07/06/08 Letters to the Editor

The law is the law

To the editor -- The Yakima County ban on fireworks has been in place since June 1995; for the past 13 years fireworks stands on the reservation have benefited from this ban. As you may recall, before the ban fireworks were sold all over the county by civic groups and clubs as fundraisers. Since the ban, the stands located on the Yakama Reservation have had a monopoly selling fireworks to law-breaking citizens.

A law is a law, folks; if we compromise on this law what will be next? Jacqueline Olney is correct in the July 3 fireworks article: The Yakama Nation is a sovereign nation. However, that means the tribe has the power to govern its people while on the reservation; Yakima County still gets to decide what the rest of us do. Her firework stand is in Yakima County, therefore Yakima County code applies to her firework stand in regards to selling fireworks to nontribal people. As for Melissa Peall (Letters, July 3), where does it state that in order to celebrate being "free and independent people" we must endanger lives and destroy property with fireworks?

NATHAN CRAIG

Yakima

A bad decision

To the editor -- Our Supreme Court has decided that the execution of child rapists is considered cruel and unusual. That the crime does not fit the punishment. I believe that the rape of a very young child is very cruel and unusual. Why did the justices overturn the will of the people to exact justice? Is the will of the people irrelevant? Even people without law degrees can understand that this punishment does fit the crime. Call me backward. Call me stupid. Call me inhumane, but I believe child rapists do not deserve to live.

It's pure speculation to argue that if the death penalty was allowed, these perverts might just do away with the one witness to the crime. In this particular case, the death penalty was an option, and it did not deter the defendant, Patrick Kennedy, from ruining this little girl's life, and leaving her alive to face the post-rape surgery, the sleepless nights, the fear of being alone, her distrust and dislike of men, her nightmares and the countless tears she will cry for the rest of her life. Maybe sending him into the general prison population would be fitting. It seems that they still realize what justice means.

KYLE FRIEDRICH

Zillah

Where are we headed?

To the editor -- I must take umbrage to Doug Patterson's July 2 letter about assembling arms for protection against his neighbor's poodle and impatient people in traffic.

He would be more effective by mounting a 155mm howitzer on his front lawn as a deterrent to people walking dogs, old men wandering onto his lawn with rakes and shovels, neighbors with early morning lawn mowers and little girls selling candy door-to-door.

I would also remind him that if he wants to see the utmost love affair with guns, he should attend one of the gun shows so openly coveted by the Visitors and Conventions Bureau, and see the arsenals that walk out of there.

Or, with his spirit for protection, I would hire him to sleep in my pickup and drop a hand grenade on whoever crystallized my smoke-tinted window ($230).

I know Mr. Patterson's letter was tongue in cheek, but it does give rise to thought about just where we are headed, and for what reason and by what magnitude of intellect we are interpreting a document written by patriots preparing to fend off the next invasion by King George.

I am in the market for a nuclear weapon.

LAWRENCE BREER

Yakima

Trying a different fair

To the editor -- A while back, my wife and I were talking to a friend and they suggested going to the Puyallup Fair instead of the Central Washington State Fair here in Yakima. We weren't going to the local fair anyway, because we feel it hasn't really changed that much. It's the same thing every year. I looked up both fairs on the Internet.

The first thing I noticed is that if you are military, retired military or anything of veteran status, disabled or not, you and your family can get in free on two special days of the 17-day run of the fair. Yakima has a half-day for half-off for military people. It's a little cheaper. Yakima wants $11 for adults vs. $10 at Puyallup. There seems to be a lot more to do and to see, so I think we will see what Puyallup has and hope the organizers will make some major changes to the Central Washington State Fair and possibly to the buildings that need to be renovated or replaced.

BOB BROCK

Selah

Vote was too close

To the editor -- For the past 32 years, citizens of Washington, D.C., have been told that they do not have the right to protect themselves in their own homes -- until now. In a 5-4 vote, the U.S. Supreme Court declared the hand gun ban unconstitutional, acknowledging that the Second Amendment actually protects the rights of individuals as it reads, "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

We celebrate this decision as a victory, but 5 to 4? Are you kidding me? You mean there is only one vote standing in the way of a complete government takeover of our God-given right to defend ourselves? Is this not one of the "unalienable rights endowed by our creator" that is referred to in our Declaration of Independence?

Here is what is even more disturbing: President Bush appointed the last two justices to the Supreme Court. Both of them voted in favor of striking down the ban. I wonder how this would have played out if Al Gore were our president today.

TRENT FUEHRER

Tieton

Let's stay on target

To the editor -- Your June 28 article on Initiative 1000, the Death with Dignity ballot initiative, alludes to the Terry Schiavo case in Florida. Opponents of Initiative 1000 frequently refer to Schiavo and show images of her to support their argument.

Whatever one thinks about the Schiavo case or about Initiative 1000, one has no logical relationship to the other.

Under I-1000, conscious, competent patients who are diagnosed by two doctors with six months or less to live would be allowed to request a lethal dose of narcotics. The patients would self-administer the drugs.

Terri Schiavo had suffered catastrophic brain damage, as confirmed by an autopsy after her death in 2005. There was no way she -- or other severely brain-damaged patients like her -- could possibly have requested or qualified for assisted suicide under the language of I-1000.

There are valid and worthy arguments on both sides of this important referendum debate. I hope we can focus the discussion, both in the political sphere and the media coverage, on matters that are salient to the proposal.

HARRIS MEYER

Yakima

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