RIGHTS: Duty to defend them
In the Sept. 12 edition of the Coeur d’Alene Press the following passage was included:
“Souza said as mayor, she would vote whichever way the public favored on highly charged topics when the opinion is stacked on one side, regardless of how she feels personally.”
I have waited several days to make sure that she did not want to retract that statement or assert that she was misquoted. To my knowledge, she has not done so.
As to that statement, it is clear to me that God gave each person the capacity to form and hold moral values. He also gave each person the free will to act on those moral values. Failing to act on moral values one holds has the same effect as having no moral values. For Ms. Souza to assert ahead of time that she would go with the flow if elected is not leadership but rather a preemptive forfeiture of leadership.
If Ms. Souza will not act on her moral values at critical times, when will she act on her moral values? The time to ask that question is well before the day of the election.
As to Mr. Kunka, another mayoral candidate, he said in the same issue of the Coeur d’Alene Press, “You can’t protect everyone.” Mr. Kunka is invited to read the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution and the Idaho Constitution.
He will see that while you can’t protect everyone you can protect your fellow American citizens and in point of fact you have the duty to do so.
No doubt secure in his knowledge of American history and political science, Mr. Kunka offers up the idea that “the only people who don’t have some sort of protection are white guys between the ages of 18 and 90.” I happen to be in this rather large class of people whom Mr. Kunka feels is without “protection.”
My America, my home for all of my years is a unique and wonderful place.
Capitalism reigns here like nowhere else in the world with its engines of innovation and risk taking. Freedoms of virtually every nature are more closely protected here than anywhere else. Freedom of religion is demonstrated everywhere, with countless churches, synagogues and other places of worship large and small located all across our country. Here like few places elsewhere, the rule of law is honored.
Americans know that if each American citizen is granted a full measure of dignity we are all better off.
I believe that most people know that Mr. Kunka completely misunderstands the America that we know exists because we are all living the American Dream.
My advice to Mr. Kunka is to dry his tears, rejoin us in this great adventure of living in America, and then try again for public office.
NORMAN GISSEL
Coeur d’Alene