Letters to the editor | Sunday, June 12, 2022: Support for Jan. 6 committee
Hold seditious accountable
I urge my elected officials to do the right thing for the benefit of our country regardless of political affiliation. All need to support and cooperate with the Jan. 6 Committee. If you have been elected by the people and do not have the courage, then maybe they need to consider another job. We have always been a country founded on the rule of law. Sedition is a crime. It always has been.
The entire world watched what happened. What accountability do we demonstrate? If our leaders are little more than sycophants fearful about retaliation, then perhaps the private sector is for them.
Steve Alexander, La Grange
Mean-spirited campaign lit
Politics, forever, has been messy, often malicious, and at times magnificent. In the election just passed, we see that little has changed. Our household gets campaign literature from both major parties, with most of what we received shameful, designed to instill disgust for opponents rather than giving us a clue of how electing the persons and their party will help make our government work. Any sense of “we the people” intent on forming “a more perfect union” is lost. In almost all cases, the language of war dominates, not for the “common defense,” but for tribal supremacy.
Conservative and liberal are human traits we all possess, usually with one dominant. Most of us are reflexively somewhere between the two poles, but are driven by wealth and power behind the parties to one extreme. And our tribal mentality serves their purposes beautifully. With our nation and globe in disarray, we desperately need to elevate the dialog, staying focused on issues and the principles that support them, open to compromise, but always thinking about the generations that will inherit what we left them. What could “a more perfect union” look like?
Ken Wilmarth, Modesto
Bad green waste plan
Re “How to feel better about sharp rise coming in Modesto garbage rates” (Page 8A, June 8): It seems the editorial board wanted to paint Modesto’s failure to implement state regulations in a timely manner in a glorious light. Every other city in Stanislaus County has already implemented a program that meets the requirements of SB 1383, but according to The Bee, Modesto is getting “serious about recycling again” despite their best efforts to delay compliance with the state.
Reducing green waste collection service to biweekly pickup is short-sighted and a poor choice for a city with a lot of urban forestry. Rodents and roaches already abound. Most of my neighborhood’s green cans are filled a couple days before weekly pickup so I’m not sure where the city plans on us putting our waste when they reduce our service by 50%. Maybe it’s time for Modesto to do what’s right for our community, not just what’s easiest.
Lloyd Marshall, Modesto
Cruise not fun for everyone
Re “Here’s how cruising could come back to Modesto, and why it should — within reason” (Page 1C, June 5): I was surprised by The Bee’s recommendation to bring back cruising because it skipped over a number of important issues that helped shut down the activity. Don’t get me wrong – I enjoy the June events. But that fun energy and ambiance weren’t what happened during regular cruising.
Graffiti Summer is about classic cars and nostalgia. Regular cruising is not. It’s just people driving up and down McHenry in whatever vehicle, including some with loud, hopped-up engines. Many cruisers turned on side roads, often racing through neighborhoods or doing donuts. Spectators would urinate and dump trash in people’s front yards. It got so bad that some neighborhoods successfully petitioned the City Council to block their street access to McHenry, putting up barrier walls and paying for it out of their own pockets.
We constantly hear Modesto has insufficient police to cover the community’s basic needs. Who is going to pay for the necessary police to prevent outbreaks of trouble? The Bee insists times have changed. Yes, but that does not ensure happy cruising. It’s 2022 – not 1962. Don’t whitewash history.
Claudia Walsh, Modesto
What’s an AR-15 good for?
Gun control without an assault weapons ban is as effective as having a fire department forbidden to use its hoses.
Jack Heinsius, Modesto
No on River Walk
The board of directors of Stanislaus Audubon Society has serious concerns about the proposed River Walk Project that would convert 1,500 acres of prime farmland in the floodplain of the Stanislaus River to 3,300 housing units and commercial property on the outskirts of Riverbank. This area is outside the sphere of influence of the city of Riverbank, and as such, has been designated for agricultural use only. It includes riparian habitat that is important for wildlife, water storage, flood control, and water quality protection. That land should be protected and conserved, not developed.
Our aquifers are already in danger, and water is in short supply. The project description indicates that two wells and a 2 million-gallon water tank would be needed to serve the plan area. From where will this water come?
Also, traffic on McHenry Avenue and Patterson Road would be exponentially increased with the large urban addition to the area. For all of these reasons, this project should be opposed. We will be looking for the draft Environmental Impact Report to be available to the public.
Salvatore Salerno and Jody Hallstrom, Stanislaus Audubon Society
Biden’s plunging approval rates
There is a new ABC/Ipsos poll showing approval of President Biden’s handling of gas prices at 27% and of inflation at 28%. I’m wondering just exactly where is the rock that those 27% and 28% are living under?
Ray Walker, Turlock
Bush’s Freudian slip
On May 22, ex-president George W. Bush publicly commented on the war in Ukraine. He was reading from a prepared text when he briefly looked away and said: “The decision of one man to launch a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq ... I mean of Ukraine.”
There are descriptions of this moment ranging from a huge faux pas to an unconscious slipping out of the truth the ex-president had never admitted to himself.
I propose another understanding of what happened. Language is not a human invention. It is a living gift to benefit us, to help us understand the universe and cooperate with and help each other . There is a force in this world opposing this gift. It has gone by many names including “the father of lies.” Our ex-president’s faux pas was language very publicly affirming its real and original nature as a gift of truth and goodness to humankind.
When Bush more fully realized his faux pas, he admitted under his breath, “Iraq, too.” He could not fully own what had happened, but I think in that brief moment, we witnessed a human being separating himself from the lie. It was a moment of grace.
Karen Mitchell, Riverbank
Originalism isn’t relevant
Sinclair Lewis said, “When Fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.” This is personified by the MAGA and QAnon crowds, as well as the draft of Alito’s Supreme Court ruling against reproductive freedom.
There will certainly be blistering dissent that lambastes Alito point by point. However, we must expunge the outdated concept of originalism. When our Constitution was written (by 39 men), slavery was legal, women were prohibited from voting, and people traveled by horse and buggy. The notion of asking, “What would the framers have thought?” about a present-day issue is absurd.
The Constitution was designed to limit government – not individuals. Yet those opposing Roe v. Wade are not doing so because they favor returning the issue to the states, as they would gladly support a national ban. And if someone is willing to give politicians and bureaucrats the authority for making one’s most personal and intimate decisions, there is no power or function they wouldn’t surrender to an authoritarian government.
In 1996, President Clinton said, “The era of big government is over.” Sadly, it is alive and well in today’s Republican Party.
Christopher C. Doll, Salida
IRS faster than state
We hear a lot about the IRS being backlogged with unprocessed returns, but they have been very prompt with me. Last year I was able to itemize deductions when I filed on-line, but I got my refund in only seven days. The state refund took 35 days. This year, I used just a standard deduction when I filed both online again and got my IRS refund in five days. The state return has now taken 50 days and is stuck somewhere. Checking my state refund status on their website, it just says “needs additional processing.” My son in Oregon told me he got his state refund in four days.
Maybe California should take some of our huge budget surplus and hire more people.
Paul Desrosiers, Sonora
This story was originally published June 12, 2022 at 5:00 AM.