| Letters
to the editor from this week's Chronicle
To the Editor A question of perspective: will anti-maskers be seen in the same light as knee-to-the-neckers? As three hundred thirty thousand plus victims of COVID-19 have gasped "I can't breathe"? What's the difference? All were deaths possibly avoided if different actions were taken. Frances Conklin Cottonwood INJUSTICE in the Time of Covid Two big recent articles how the pandemic has affected the court system, and forced delays of trials, and, according to DA MacGregor, lots of mediation. Let me recount MY experience this year – which really puts the big “H” in hypocrisy and what passes for justice in these trying times. I have a dispute with a neighbor on access to a well known road in Elk City – PFI Road has been in use by the public for 100 years, and I own property on the road. So I ride my mules down the road to the BLM land. One owner claimed it was private. I disputed this but our ICSO sided with the neighbor and charged me with a crime of trespass. That was December 2019. I fought it. What was the outcome? It’s STILL going. Because the complainer has friends in the DA’s office, it was assigned to a “Special Prosecutor” Mr. Scott Olds and he forced me to TRIAL in the middle of Covid! –despite MY numerous attempts to mediate/plea it out. I would accept an Infraction even though i did NOTHING, just not a TRESPASS Infraction. What did Olds say? NO- only TRESPASS is what he will accept - NOTHING else. Well here is the DARK reason why Prosecutor Scott Olds will only accept a TRESPASS infraction. You see, according to Idaho law if you get convicted for a Trespass Infraction, the next time you can be charged with a Misdemeanor. Misdemeanors carry up to a year in JAIL and $1,000 fine. Olds charged me with ONE Infraction and FIVE Misdemeanors, ALL for the exact same ALLEGED trespass. He tacked on Five MORE additional counts, Misdemeanors, before the Infraction Trial had even begun! He charged me with ONE Infraction and assuming he “won” that this triggered FIVE more Misdemeanors for the five days in a row I mearly RODE by the so called victims house! So "Special" Prosecutor Olds has the following plan for me, and I QUOTE from the TRIAL transcript: Prosecutor Scott Olds " ..we take these counts one at a time until we get an Infraction conviction or found responsible for an Infraction, or we run out of counts. If she is successful today in this trial, then I can move to have the next count made into an Infraction, and we start again.... " Scott Olds along with my neighbor are out for BLOOD and Olds made it clear he is NOT going to stop until I end up in JAIL and pay thousands of dollars. He is NOT representing the public safety/ interests of the State. He is NOT preventing a "danger" to the community. He is being a ZEALOUS over-reaching advocate for ONE private citizen over the rights of another private citizen. It is simply a CIVIL property rights dispute between neighbors. This is NOT a crime and never should of been treated as such. The DA claims that the cases that go to trial are the "difficult" cases; those with crimes of VIOLENCE, and a public safety component. As DA MacGregor stated “…you want to protect the community and the only way to do that is to put the defendant in PRISON so they dont have access to the public" Ahhh yes DA MacGregor and Prosecutor Olds, a retired senior citizen riding a mule down a public road, you better have her case TRIED immediately, MULTIPLE TRIALS if we have to and get her locked up right away! She is a DANGER to the community. Keep spending THOUSANDS of DOLLARS and risking COVID illness to carry out this important personal vendetta of a neighbor against another neighbor as this OLD WOMAN RIDING HER MULE DOWN THE ROAD MUST BE STOPPED. This is so unfair and wrongful that any citizen should be put through the expense and emotional stress of such abuse. Please call Mr. Olds and Mr. Macgregor and tell them enough is enough – stop wasting tax payers money, and free me just like our beloved POTUS freed patriot General Mike Flynn! Melina Palken Elk City ID To the Editor, Governor Little states (Chronicle 12/24/20) that “There is an ugliness out there that we can overcome only by uniting around the true enemy- the virus, not each other.” I agree, except he misidentifies the enemy. The challenge we have is that there are two parallel “realities” at play here. In the one, which is a construct, a fiction that is being pushed on us as true, the virus IS the enemy. There is no cure, we must do our part by wearing masks, avoiding crowds and gatherings and “social distancing” (self isolation). In this fabricated narrative, our only hope is for a vaccine. The situation is so dire that it justifies collapsing the economies of the world, putting 40% of our households out of work and plunging over one hundred million people worldwide into poverty and starvation. Oh yea, and we need to give up our God given, otherwise inalienable rights to practice our religion, freely assemble, freely travel, work, operate businesses and make our own choices in life. In the other reality, the virus is not the big issue. There are inexpensive preventatives and treatments proven to be 100% effective. The “Covid” case and death counts are fake. Mask wearing is proven to not provide protection. Social isolation is known to lower the immune system and make people more susceptible to illness. Vaccines, especially the new RNA type (that alters your genetics) being rolled out by Pfizer, are neither safe nor effective against rapidly evolving corona viruses. In fact, they are dangerous. The vaccine manufactures have been given legal immunity from harm. Taxpayers pay injury costs. In this reality, the real problems are the skyrocketing spousal and child abuse, suicides, poverty, starvation, homelessness and deaths, caused not by a virus, but by the draconian measures being mandated by the government. The developers, promoters and beneficiaries of this operation are the vaccine trusts, pharmaceutical giants, “health” agencies and departments, and politicians who are compromised by them. The worldwide vaccine market is worth trillions of dollars. Governor, the real enemies are you and your cohorts in this crime against humanity. Jay Maxner Kooskia
No. 296 - 12/28/2020 Time marches on! And the weeks roll by! By this time next week, we will be in a new year, 2021, with many hopes that it will be better than the one just concluding! So this column wishes a Happy New Year to all readers, with a prayer that next year will be better than the last! But, be realistic! Informed individuals know that lurking ahead are big problems that demand sensible solutions to ward off disasters of one kind or another! And all of us need to remember, that PRAYER in the past has provided solutions for many difficult situations! It is with confidence that knowledge of the past can help us provide solutions to the problems of today, that we continue a study of that past, hoping to find answers there. We recalled the Bastiat argument that LEGAL PLUNDER, government policy of taking from those who earn it, then giving it to those who did not, would eventually destroy any nation which resorted to it! Found in his book THE LAW, written about 1850, Bastiat's impressive logic claimed that more and more of the plundered individuals would demand to be on the receiving end, until finally the plundering government would resort to debt and printed money to keep up with the demands! The end result? Predictable bankruptcy and collapse! Today we return to the lesson Davy Crockett learned while serving in our national legislature, during the late 1860's. Google carries a complete account of this event, under the name of Crockett and the title "Not Yours to Give." It seems that the House of Representatives had voted to give a relief package of $20,000 to the victims in D.C. of families whose homes had been destroyed by a huge fire. The bill passed with Crockett's voting yes, and all was ok until that fall when he returned to his home area to campaign for the coming November election. Crockett ran into an irritated voter, Horatio Bunce, who bluntly told him, he could not vote for him again! Stunned, Davy's question "Why?" was answered immediately by Bunce, who replied, "Government money collected in taxes 'was not his to give.'" He went on to say that tax dollars should never be spent on "grants," or gifts not related to the legitimate duties of government. He pointed out that logically it involved selection of a recipient, usually locally known, or in some other way which stood out among other equally deserving beneficiaries. A fire of the same nature far from the Congress for example.* would not even be noticed! Further more, the tax money used to grant the relief was possibly taken from taxes of people far poorer than the recipients, or simply from those so distant from the legislator's eyes, that it became a "Reverse Robin Hood" phenomenon. Bunce argued convincingly that such grants opened the door for all kinds of special treatment of friends given gifts of government money at the expense of taxpayers who were worse off, or simply lacked the contact necessary to be on the receiving end. So Bunce bluntly said, "That Mr. Crockett, is why I cannot vote for you." A stunned Davy, met later with Mr. Bunce, and thanked him for the lesson learned, and later admitted to a crowd gathered by Bunce that he had erred and would not do so again. True to his word, back in Washington, a similar bill was proposed in the House that a sum of money be given to the widow of a "distinguished naval officer." The bill was about to pass when Crockett rose to address the group, giving essentially the argument he had heard from Horatio Bunce. Reminding them they did not owe either the widow or the deceased anything, He repeated the argument that such decisions with tax payers money, "Was not theirs to Give." The bill was defeated! Furthermore, when Crockett challenged the group to donate out of their own pockets an equal amount of money, he was turned down! So lesson learned! Individuals in government are more willing to give your money than theirs for charitable causes.!! Note! *Our family home and others in this area have burned to the ground in the past! NO government money came! Jake Wren |
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