Letters: Offensive tattoo, school resource officers, Ten Commandments and more | June 25

Let’s stop trying to take offense

In the story June 11 about Walla Walla Police Officer Nat Small’s tattoo, I would just like to say a real quick something. The motivation behind the tattoo is what matters most, and honoring his fallen friend was the “why” behind it. It’s so sad to me that people are looking around desperately for reasons to be offended right now. If you go around looking to be offended, you’re going to find reasons to be offended. I get that a lot of people have extra time on their hands to go looking during COVID-19, but please, just find yourself a fun hobby instead! Thank you, Nat Small, for your service!

Deal Biden papers for Trump taxes

The GOP wants access to (former Vice President) Biden’s papers, hoping to find something to damage Biden’s challenge to Trump. Perhaps the consummate deal maker and Biden can make a deal – access to Biden’s papers in exchange for Trump making his tax returns public (something he repeatedly said he would do until he said he wouldn’t).

In addition to the attorney general, a Senate committee investigating who (started) and how an investigation into Trump’s campaign accepting help from Russia got started and was allowed to proceed, wants to hear from several Obama officials voluntarily or compelled by subpoena. Seems reasonable. But, wouldn’t Obama and his officials be able to tell the Senate to pound sand just as Trump and his officials (with vigorous support of the attorney general and GOP) did with the House committee investigating Trump’s attempt to force a foreign leader to aid his re-election campaign and retaliatory actions against career professionals who put loyalty to country and truth before personal loyalty to Trump?

Resource officers needed in schools

I read where some people signed a petition to remove Student Resource Officers (SROs) from Richland schools. They may have forgotten Sandyhook; I have not. Was it an accident the Sandyhook killer chose a school with no SRO? No. Have school shootings stopped? No. So why remove a school’s sole defender? Any one of our SROs would risk their lives to protect our children. Remove them???

All the SROs I’ve known are proud to be defenders of the community, veterans, fathers, etc. My school’s SROs are invited by history teachers to teach the student’s constitutional law and their rights, which they are more than happy to do. The students like their earnest lessons.

At a time when more communication between people and police officers is even more vital, removing SROs from where our kids can meet and talk with them seems like an oxymoron.

Let’s keep the SROs. We need them to defend from school shooters. We need more conversations between our youth and police officers, not less.

Pay heed to 10 Commandments

The current race issue in our country is not entirely related to racism. We have a culture that lacks “love of neighbor as yourself” A culture developed when God (teaching right from wrong) was removed from public schools and the Ten Commandments considered irrelevant.

Consider the relevance of some of those commandments:

Honor your father and your mother. (Thousands of households get federal financial support as long as the fathers are absent. Family environments like that make it difficult for the moms to raise their children appropriately.)

You shall not kill. (All, including police, should only kill in self-defense. Society accepts abortion and euthanasia, but saves the whales.)

You shall not commit adultery. (Promoted by TV and movie productions as accepted by society)

You shall not steal. (Looting in the name of protesting, stealing Christmas gifts off of neighbors’ porches.)

You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. (Exaggeration of the problem with our police by the media and politicians. There are problems that need to be corrected, but if police enforcement is eliminated where are we to get “all the saints” needed to protect us in the future.)

We need to act on mess in Seattle

It begins to look like the Democrats are problem makers but not problem solvers. The mayor of Seattle and Gov. (Jay) Inslee are both stalling in doing anything about the anarchists setting up shop in Seattle. Now the antigovernment group is demanding free living without earning it, free college, etc. They are taking what belongs to the public, paid for with our money and effort. It will likely be handled as in California with garbage and filth in the streets unless they are given access illegally to public facilities.

My guess is that Congress will pretend to know nothing (like laws and correct action) to avoid responsibility to the public and Constitution they swore to serve. These will mainly be the very wealthy who use the poor to pay and handle problems while they are on vacation (vote them in). Apparently even the FBI has been acting up so we may lose our democracy if we can’t get justice. One man gets killed and 750 police injured doesn’t sound right.

Inslee’s reopening plan incomplete

I have just read (Gov. Jay) Inslee’s phased reopening plan and was struck by what is missing. The plan includes metrics for monitoring how well we are doing in managing the spread of COVID-19 during reopening. But, missing entirely are any metrics for monitoring the impacts of continued COVID controls on Washington’s economic and social well-being. To use a medical analogy, this is like administering aggressive chemotherapy but monitoring only the patient’s cancer response, with no monitoring of its impact on the liver, kidneys and other organs.

Where are the metrics for the unintended consequences of the lockdown, such as mental health problems (increases in suicides, overdoses and domestic violence incidents), medical (deferred medical treatments) and economic problems (number of bankruptcy filings and unemployed and tax revenue)? Where are the metrics for limitations on civil liberties and lost education of our young people? How things are going in these areas should factor into how long COVID-19 and to what extent controls are kept in place.

What we now have is a tunnel vision reopening plan when what is needed is a holistic plan, one that balances the need to control this virus with the other important needs of Washingtonians.

This story was originally published June 25, 2020 at 12:01 AM with the headline "Letters: Offensive tattoo, school resource officers, Ten Commandments and more | June 25."