March 16 Letters: Our Readers’ Opinions

It’s hardly an understatement to say that law enforcement is at risk. The huge increases in everything from drug issues to cybercrime requires them to do more with less. This leaves them understaffed and underfunded and at risk. Sooner rather than later, we will have to deal with this extremely important funding issue. And yet, we seldom ask what is needed to meet the demands of the current and future challenge. Once again, taxpayers be forewarned.

Considering future funding priorities, it seems ironic there are those who consider exhausting our tax resources and spending $80 million-$100 million on a schoolhouse will fix all our problems. We need to reevaluate our priorities. Stated many times before, we can’t continue to ask the same overburdened and aging taxpayers for more money. A lesson not learned. The path forward is to grow our tax resources. We must develop business, industry and housing that invites new taxpayers to join us and contribute to our economy. If simply maintaining “Sleepy Hollow” is the goal, we will live in the past, avoiding reality until another day. Taxpayers, you have been warned.

Jack Worle

Clarkston

Satanic imagery

Many of you saw the Grammy halftime show. If so, you will agree that the imagery was truly satanic. Did you know that it was “sponsored” (bankrolled) by Pfizer?

The same company pushing untested products on you and your children? Your worst suspicions about “big pharma” were put on vivid display for all to see.

This was not an accident of artistic excess. They were literally “dancing with the devil” and proud of it.

They have also outed themselves and become the new poster child of big pharma.

J.C. Passmore Jr.

Elk City

Firing squad in Idaho

Right now Idaho legislators are considering a bill that would reinstate the firing squad as a method of execution here in Idaho. I am against this bill, and would encourage my fellow Idahoans to contact their legislators and express their opposition.

Although I agree that the brutal crimes of some are certainly worthy of death, I think we would be wise to consider that murderers are not the only casualty of an execution.

The firing squad is an incredibly brutal scene. I can personally attest to this. As a veteran U.S. Army combat medic, I am intimately familiar with the effects of a lethal gunshot.The trauma of these execution scenes is evident: South Carolina was forced to put a trough beneath the execution site to collect the inmates’ pooling blood. Utah draped their execution chamber in black to hide the splattering blood. This trauma will be experienced firsthand by our corrections officers.

A recent story by National Public Radio found that corrections officers who participate in executions are very likely to experience post-traumatic stress disorder and the after effects of this trauma.

If this is true for traditional executions (lethal injections) how much more so for a firing squad? Is the Idaho Legislature really asking these men and women to do the unthinkable: put a bullet in another human being’s chest?

Colton Bennett

Moscow

Saved from ‘Dilbert’

I’d like to thank the Tribume for saving me from the dreaded “Dilbert” comic strip.

My moral compass has been corrected. Leaving the space blank is such a statement.

Keep up the good work.

Dick Mitchell

Lewiston