NORTH IDAHO: Some want to remake it

I find myself slightly perplexed when I hear all the hullabaloo about the Great Replacement Theory. This has happened more than once in the history of America. Ask the Native Americans who once held these lands as their own or the Mexican people who lost 60% of their nation to the borders of the present-day U.S. A more recent example can be seen in Idaho, especially Kootenai County.

We have experienced an influx of people from other parts of the nation, many from California, who seem intent on changing the nature of Idaho to fit their personal tastes. There have been grumblings from some of the natives about this influx, but no armed marches, cross burnings, or similar displays of intimidation. The people of Idaho may be mostly conservative, but they are also largely considerate.

Both sides of my family homesteaded in Idaho. In early times, you never knew when you might need the kindness of someone you hardly knew or would be called on to lend a helping hand. It was a community of people who wanted to live and to let others live in their own ways. The same could be true today.

Yet it seems there are those who want to remake Idaho to a place where the “right” people get to impose their way of life on everyone. If your vision does not sell itself, maybe you could do the rest of us a favor by keeping it under your own roof.

ERNEST WARNER

Coeur d’Alene