Letters 09-05-2016

Sept. 2, 2016

ID Required

You need ID for the following!

Purchase of alcohol, purchase of tobacco, applying for welfare, applying for ObamaCare, applying for a job, driving/ purchasing/renting a car, purchasing some over-the-counter medicines, R-Rated movies, entering most bars, purchasing a gun or applying for a firearm license, opening a bank account, renting a hotel room, applying for a fishing license, picking up a prescription, and donating blood.

But some people don’t think you should show one to vote? Really? Join the real world!

A. J. Fasel, Traverse City

Political Football

A man walks into the offices of a professional football team and tells them he wants to be the team’s quarterback, and that he will make the team "great again." He says that the team will score so often that "your head will spin," and that they would win every game "bigly." They ask about his experience and he tells them he learned the game by watching it on TV.

Liking what they were hearing, they signed him to a four-year contract. No tryout, no practice, he is put into the game. His teammates and the fans quickly realize he has no clue how to play the game and that management made a huge mistake. The fans revolt and abandon the team, which soon goes out of business.

Sound familiar?

Lee Astrauckas, Mancelona

No To Milliken, Clinton

I support the Grand Traverse County Republican Party’s actions regarding former governor William Milliken. Former Governor Milliken, like former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, are not ordinary citizens. If Mrs. Clinton was, she might be serving time for lying to Congress. For this reason alone, Governor Milliken should not have recommended her, even if she was a Republican.

I offer these questions for those so-called Republicans who support Hillary Clinton and former governor Milliken. She has stated that she would "double down" on President Obama’s failed economic policies that have added $10 trillion to the national debt. In my opinion, if this happens, we will become Greece. Her Supreme Court appointments will make the Republican Party meaningless when it comes to conservatism. Finally, why would you want to turn your health care over to the same government bureaucrats who run the post office?

Harold Eickholt, Kalkaska

Stay Within The Laws

Traverse City is a beautiful and thriving community. This is by design. Over the years, city staff, citizens and elected officials have drafted and approved the City’s Master Plan and zoning to help shape the physical character of our city. It’s a slow, deliberate, imperfect but very public process in accordance with Michigan law. Within that zoning framework, developers and property owners have made huge investments and assumed great risks to help build the city we have today.

If you believe columnist Thomas Kachadurian (8/27/16), government employees, residents, public servants and private developers – anyone involved in the process – have conspired through "subterfuge" and "slight of hand" to exert their "ruling class" will on Traverse City.

Wrong. They are simply the people who bother to show up. They are our neighbors, who do the day-in and day-out work of planning, governing, and building within our representative democracy. Sometimes there are divergent opinions within the community – that’s healthy. However, elected officials do not govern by Survey Monkey. They are required to listen, consider the facts and use their judgment to act within the law and in the best interests of city residents.

And many of these good people are standing in opposition to Traverse City’s Proposal 3. Zoning by city charter violates state law, does an end-run on our local ordinances, and puts future growth at risk. It would cause administrative turmoil and likely trigger expensive lawsuits. That’s bad lawmaking. If a voter doesn’t want Traverse City to grow within its current lawful limits, fine. Work through legal channels to elect new City Commissioners and amend the zoning. This citizen and Stand Up TC member will be voting "No" on Proposal 3.

Raymond Minervini II, Traverse City

Appealing To The Uninformed

Regarding his column of Aug. 22, "The Bug and The Elephant," Steve Tuttle knows that leftist ideas will never be successfully accepted by rational persons, so he knows better than to try to delude reasoning minds. He knows he must convince persons of a different mentality, so he looks for opportunities to excite the bigotries in the minds of some of his readers that are, to put it mildly, less reasoning. In order for Tuttle’s writing to succeed, he first has to have readers like the ones I mentioned, but he also must write from a position of open evasion of reality. In other words, he must find readers ready to accept any lie that confirms their biases, and then lie to them.

As to the GT GOP delegates he defamed in that piece, there’s no point in defending their intellectual integrity here. Rational persons are able to read Tuttle’s column and understand that it’s an appeal to the minds of the unreasoning and the uninformed.

Jim Rice, Traverse City

Logic At The WRC

I re-read Patrick Sullivan’s article about the Women’s Resource Center as suggested in the letter submitted by the former "downright terrified" employees.

So, Juliette Schultz and Ralph Soffredine are responsibly directing the organization while making operations and services less reliant on government funding and the whims of legislators. That’s being sensible, accountable, and positions the WRC to be sustainable in the future. I’m happy the organization won’t go broke.

Paul Wcisel, Traverse City

Correction: In our recent report on the local transgender community, the quote from Seren Aurora, "Being transgendered, for me, never seemed like a choice"¦" should have used the word "transgender" instead of "transgendered." We regret this error.