Some recent letters deserve comments or corrections

To The Daily Sun,

Peter Wirth, 4/16/19, is wrong on almost everything he claims. No one claims that most immigrants are dangerous criminals; no one even claims that about illegal aliens. However, harm from illegal aliens is totally avoidable. People like Wirth don’t seem to care about the hundreds of victims killed, raped, or otherwise harmed by violent criminal illegal aliens every day … until they or someone close to them is a victim. The annual cost of illegal immigration to American taxpayers exceeds $110 billion; by comparison, the one-time cost of the $25 billion border wall is cheap and will save lives and money. Wirth seems unaware that there are many places in foreign countries where people can legally and safely request asylum without sneaking over our border.

Jane Westlake, 4/17/19, complains about high property taxes. Property taxes are the result of local government and school spending which are under the direct control of taxpayers in town meetings or indirectly by electing town officials. If property taxes are too high, then look in the mirror; it’s your fault. The “promise” that another tax or money from another level of government will reduce total taxes has been consistently disproved. Note: School spending could often be stabilized or reduced if school boards offered scholarships for students to attend often much-less-expensive private schools.

Mark Reschke, 4/17/19. No new law was created by Trump’s emergency declaration. Like his predecessors have done dozens of times, Trump used emergency authorities given by Congress to the President. The emergency declaration allowed Trump to re-direct previously authorized spending to deal with the border crisis. Congress failed to successfully exercise its authority to overrule the President’s emergency declaration.

Alan Vernaeke, 4/16/19, now declares himself a fashion critic who scours Walmart and Shaw’s for the latest fashions. LOL!

Vervaeke ridicules law-abiding people who carry guns. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that New Hampshire is one of the safest states in the nation or that most public mass shootings happen where law-abiding people are prohibited from carrying guns. Many lives might have been saved if one of Vervaeke’s hated armed citizens was at Sandy Hook, Aurora, or another mass shooting.

Vervaeke complains about poorly educated people; I wonder if Vervaeke will support school choice so children can escape failing public schools?

Finally, I applaud Alan for interrupting his slanders of anyone he doesn’t like by naming a specific author and identifying specific objectionable statements.

James Veverka, 4/19/19, has identified a way to determine which of the 330 million Americans and 7 billion humans are detestable people worthy of every imaginable (and Veverka’s imagination is exceptional) slander; these are people who disagree with Veverka.

If Ververka actually believes what he writes, his imagination is healthy but he is so prejudiced and hateful that his mind is closed. Ververka is gleeful about the decline in religious influence and changes to our country’s demographics; he thinks the people he hates care about the demographic changes. But few of the people he hates, those who oppose his political positions because of their adverse consequences, care about our nation’s demographics/ethnicity. We care about whether our society continues with principles and values like those that have allowed Americans to be free, healthy, and prosperous so future Americans can be free, healthy, and prosperous … but there is much evidence that this is not the case.

A few examples: New Hampshire teen suicides increased almost 50 percent between 1999 to 2016 (see 4/17 article); attacks on Americans’ fundamental rights; the lack of assimilation of immigrants and promotion of division in our country; the immoral debt we are passing to future generations; the toleration of law-breaking; the influence of special interests; and the abuse of government power.

Veverka’s letter noses out Vervaeke’s column for last week’s Birdcage Bottom Cover Award.

Don Ewing

Meredith