Letters: Be informed on state bills, fact check thoughts and wind farm aesthetics | May 13

Don’t use taxes on backing ‘such rot’

Recent Washington State Senate Bill 5227 requires all higher education institutions provide their faculty and staff with professional development training focused on diversity, equity, inclusion and anti-racism. This is an outgrowth of “critical race theory,” which we must fight to maintain our basic freedoms. Americans believe in equality under the law. Critical race theory proposes equity which is vastly different and is reformulated Marxism. To achieve equity, it is proposed to suspend property rights, seize land or wealth and redistribute them along racial lines. This means overthrowing capitalism. It is said that to be truly anti-racist, you also have to be anti-capitalist.

This is all spelled out in the Hillsdale College publication, Imprimis, March 2021, “Critical Race Theory: What It Is and How to Fight It” by Christopher F. Rufo. (https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/critical-race-theory-fight/)

Everyone should read this publication and be informed. Then you will understand the origin of statements like “white teachers are guilty of spirit-murdering black children” and “all whites are intrinsically oppressors.” It is abominable that our taxpayer money is being used to support such rot.

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Thoughts on how to check facts

David Langfords’ (4/18) “Evidence of Voter Fraud,” never once lists a name, place, date, etc.

He might has well said “Some bad guys, once did something bad.”

How can we fact-check, or verify this with nothing specific?

Ron Buckland (previous to Langford) is correct. Fact-checking what we read is very important but I disagree when he says we need to “institute verifiable fact-checking to all forms of news.”

Sounds good, but who should run it — government, the media, liberals, conservatives?

Who should fund it — taxpayers, subscribers? Who will believe/trust it — liberals, conservatives? We already have fact-checking.

I’m sorry, but the fault (and solution!) lies with us. Too many believe what they “want,” not what they “should.” Where (are) the data points? Just as too many eat what tastes good, and not what’s good for us.

We are more interested in excitement/entertainment, sensation and the “juicy” rumor than in understanding.

In the passionate excitement of arguing (and then winning!! Than the boring calm of thinking and discussion. In competition, than cooperation.

We need to be careful who our friends are, and who(m) we believe … of where our loyalties “really” are.

And finding someone to blame does not fix the problem.

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Make wind farm more aesthetic

Regarding the proposed Horse Heaven Wind Farm: aesthetics have not received enough attention. Some call wind turbines “hideous” as though that matters. However, it is just an opinion and as such it is not dispositive. I find wind turbines futuristically beautiful, but my opinion is also not, as they say, dispositive.

I do think aesthetics matter, though, and when the project is approved, I hope the developers will consider beauty in the design of their whirly gigs. The Dutch have been building windmills for centuries, and they are so beautiful that artists travel from afar to make images of them. Could we not have something a bit more Dutch?

Also, I see where on March 15 in this newspaper, a scientist recommended building wind farms in Tornado Alley. I sense he was suggesting that they go build these things in the path of danger. That is a hostile variation on NIMBY, like telling a nitroglycerin manufacturer to position a factory atop the San Andreas Fault.

Money talks, and so do politicians. All that money and talk and politicking are vastly more dispositive than just about every other argument. The turbines are coming. Let’s make them look good if we can.

This story was originally published May 13, 2021 at 12:16 AM with the headline "Letters: Be informed on state bills, fact check thoughts and wind farm aesthetics | May 13."