Letters to the Editor: Aug. 11, 2023

Friendly advice

Read the article on the impacts of vagrancy on the community.

I’m a firm believer in helping people who need help and can’t help themselves. I think being charitable to our neighbors in need is what lets residents of a community be considered good people.

Mixed among the people on the streets needing help, however, are the vagrants. People who have decided they aren’t going to work. People who have decided to allow the members of whatever community they grace with their presence to foot the bill for their existence.

When I was young, the vagrancy laws led to two possible outcomes when people with no visible means of support arrived in town.

Some places would give that person a ride to the county line with friendly advice not to return. Others would lodge them in jail, which left us feeding and housing them.

This community should do everything possible to help the truly needy and start giving the vagrants free rides and friendly advice.

Fred Fawcett

Lafayette

Serious business

I agree with the Aug. 4 letter, “Aware in Yamhill.”

United States sovereignty is being handed over to the globalists — the likes of the World Health Organization, World Economic Forum and United Nations.

This is underway via treaties and agreements. For example, the WHO Pandemic Treaty and amendments to the WHO’s International Health Regulations.

Treaties are serious business. Per Article VI, Paragraph 2, of the Constitution, they supersede state constitutions and laws.

But what if a treaty was contrary to the United States Constitution? For example, what if it prohibited speech critical of WHO.

That would violate the First Amendment. And at least in theory, that would make the treaty null and void.

It would likely come down to the states — and the people.

Would Oregon’s governor nullify the treaty? Would aware Oregonians demand nullification?

Stay tuned.

Daniel Katz

McMinnville

Decades of contamination

Recently, Cascade Steel Rolling Mills was fined for failing to adequately inspect incoming scrap loads for contaminants.

Not only did this result in atmospheric discharge of pollutants, but also in their spread countywide and beyond through sale of slag, a waste byproduct of the smelting process.

Slag contains lead, cadmium and chromium, which can accumulate in the soil and be inhaled in airborne dust. And even low levels of lead exposure can cause serious health problems, especially for children under the age of 6.

These violations have been going on for decades, perhaps more than five decades in some cases. That is a lot of contamination.

Stuart Gunness

Sheridan

The ultimate con

The art of the con lies in identifying issues making a chosen population of marks vulnerable, then crafting a false narrative around those issues to scam them.

The issues may be noble — patriotism, social equality — or base — greed, revenge, racism — but to a con artist, they are equally capable of forming the foundation for a structure of falsehoods. In short, the con man lies for a living, so for him, the con stands in for reality.

The greatest con in American history is happening right now. Truth is the antidote, but with truth and fiction on an even footing, we are at great risk.

In the current sea of electronic disinformation, the loudest lie, repeated endlessly, can resemble truth to those not focused on critical thinking.

We owe it to each other to elevate the truth, but media consolidation and the 24/7 news cycle can make it hard to find. So it’s useful to apply some basic principles of believability, no matter who is speaking:

* Claims of infallibility are not to be believed.

* Folks who project their own bad behavior onto others are not to be believed.

* People who love only themselves are not to be believed.

We are at grave risk of losing our democracy to autocrats whose stated goal is to shut it down in favor of the buddy-system of government.

For them, Hungary, Poland and Turkey are way-stations on the path to the Russian model. And Putin is cheering them on.

We need to reject the entire con, along with the wholesale transfer of wealth and power it would bring.

While the idea of “retribution” may warm some hearts, we must bear in mind who stands to gain: one man in particular, the billionaire class in general, and their enablers. If they win, we lose it all.

Bill Johnson

McMinnville

Anti-Semitic rubbish

Regarding the letter “Aware in Yamhill County” from last week:

Why on earth would you publish a letter to the editor that, once again, puts forth the ludicrous, anti-Semitic trope that Jewish bankers are running the world?

While everyone is entitled to an opinion, however unfounded by facts, it seems to me that editors should not be complicit in publishing this kind of rubbish.

Leslie Ballan

McMinnville