EDITORIAL: Purveyors of paranoia sound off again

There are commies in the closets of North Idaho Democrats and RINOs.

Conspiracies lurk under the beds of what once were trusted individuals and institutions.

Paranoia is reaching profound proportions even without the wicked influences of yesteryear’s illicit drugs.

Commies and conspiracies converged in an unlikely place recently, the Kootenai County Board of Commissioners meeting in which the new fiscal year budget was adopted. Both unhinged concepts get steady assists from the John Birch Society, which has many friends in the region, including on the Kootenai County Republican Central Committee.

Remember KCRCC’s warm public embrace of JBS three summers ago? The group adopted a resolution supporting JBS, which you can read here (warning: resolution may contain disturbing language and images to normal people): https://shorturl.at/jKqZw

But what’s this got to do with the county budget? Unfortunately, plenty.

Several citizens spoke out against Sheriff Bob Norris’s request for funding that would pay for automated license plate readers for patrol vehicles. Yes, the kind of device that’s been used in Kootenai County for 16 years but is suddenly, in the words of one speaker, “straight out of 1984.”

That speaker was, unsurprisingly, Community Library Network board chair Rachelle Ottosen, who sees Big Brother's fingerprints and Marxist machinations everywhere while confusing her duties to taxpaying citizens and library patrons with what she believes are her religious responsibilities.

As a countywide elected official, Ottosen's opinion should carry a little extra weight. In this case it’s dead weight: dead wrong.

Remember last year when the Kootenai Metropolitan Planning Organization came to a screeching halt with plans to improve traffic conditions, largely because of vehement opposition from the same collection of paranoid citizens? 

Now Sheriff Norris is feeling their wrath, all because he wants his deputies to be able to do their jobs safely and effectively in traffic that is unnecessarily getting crazier by the day.

People paralyzed by the possibility of evil-doers compromising their privacy forfeit all that privacy and more every time they turn on their smartphones and computers. 

If they really want to protect citizens’ rights, they should support the local people and programs tasked with public safety and aim their anxiety and anger instead at the online criminals who pose actual threats to society.