Letters to the Editor for Aug. 26, 2011

Well, as usual people just think of themselves only, as if there’s no one else. To be rude and inconsiderate is expected of grade schoolers, but adults have no excuse. I have been informed today at the Baker County Courthouse that talking while driving is right up there with drinking and driving.
As a matter of fact, we the citizens and responsible motorists can take the license numbers of offenders and report them to Baker Dispatch at 541-523-6415. Let’s see how many warnings will be issued before either a serious fine is impose or insurance companies are informed and offenses and premiums will rise.
Is it worth the risk just to be negligent?
Jim Smeraglio
Baker City

Why no interest in treason?
To the editor:
Seems possible, even likely, no one in Baker has heard of it, but there it is, a treasonous, well-funded, ongoing, nationwide GOP/ALEC conspiracy. And those participating GOPers are criminals if treason is a crime.
The Nation, devoting most of the Aug. 1 issue to the matter, did an excellent job of delineating the many different parts of the Koch/ALEC conspiracy, but refrained from calling it treason. How could they not call it treason? What else is it?
The treason lies in the primary purpose of destroying our democracy so the great corporations and the very rich can eliminate the majority class from participating in the operation of the government. Democracy need not be abolished to be destroyed; it needs only to be bedwarfed, which they are busy and successfully doing by the various restrictions on free and easy voting they have already gotten passed in several states. Their number two goal of privatizing the government’s many public functions, also well under way, is another manifestation of the destruction of democracy. That dimwitted and treasonous GOP legislators would “legalize” transferring to private agencies these government functions does not lesson the treason of their intend.
The founding principle of this government is democracy — majority rule. Democracy, uncastrated, is the most effective and most powerful device the majority has to serve their wellbeing and assert their authority. And any action or effort or intent to castrate it, meaning to destroy or diminish the free and easy exercise of majority rule, is treason, something to be excited about.
That the Supreme Court remains silent regarding this ongoing conspiracy and its criminalities does not diminish the validity of the charge. Some, I for one, would say it makes them complicit.
Wouldn’t you think treason might be more newsworthy than the silly dance of presidential wannabes?
Dan Martin
Baker City