Your Voice, week of March. 1

Bob asked, “Who owns the hospital?”

We looked at each other and realized no one had an answer. Someone asked if that included Water’s Edge and someone else said, “Yes, and that old house at Fourth and Court Street.” Another voice added, “And Family Medicine on 12th Street and buildings on 19th.”

Then it was asked, why did they have pictures of 80 doctors in the paper?

Then someone commented, “If there are no doctors at Water’s Edge, why has MCMC opened a clinic in Hood River?”

The questions.

Bob asked, “Do doctors run the hospital?” Jerry said, “No, decisions are made by a CEO and a board of directors.” Bob replied, “It doesn’t seem to me that they are doing a good job. The community should demand new administrators.”

We decided that none of us knew much about hospitals and finished our lunch with a discussion of Duck quarterbacks.

Bill Jones

The Dalles

Constitutional county?

There are signs posted telling us we should be a constitutional county and it’s rumored Klickitat County Commissioners are considering a vote on this.

What is a constitutional county? Two of its known tenets are secession from the “tyranny” of governments and white supremacy. This begs many questions. We are already a constitutional country. Are we being directed to secede from our “tyrannical” Union while upholding the tyranny of racism?

Does it imply we should give up the “tyranny” of federal and state funding for clean water, roads, bridges, farm subsidies, schools, sewage treatment, business loans, hospital grants, social services, healthcare, snow removal, emergency response to fires, car accidents or heart attacks, and much more? Does this mean our county officials feel we locally generate enough to cover these expenses, or do they think we don’t need public benefits? Do our commissioners want to foist us into civil war while claiming exceptional patriotism? Does it mean county sheriffs could exert their personal brand of law enforcement without any legal precedent? Who would mind the treasury? Would we get to vote? Would there be unrest, intimidation, shootings? Would there be lynchings? Would we be required special IDs to leave the county? Would there be a wall?

I love my country. One of the many reasons I do is that I have the freedom to dissent without fear of institutional and vigilante reprisal. Would that freedom be voided along with many others in a “constitutional county?” I don’t know that our county authorities have the fair mindedness, education, or integrity to govern so all powerfully. Nor do I believe they have any right to vote us into insurrection or slavery.

The notion of a sovereign county casts off 250 years of democracy and 120 years of unity for what? I did not vote for my county to become an island country in the ocean of the United States. Nor do I believe we don’t need democracy anymore. Democracy helps us all be more a part of the solutions. Becoming a “constitutional county” will only foster abject chaos and corruption.

Chris Connolly

White Salmon

Post-racial world

We’ve just about completed Black History Month — but don’t worry. Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis is working overtime to make sure your children don’t get exposed to anything uncomfortable, such as, um, racism. In the Republican world, racial barriers are sooo yesterday! If you’ve got a Black-sounding name (whatever that is) and you don’t get called in for the job interview or for that apartment for rent, that’s only a coincidence! And if you get beaten to death after being pulled over because the little bulb that illuminates your license plate wasn’t working, that has nothing to do with your skin color!

Our societal ascension into a post-racial world, according to Republican leaders, means that we must scrub from our children’s libraries books that discuss concepts such as racial discrimination. Why cause friction when discrimination doesn’t exist anymore? Thus, in Jacksonville, Fla., children’s books on baseball greats Jackie Robinson, Roberto Clemente, and Hank Aaron were recently pulled from school district bookshelves. The authors, apparently unenlightened about our currently enlightened racial relations, discuss Jim Crow laws and other racial barriers that used to exist … but not anymore!

I have to give Tucker Carlson, Fox News, and Republican leaders credit — they sure do know how to get folks fired up. But did any of you notice that the last time they controlled our national government, the only notable “achievement” that they made were tax cuts that benefited the wealthy?

Contrast that to 2021-22, when Democrats controlled Congress and the presidency: 1) Laws to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure; 2) Two of the strongest years of job growth in our nation’s history, including morethan 750,000 new manufacturing jobs, resulting in the lowest unemployment rate in 50 years; 3) Capping insulin costs and overall yearly prescription costs for Medicare recipients; 4) Huge investments in clean energy, which will create millions of good-paying jobs; and 5) Leading an international coalition of resistance to Russia’s brutal attempt to conquer a democratic neighbor. The list is much larger.

One party is really good at getting its followers angry. The other party gets important things done.

Rick George

White Salmon

Sitting on guns

(The author of a recent letter) said he wants a “final solution” for guns but doesn’t care what it is. He condemned anyone for “sitting on your pile of guns,” and “not supporting common sense safety laws.” He pointed to the “well-regulated” phrase of the second amendment as a justification for his view.

Let’s take those one by one.

“Final solutions” have a bad name. The last “final solution” came out of Nazi Germany in the early 1940s. Its implementation resulted in 6 million human beings murdered. Let us not have another “final solution” for anything, at least in America.

What does “sitting on your pile of guns” even mean? It obviously wasn’t literal, so I take it as a hyperbolic attack on gun owners. Similarly, “common sense safety laws” is a vague political slogan with no more content than, say, “Make America Great Again.” Haven’t we had enough of that yet?

Finally, when the Bill of Rights was drafted in 1791, “well regulated” meant “in good working order.” The “militia” was all adults. A “well regulated militia” was the body of the citizenry, whose arms are necessary to the security of a free state. This is in the historical record, for those who might care.

If you seek to actually persuade anyone rather than preach to your choir, I have some suggestions. Lay off the gratuitous insults; be specific about your “final solution;” and be truthful about the second amendment.

Absent that, I will sit on my guns and hope that I never have to shoot at anything but targets. I respect your right to freely express your erroneous views, and require you to respect my right to keep and bear arms.

Charles Pluckhahn

White Salmon