and that Donald Trump is the duly-elected president of the United States. Thirty-five percent of Americans believe the “big lie.”
It’s upsetting knowing that one of three people I pass in my car, stand in line with at the grocery-store check-out line, sit in a movie theater with, believe the 2020 election was stolen. Where did we, how have we gone so astray? And how do we return to reality from the world of “fake news” and outright lies and deceptions?
Unfortunately we will always have thieves and robbers trying to steal our money and property, murderers taking lives on our streets, in schools and in churches. But to steal our common sense, our ability to discern truth from lies, to steal our Democracy? That is a theft beyond correction by our justice system.
It took too long for a majority to believe, or to care enough to pay attention to the fact that man-caused climate change is real. It’s nearly too late to muster the necessary will to change course. I hope it is also not too late to educate the passionately mistaken third of Americans — two-thirds of Republicans — that Donald is not, and should never again be the president.
— Roger Hopkins, Columbia Falls
Don’t blame Putin
Consider this: Suppose the supply of money (including bank deposits and other highly liquid holdings) had been held constant over the last two years, and Putin had still taken advantage of rising demand and significantly increased the price of exported hydrocarbons. Would this have caused inflation in the U.S.A.?
Well, no. The price of gasoline would have gone up anyway, because it is one of life’s necessities and domestic production has decreased (as a result of what Biden so eagerly did during his first day in office), and more of the average family’s spending would have gone for gas, but that would have meant less money for spending on other things.
Ergo, in the face of decreased demand, the price of other goods would have declined. Since “inflation” is rising prices across a broad range of goods, there would have been none, only up and down movement of the price of different commodities.
The real problem is that the supply of money has been greatly increased by our government’s largess, so money itself has been devalued, therefore we have to give vendors more of it to buy the same goods.
It’s not Putin’s fault.
— Willis (Bill) Greer, Rollins