Letters to the Editor: July 1, 2016

Abortion is murder

The right to one’s own life takes precedence over all lesser rights, such as another’s privacy, choice or convenience.

Government-sanctioned murder is immoral, and the crime is exceedingly worse when the victims are babies. The deprivation increases when the babies are made to suffer by barbaric abortion procedures and live tissue procurement without anesthetic.

Barbarity once set in motion knows no limits. The death-by-abortion statistic for unborn babies in this country stands at 58 million from the time abortion was legalized in 1973 until the present day. In round numbers, this is about 10 times the death toll from the Nazi Holocaust.

It is way past time to stand up and say publicly this is very, very wrong.

Susan Paz

Dayton

Beware barbecued bugs

Whatever happened to the good old days when our worst worries on the Fourth of July were traffic jams and wayward fireworks?

A well-warranted worry, according to the Department of Agriculture’s Meat & Poultry Hotline, is food poisoning by nasty E. coli and salmonella bugs hiding in hot dogs and hamburgers at millions of backyard barbecues. The hotline’s advice is to grill them longer and hotter.

Of course, they avoid mentioning that the high-temperature grilling that kills the bugs also happens to form cancer-causing compounds.

Fortunately, some forward-thinking U.S. food manufacturers have solved these issues by creating an amazing assortment of healthy and delicious veggie burgers and soy dogs.

There are no nasty pathogens or cancer-causing compounds in these tasty plant-based foods. They don’t even carry cholesterol, saturated fats, antibiotics or pesticides. And they are conveniently waiting for us at almost every supermarket.

This Fourth of July offers a great opportunity to declare our independence from the meat industry and to share wholesome veggie burgers and soy dogs with our family and friends.

Melvin Nysser

McMinnville

Stop arming aliens

Jeb Bladine, you obviously cannot see that the greatness of this country is our strength to defend ourselves.

History shows that. With our loose borders, illegal aliens and non-citizens are able to buy guns. You all are so worried about the gun show loophole. This is a huge loophole that the Democrats need to look at before they say the Republicans won’t do anything.

Stop persecuting the law-abiding citizen and focus on securing our borders north and south. This is Barack Obama’s fault by turning a blind eye to protecting the citizens of this country as he was sworn to do.

The greatest generation did themselves a disservice, spoiling what became the hippie generation. They, in turn, caused this ME generation we have today with drugs and no accountability. Law-abiding citizens don’t deserve to take the heat or get punished and told they are the problem for these mass shootings taking place.

Jeb, you need to get real with your silent moments. Get back to business. I choose to blame it on you liberals.

Betty Eubanks

McMinnville

Exercise rationality on guns

According to the Children’s Defense Fund, a child or teen in the United States is 65 times more likely than a child in the United Kingdom to be killed by a gun. Is it then that we are 65 times more vicious than our neighbors across the pond? Or is it that they have sensible gun laws and we don’t?

Moreover, children are not only the victims, but also the perpetrators of gun violence. In 2015, more Americans were shot by toddlers, three and under, than by terrorists, according to the May 13 edition of The Guardian.

In all of 2013, Japan, with a population of about 126 million but, again, with strict gun laws, had a total of 12 gun homicides. The United States had more than that every few hours.

More interesting statistics: A Pew Research survey showed that 85 percent of the population (including 79 percent of Republicans) favors a requirement for universal background checks for the purchase of weapons. A still higher percentage favors prohibiting those on the “no fly” or terror watch lists from buying guns.

Yet last week, when a group of representatives, including, to her credit, our congresswoman, Suzanne Bonamici, demonstrated in the House of Representatives to at least consider gun safety reforms, Speaker Paul Ryan dismissed the effort as “a stunt,” and refused to discuss the issue. Meanwhile, the Senate voted down four minimal proposals on gun safety.

The reaction of the Senate and House leadership is discouraging and raises the question, are they more responsive to the wishes of the American people or to the instructions of their paymasters at the NRA?

Jane Kristof

Yamhill

Criminalize e-crack

Each week brings reports of a wreck noting one vehicle “... crossed the center line for no apparent reason” — an often-used code phrase describing people playing with their smartphones. Let’s face it. America is a nation of e-crack junkies. A quarter of U.S. auto accidents involve electronic distractions. You can’t drive a mile without seeing oblivious drivers chatting away or texting on their lap while weaving down roadways. Every age group is hooked on texting, Facebooking, chatting, selfies, tweeting, you name it. If their phone burps, gotta grab it.

It’s time to raise the stakes. Oregon’s Legislature and municipalities should increase penalties to fund law enforcement tools and continuing education, ramp up enforcement, immediately notify insurance companies on violators, etc. When incidents occur, increase penalties and allow court-ordered medical and damage payments instead of lengthy and expensive civil jury trials which enrich attorneys.

More potential tools include police seizing phones. They seize open booze bottles, so why not a phone? Drop it into an opaque evidence envelope (so no one can claim warrantless snooping). Offenders pay their fine and retrieve their precious toy at a police station. Repeat offender? Lose the phone plus a thousand bucks. Habitual offender? Fines plus phone shredding and towing vehicles.

The phrase “crack kills” describes a drug user. E-crack kills and maims too. E-crackheads run stop signs, kill children in crosswalks and have head-ons, sometimes exterminating entire families. Demand action from representatives. Your family could be next.

David Godsey

McMinnville

Cartoon endorses Trump

Seeing the political cartoon June 24 depicting the GOP establishment as horrified elephants and Donald J. Trump as a toad, I had to chuckle.

Once again, the News-Register was trolled into providing a powerful endorsement of Trump. To the everyman, laughter and jeering by the political establishment toward Trump by definition strengthens Trump.

In my everyman mind’s eye, there is a caption over the cartoon directed at the present political establishment. It recalls the post-Brexit remark by United Kingdom Independence Party leader Nigel Farage to the European Union Parliament: “You’re not laughing now, are you?”

Actually, the lionhearted Farage was heckled throughout his speech, thereby making the British everyman even madder at the EU. Meanwhile, brilliantly, Trump, the godfather of Brexit, was on the job, tending to his golf course in Scotland.

Dan Katz

McMinnville