Letters to the editor Aug. 20

It could happen here

In all honesty, Big Bend National Park don’t mean all that much to me. I’ve never been and I figure I probably never will. It’s way down there, we’re way up here.

Regardless, it’s hard not to be angry when construction of a border wall through Big Bend appears all but inevitable. Inevitable not in the sense that its construction is logical or lawful, but inevitable in that its construction is anything but logical or lawful, and that is just how things seem to go these days.

Someone who has spent time in Big Bend could do a lot better than I could explaining why a 30-foot-high wall crowned with barbed wire running through the heart of that national park is a bad idea. 

While I haven’t spent a lot of time there, I have in Glacier National Park. There’s a good chance a lot of people reading this have spent time there as well. I think those that have can imagine what such a wall would mean if it was in our backyard. Elk, bear and wolverine corridors slammed shut. Previously dark skies in the Belly smeared with light pollution. Some funky relative of a dam over the North Fork and Waterton Lake. A skidmark on mountain and prairie vistas from atop the six 10s.

If it can happen there, it can happen here. A border wall through Big Bend means a border wall through Glacier is not far behind. If that sounds ridiculous, just consider how improbable it would have sounded two years ago to hear how we’re vibing with Canada nowadays.

What to do? It's hard to say. Call some people. Send a letter to somebody important. Drive to Texas and join up with the protests there. I guess generally just get mad, because I do know that doing nothing about Big Bend now means it is more likely we won’t be able to do anything about it when bulldozers show up in Glacier next.

— Sonny Mazzullo, Kalispell

Own recognizance

As I sit here and look over an article about a guy who exposed himself in a grocery store parking lot while masturbating and then he was released from custody, I am curious who is going to own the re-offense once it happens again.  

If the person is enough of a societal misfit that they will do this in public, I think we are past the point of using a person‘s own recognizance. We see this over and over again in the valley with people actually committing crimes against other people and being released only to reoffend. We saw it with many of the people who were pardoned from the Jan. 6 riot as well. It almost seems like this is the new normal. That is disgusting. 

The purpose of government is to protect citizens first and foremost. We fund the government. There is no reason to be releasing people who decide it’s OK to commit a sexual act against an unwilling participant in public. And maybe that says there’s more wrong with society. For this to be a misdemeanor says that some real weirdos wrote the law. 

The only way to change this obviously is through legislation. Will this actually happen? Probably not. We have seen a lot of people masquerading as good citizens not saying anything about releasing the Epstein files, which not a single person other than Ghislaine Maxwell is charged. 

Time for people to stand up and dictate the type of world we actually want to live in. A world where all are safe from sexual predators would be a great place to start. It starts locally. Vote like it matters.  

— Jeremy Phillips, Kalispell