If you wanted to see leadership in action you wouldn’t have gone to last week’s Stevensville Town Council meeting. One after another, folks addressing the council were turned away after poor, if any, responses from the council.

It’s time for the Stevensville Council to recognize that there are many good people working in various ways to make Stevensville a better place and to give those citizens the respect they deserve. And, it’s time for the Stevensville mayor and council members to comprehend, once and for all, that viable businesses are good for the community, and to recognize that they have the power to help facilitate that viability.

The Council voted not to allow the Stevensville Farmers Market to set up on West Third. This in spite of the fact that the Market had the full support of surrounding business owners as well as the Main Street Association. Roger Flatmo, Market Master, cited visibility and ease of access for disabled as two important reasons for the request. The mayor was against the move because there is no law enforcement officer on duty on Saturday morning and, with increased traffic because of the Hwy. 93 construction, this could cause problems.

(Isn’t it ironic that for at least the 25 years we’ve been here, tremendous effort has been made by the business community to get drivers to turn off 93 and come into the downtown to shop, and now the Town is complaining about all the traffic?!)

For now, the farmers market was able to move to a private lot on Main with good visibility but if that property should sell, the farmers market will have to find another location. The Town should be doing all it can to help these fledgling farmers who are in the business of providing healthy, locally grown food to our citizens. It should have approved the move.

Stevensville has a transient business license ordinance that, in effect, penalizes the local non-profit groups that want to use town property to hold events. Case in point, the Stevensville Civic Club. The Council voted to charge the club a $1500 flat fee to cover the $25 each vendor at the Creamery Picnic would have to pay under the town’s ordinance. This just doesn’t make sense. The Creamery Picnic is the major fundraiser of the Civic Club, which plows all of its profits back into the community in the way of improvements such as the bike path, the town’s parks, holiday lighting, etc. Not only that, but many of the vendors at the Creamery Picnic are other non-profits that use the event to raise their own funds for the good works that they do. The Civic Club, and its vendors, should not have to pay this fee.

The Stevensville Main Street Association, on the other hand, was charged a $25 special event fee plus a $150 flat fee for the NorthWest HoneyFest. While the Main Street Association is no doubt feeling relieved that it doesn’t have to pay the $1500 that Civic Club did, this inconsistent application of the transient business license ordinance is wrong. Council members did say they wanted to get together with Civic Club and Main Street officers and discuss changes. But for now, the ordinance should be rescinded immediately as it’s causing more harm than good. And it could have been done at the meeting, where all the affected entities (Farmers Market, Civic Club, and Main Street) were represented.

Finally, the Council needs to keep in mind that it’s working FOR the community, and to treat representatives of that community with the courtesy and respect they deserve. We were embarrassed by the way Arnie Polanchek, Pantry Partners Food Bank board member, was treated. After waiting patiently through most of the long meeting, Polanchek asked the council to consider waiving or reducing the permit fees associated with the building that Pantry Partners is constructing on the corner of Burnt Fork and ALC Way. The council would not even entertain a motion on the topic. There was no explanation and no discussion.

While it’s obvious that the council is under a lot of pressure due to budget shortfalls with looming multi-million dollar projects, every single individual deserves a thoughtful response. There are solutions to the many problems that the council is facing, but without leadership the council can easily lose its way.

Letters to the Editor

Incompetence? Really?

Dear Editor,

Mr. Lesner of Sula’s letter to the editor in the June 16 edition of the Star is stunning, alright. Stunning in its myopic interpretation of President Obama’s brief reign as president and how he interprets his actions and reactions.

It’s quite obvious what political position and posture that Mr. Lesner has taken in his comparative review of Mr. Obama’s reaction to the disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Throughout his rambling letter, Mr. Lesner attempts to pinpoint Mr. Obama’s shortcomings as president. Not one syllable of his is directed in a positive manner as to what solutions he might suggest. Anyone can criticize but it takes a man with a vision, a sagacious man with answers who can postulate remedies for problems that Mr. Obama has, in the long and short of it, inherited from his predecessor (excluding, of course, the Gulf oil spill).

Americans are notorious for having extremely short memories, particularly when it comes to politics, and can forget some of the consequences that 2000-2008 comprised. We had a president who was not only an embarrassment worldwide with respect to his shortcomings, but who could not even formulate an intelligible sentence to convey his “thoughts.” If history serves us well, Mr. Bush inherited a surplus from Mr. Clinton and handed over a baton of debt to Mr. Obama that was unprecedented. At least Mr. Obama is credited with having an intellect of great stature, regardless of what his political leanings may be interpreted as.

Given the magnitude of the disaster occurring in the Gulf at the present moment, and the myriad of experts in the fields of geology, mining, oceanography, et al who have studied the crisis, it is no wonder that Mr. Obama doesn’t have a quick fix for it. What he will accomplish as a result of the oil leak will be accountability, strictly enforced rules and regulations and future aversion of a similar occurrence. He is not turning his back on the issue but turning his considerable attention to avoiding a reoccurrence of a similar disaster. That is what we hired our president to do, not to pull rabbits out of an imaginary hat and to wave a wand to make everything okay.

To regurgitate the misgivings of past presidents is to only give credence to my argument and to distill down Mr. Lesner’s position. There isn’t one president in our short lived history that doesn’t carry the baggage of their respective office and lay claim to being less than perfect in the whole scheme of things.

To label Mr. Obama as incompetent within such a short period of trial by fire is not only unfair to his skills as a leader, but it diminishes the power and privilege of the office of president that he holds. One must keep in mind that the consensus of Americans and the Electoral College elected our current president. Why not give the president some leeway and not adopt the banner of a Limbaugh, Palin or Hannity of whom I am certain that Mr. Lesner is an avid devotee.

Mark L. Raskin
Stevensville

Re: Facts about John Birch Society

Dear Editor,

The person who wrote this states that he is part of the Bitterroot Human Rights Alliance and if you look them up these people state that they want to work for democracy and stated that carrying a gun is a hostile act. Let me start by saying democracy is not your friend! But a republic is! Look in your Constitution and you will not find the word democracy anywhere. To put it simply, democracy is mob rule while a republic is rule of the people, a very big difference. Now I wish to ask what kind of rights are you BHRA for anyway? Just so you know, there is a right to carry a firearm. You will note that at the tea parties there was no one that displayed any hostile act, threatened anyone or any act of violence whatsoever. They have the right to carry and do so responsibly. Groups like yours only wish to take away rights that belong to us. The Nazis did that in WWII where many were exterminated in concentration camps. Those who have guns and are respectful of the law keep this valley a safe place to live.

Since you talked about the John Birch Society, I will do the same. You seemed to have missed a few points. It is a conservative United States of America organization founded in 1958 to fight the threat of communism, restoring and preserving freedom and the United States Constitution. They want less government, more responsibility with the help of God. That sounds pretty good to me!

Since you seem to be in opposition to this it appears to me you want big government, no constitution, no responsibility and no God. These same ideas come to light from those who think socialism is what they would want to live under. Socialism seeks to get bigger government which in turn demands more taxes to support an ever growing cumbersome tumor. This tumor then controls everything as it grows, leaving the individual with no control over their own lives. That makes you a slave!

Now, if we do away with the Constitution, we as people and a nation have no rights and that would make domination of the people complete.

You would be nothing more than an expendable pawn working to support a fat government that does not give a flyspeck about you. Big government that now controls your every move where you have no rights and it has no responsibility to you or itself. No God, no hope. I don't know about you, but this is not how I want to live.

People have come to this country for its freedoms and opportunity to build a future by being able to be enterprising enough to start a business. By working hard they get to keep the benefits they have earned from this hard work from this business. They come here because their own countries did not afford these opportunities---known as capitalism. Socialism seeks to tear down this system. Apparently you do not watch TV and see how people lived under these socialist countries. They lacked modern conveniences, and people lived in high rises with only 600 square feet of living space per family. That is the agenda they have for you and me. Conspiracy theory? Not on your life, it is real--again you don't watch TV, do you?

In 1970, I myself heard Kissinger speak of the One World Order and now many of those in power and government are blatantly talking of a one world order and control. I heard an ex-FBI agent say if we don't comply to this one world order then we will be done away with. So it is not a theory, it is a fact.

The global warming theory cannot and has not been proved. It is a lie to take over our lands while they pass more laws to control our lives and property. Which, by the way, is anti-constitutional.

Health care! You have not been keeping up with what is in the health care bill, have you? There is nothing in there that will give you better care, it will only decline the excellent care you have now to less then acceptable care. Oh, yes, there is no provision in our Constitution that says government has the right to give us health care, only another way to control so they can put socialism in place.

You mentioned Mr. Koch's business as being against health care and global warming. I say that is a good thing. Yet you say nothing about all the big businesses who are pouring money into campaigns to prove a bogus claim of global warming. I guess big business is only bad if it doesn't agree with you.

You spoke of the UN, I guess you still have not looked up Agenda 21 put out by the UN that is in black and white, on the web for you to see, that speaks of one world power and domination.

Now to Skousen and your exception to the word pickaninnies. As I understand it, that was taken from a poem written in the 1930's. While I don't approve of the word being used today, it was a word much accepted at the time as a colloquialism. I have also heard people use offensive terms as mick, pole, wetback, this does not make them a bad person especially if they used it 80 years ago. What you need to do is stop doing what you have accused Mr. Skousen of, picking on a group of people who are different than you and do not think the same way as you. It is still a free America and we can think Conservative if we want to. You need to go crawl under the rock you came from and stop your name calling like you accused others of doing.

Dee Gibney
Hamilton

Will this ever end?

Dear Editor,

Mexican President Filipe Calderon recently visited our country. He met with President Obama and addressed Congress. Mexico is a nation bordering on anarchy. Millions of its citizens risk death to escape that corrupt and violent country. Yet Calderon had the gall to lecture Congress on the recently passed Arizona law that is a desperate attempt to protect its citizens from the flood of people entering their state illegally from Mexico.

It was a disgraceful performance, aggravated by the behavior of the Democrats. They gave his arrogant and inappropriate remarks a standing ovation. President Obama has expressed his displeasure with the Arizona law, as have his Attorney General, Eric Holder and his head of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano. Incredibly they have admitted that they did not even read the law. At least they claim not to have read it. I don’t believe them.

President Obama is politicizing the Arizona law. Again the President of the United States of America is lying to the people and dividing Americans. It has become routine for him. It is frustrating to hear open borders advocates claiming that the new law will result in racial profiling, or may possibly result in racial profiling. They too are lying. It is shameful that the President of the United States joins them in slandering law enforcement officers in Arizona.

“May” and “possibly” are conveniently imprecise. Some who are up in arms about this law believe that police in Arizona are racists. Many on the political left believe that. Open borders advocates cynically use the argument to discredit any attempt to stop the invasion of America by millions of illegal aliens.

President Obama and his Party leadership choose to believe that police are racist, not only in Arizona, but everywhere else in America. Barack Obama stated that he did not know what had happened when his friend, Harvard Professor Louis Gates Junior, was arrested for Disorderly Conduct by Cambridge, Massachusetts Police. He then immediately made the ill advised and revealing declaration that “the police acted stupidly.” Obama has been quoted as saying that America has a history of this kind of behavior by cops. Many progressives sincerely believe that police racially profile people based on skin color. People tend to believe what they want to believe.

Democratic Party progressives, with their negative view of America, have been in Congress for decades. They haven’t received a great deal of attention. Partly because Americans have not been aware of how they really view America. I think of them as being similar to the sludge from an oil spill. You can see them, but you don’t really get a clear picture of them.

With the election of Barack Obama, control of both houses of Congress and a judiciary filled with progressive judges, they have finally surfaced. Have you ever heard Democratic politicians talking openly about redistribution of wealth? Recently Max Baucus stated that the Health Care Reform Law is about redistribution of wealth. He said that the income of the rich has gone up “way too far.”

Baucus has been in office since 1978. I can find no record of him making a statement like that until the Health Care Reform Bill was forced upon the American people. President Obama and the Democratic Party leaders knew that the American people overwhelmingly opposed it. Obviously they didn’t care.

Why did it take thirty-two years for Baucus to reveal to the American people that he harbored a Marxist oriented economic philosophy? For the same reason we never heard this anti-capitalism declaration from Harry Reid or Nancy Pelosi.

But Barbara Boxer, Henry Waxman or the other radical leftists in Congress never shared their economic philosophy with America’s voters either. They have avoided allowing the American people to know who they really are. The only honest radical Democrat in Congress is Bernie Sanders, a self identified Socialist.

The desperate citizens of Arizona were not the only Americans insulted by Calderon. Americans all over this country are being murdered by illegal aliens who have crossed the Mexican border. In spite of that, Obama and the Democrats who stood to applaud Calderon’s inappropriate remarks are intentionally misrepresenting the Arizona law. President Calderon knew that he would be applauded by the Democrats. Hispanics represent a huge voting bloc that will assure Democratic Party control of government for years to come.

The Democrats’ income redistribution means sending American tax dollars to other nations. The Global Poverty Act, presented by Adam Smith, (D-WA) in 2007, requires the president and Congress to set aside .07% of the GNP (about $800 billion annually) of taxpayers’ money, to relieve world poverty. This is just one project Democratic radicals have been quietly working on. In November they must be defeated. They have demonstrated that America will not survive continued Democratic Party control of government.

Gene Williams
Hamilton

A flawed system

Dear Editor,

Have you ever suspected that something was wrong, but upon investigation discovered you were mistaken; it is actually much worse than you thought? That is what I discovered with the Open Primary election system in Montana. I was shocked in the recent Primary when Mark French was so badly defeated by incumbent Denny Rehberg. With the current nationwide attitude of throwing out the incumbents, and with Rehberg’s horrible record of voting for the Patriot Act, having never read it, the Real ID act, Cash for Clunkers, the Hate Crimes Bill, and many other Socialist agendas, how could he have won by such a wide margin? Adding to that, the Republicans had a clear choice of candidates with Mark French being a true Constitutional Conservative who campaigned tirelessly in every nook and cranny of the state. When I looked more closely at the actual numbers, it suddenly became obvious that Rehberg was not elected by the Republicans, but rather by the Democrats. Here is how it works in an Open Primary state: When you enter the polling place, you are given two ballots, a Democrat and a Republican. Now in the case where the Democrats have a single candidate running unopposed, they are assured he will be in the general election. So their major concern is to make sure that their candidate will be opposed only by the Republican most closely aligned with the Democrat agenda. That way they are assured of a win either way. If the Republican wins, it is in many cases preferred, because the party loyalists will make excuses for the liberal leanings of their RINO Republican. Democrats know that their liberal candidate would not have a chance in the General election against a true conservative. The obvious choice is for them to cast their vote on the Republican ballot, thus picking the Republican of their choice. In most cases the choice is pretty easy. During the pre-primary campaigning, the true conservative candidates are very clear on how they stand on the issues of constitutional government. You would think that this would give them an easy victory, but conversely it ends up being the kiss of death. This would not need to be the case if all the conservatives would actually care enough to get out and vote, but so many (around 70%) are of the misguided notion that the Primaries are not that important. They think they are doing their patriotic duty if they vote in the general election. In any basic logic one would deduce that the Primary is the very opportunity to give the best candidate the chance to even be in the general election. To illustrate and confirm my point consider that Montana is basically a 50/50 Republican/Democrat state. The revealing fact is that over 80% of the votes cast were on the Republican ballot. Less than 19% were cast on the Democrat ballot. The numbers in Ravalli County are pretty much the same. The candidates who identified themselves as the most conservative all lost by a wide margin. The answer is pretty clear: the Democrats elected the Republican candidates chosen to compete in the general election. What I find even more ironic about this is that the Ravalli County Republican Central Committee will not endorse candidates in the Primary election, but are duty bound to support whatever candidate the Democrats pick for them in the General election.

I don’t know what the real answer is to remedy this serious flaw in the system, but there are some viable options, which need to be addressed. In the meantime, it looks like the only options to elect true conservatives in several offices in November warrant taking a serious look at the Libertarian candidates. A good place to start would be to study their website at www.ivotelibertarian.com.

Dewey Baker
Florence

Democrats steal Republican primary again

Dear Editor,

Montana is an open primary state. This means, no matter which party you belong to, you can vote either on the Democrat ticket or Republican ticket. The election results are perfectly clear

in this Ravalli County primary election. 81.11% of the citizens voted on the Republican Ticket. Only 18.89% of the citizens voted in the Democrat ticket. Why? This is what happens every

election season. You have liberal candidates like Bob Lake, Pat Connell and Gary MacLaren running as Republicans, with a strong conservative candidate running against them. The Democrats have one candidate on their ticket. Therefore, Democrats vote on the Republican ticket in the primary, instead of the Democrat ticket and like magic, most of the Constitutional or Conservative Republicans get voted right out of the race.

Isn't that interesting? So, Democrats end up picking the Republican candidate that makes it to the general election. This is how we have developed a one party system. Whether you vote Democrat or Republican you are voting liberal. That is how it happens. What an amazing game! All the Conservatives will go to the polls in November and vote a straight Republican ticket,

and elect their fake Republicans in November, and the Democrats will laugh, because they know it doesn't matter what the outcome, there will be a candidate that will support their issues.

Don't let this happen again! Don't vote for the lesser of two liberals! They will say don't split the vote by voting for a third party or you will just get a Democrat elected. I will let you in on a little secret. If you don't vote a third party into office, the liberal agenda wins for sure!

Tobias Martin
Stevensville

Thoughts about 4th of July

Dear Editor,

The fourth of July was just celebrated. We here, in the United States of America, celebrated our independence. Yet it seems our independence is being chipped away by our own government

The FDA is responsible for a new kind of prohibition, against raw milk. Eric Wagner (Georgia) had 100 gallons of raw milk confiscated from his property. Wagner’s case against the state brings out the true nature of the government’s attitude toward citizens. A document signed by U.S. Attorney Stephanie Rose, Assistant Martha Fagg, and Roger Gural, trial attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice, states, “There is no ‘deeply rooted’ historical tradition of unfettered access to foods of all kinds.” The government argued that consumers do not have the right to obtain any food they wish.

A recent Arab Festival in Dearborn, Mich. revealed the local police there are willing to enforce Islamic law. Christian missionaries, exercising their constitutional right to free speech and the free exercise of religion, were arrested. The charges of breach of peace are an enforcement of Shariah law, not constitutional law. Is Dearborn, Mich. still U.S. soil?

People in Arizona are asking the same question as the government has informed them they must stay out of an 80 by 300 mile area of Arizona. The area has been deemed too dangerous for U.S. citizens due to large numbers of drug cartel and terrorists crossing the border in this area.

Citizens in Louisiana were stopped by the Coast Guard when they tried to clean up oil along their coast. Yet, the oil spill does not seem to be the biggest threat to Louisiana citizens, and all other U.S. citizens. According to Joseph Farah, “Lost in all the chaos of the Gulf oil spill is Barack Obama's 52-page manifesto for a New World Order.” Obama’s “National Security Strategy” has little to do with our nation and nothing to do with U.S. "Sovereignty.” “Promoting a Just and Sustainable International Order" is the main theme of this document.

These are just a few of many examples of our independence slipping away. This Fourth of July week, between barbecues and fireworks, I urge all of you to consider your freedom. Consider those who have given their lives to keep us free (I know that is a different holiday but,) and decide if you are willing to stand up for your independence. It takes a little time and some digging to find the truth, but the truth can set us free if we are willing to stand up and fight for it.

Belle Belanger
Stevensville

History doomed to repetition

Dear Editor,

As I witness the hysteria being offered as a poor substitute for civil discourse these days, I am reminded of the stories my father-in-law told about growing up in the Bitterroot in the 1920’s and 1930’s. Barney was born and raised in Darby and combined an alert intelligence with keen observation. In the summer of 1928 he witnessed trucks full of frantic armed men racing up and down the dirt roads of Ravalli County, brandishing shotguns and rifles, and calling the citizens to prepare for armed conflict against a foreign invading army.

It seemed that isolated little old Ravalli County was privy to information that had escaped the attention of the big cities back east. Specifically, there were black unmarked ships anchored in New York harbor that those in the know were aware to be full to the scuppers with minions of the Pope’s Army. The main driving force behind this belief was the fact that for the first time in US history a Roman Catholic, Al Smith, was running for president. It was an article of faith (provable facts having nothing to do with it) that if Al Smith became president, his first act upon taking the oath of office would be to order the US Army into their barracks, whereupon the Pope’s Army would swarm like cockroaches off those black ships, disarm all those US soldiers, and take over the country.

There is something unmistakably comical with the image of a gaggle of ceremonial Vatican guards armed with halberds and dressed in their ceremonial poofy Renaissance pants overcoming a modern nation’s armed forces. Think Peter Sellers in the movie “The Mouse That Roared.”

Evidently some people need a bugbear with which to scare themselves. There was no United Nations in 1928 (The League of Nations doesn’t count - the US never joined) and aviation technology had not yet produced the helicopter gunship. So the conspiracy theorists of that age had to make do with Papish black ships and an invading army armed with medieval hatchets on long sticks.

In the end, of course, there was no invasion. Al Smith, that Happy Warrior, was defeated at the polls, being famously unpopular in the rural west and south. Instead, Herbert Hoover became president just in time to preside over the 1929 market crash.

Now there is a subject worthy of a conspiracy theory. Doesn’t anyone out there have a notion of what sinister cabal engineered that economic disaster?

Patrick Leonard
Corvallis

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