Letters: Readers talk animal traps, Russia and the DNC hack

Trapping animals

I have a suggestion regarding the use of inhumane traps used for the trapping of animals: Require an educational training program for the trapping of animals. (Jan. 17, 5A, “Traps meant for wildlife sometimes snare pets”)

A segment of that training must require the trapper to put his or her foot on the trap and close it; then they must stand in the trap for a minimum of one hour.

If after that specified time of standing in the trap he or she still feels this is a humane way to treat an animal, then by all means go trapping.

Shirley McCarty

Independence

Russian poodle

“Russia and the U.S. are uniting to push China out of power,” I said half jokingly a few weeks before Donald Trump, as one of his actions as America’s 45th president-elect, took a phone call from Taiwan and ruffled China’s feathers quite a bit.

Some saw a blunder, but I believe it was absurdly calculated — a new foreign policy.

Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Israels Benjamin Netanyahu and now Trump: Suppressing and discrediting the press; creating their own narratives verging on conspiracy theories; using cacophonous conflicts that should discredit them but merely give them more wind to fly on; adopting a masculine-macho leadership style and a mob mentality disdainful of liberal elites, which has given rise to the world’s movement toward isolationism and populism.

With Trump’s appointment of U.S. ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, who is pro-settlements in the West Bank, we begin to see the alliances that the U.S. new foreign policy will attempt to strengthen: treating Russia as we do Saudi Arabia — overlooking human rights abuses and abuses of power for the sake of ulterior motives.

With the Trump intelligence dossier released recently, we begin to give more credence to the question posed by Nicolas Kristof in his column, “Watergate, 1972; Russiagate, 2016: This time, it’s more staggering” (Dec. 22, 6A): Is our new president a Russian poodle?

Annie Windholz

Kansas City

Hacking, election

A Jan. 16 letter writer fails to clarify that while attempts were made to hack the Republican Party’s servers, the hackers had only limited success, due to better server security and better passwords.

Since the hackers were only able to get access to emails that were outside the election cycle and from a disused computer server, they were of no real interest to anyone, so there was no reason to release them.

If anyone is worried about potential blackmail, he should be concerned about how the Russians might have used Hillary Clinton’s emails against her had she been elected, as our intelligence services are virtually certain that the Russians have all of her messages.

The real issue is how damaging the Democratic National Committee’s emails were, and how they influenced the election process far more than anything the hackers did.

The emails proved, beyond the shadow of a doubt, just how corrupt the DNC presidential candidate selection process was.

Here is my question: If the Russians showed you a video of your wife cheating on you, would you be upset with the Russians, or with your wife?

Roland Schach

Leawood

‘But people’

While attempting to analyze the nuances of the recent election, one can question that often-expressed belief in the “wisdom of the American people.” Wisdom involves knowledge, insight, sound judgment and common sense.

This campaign, however, exposed an ignorance that was palpable. This self-imposed ignorance consistently denied a veritable cornucopia of facts. This denial created a fact denying demographic loosely defined as “but people.”

“But people” make the claim that, “I don’t agree with what he says, but I support him because he tells it like it is.”

“But people” apparently believe that change is necessary, regardless of the quality of that change or its intended or unintended consequences. “But people” believe that you can be in it, but not of it.

Wisdom requires more than the simpleminded “I don’t know, but …” refrain.

It requires the acceptance of truth, no matter how unpleasant; justice, regardless of the sacrifice, and something more profound than some ethereal notion of “making America great again.”

Michael T. Patton

Kansas City

This story was originally published January 22, 2017 at 8:30 PM with the headline "Letters: Readers talk animal traps, Russia and the DNC hack."