Readers sound off on deer season, taxes, Donald Trump

Kudos to Missouri

Deer and turkey seasons have begun, and a hearty good luck to all the Missouri families continuing their traditions this fall and winter. Residents of the Show-Me State have long supported the outdoors, whether through wildlife management or by enjoying the lakes, rivers, forests and more that our great state has to offer. Missouri is all the better for it.

As for hunting season, hats off to the state for ensuring that permits and fees remain affordable. The laws of economics suggest, and real life confirms, that if government makes something expensive, chances are good we’ll have less of it.

High fees would make continuing family traditions and managing the state’s wildlife populations more difficult. The state and its residents benefit from keeping these burdens low.

Kudos to both.

Patrick Ishmael

Show-Me Institute

Kansas City

Tax dependence

We know our lawmakers are in need of more tax dollars. My wife always said the working taxpayer funds everything.

If our taxes were to be raised on our land and property, the same should happen to all those big farmers who pay no sales tax and little in property taxes. We have seen them buy new four-wheel-drive vehicles for their children and write off the expense on their taxes as a cost of farming.

Now that we have only a few good-paying jobs, maybe lawmakers should rethink their means of tax collection. These days are a lot like those after World War II except it has become a push-button world with lights.

How long will this last? If we don’t put those in prisons on work farms to raise crops for food, everyone will lose. That money our lawmakers want to build jails needs to go for prison farms.

Someone needs to get our lawmakers and tax collectors in sync.

William Leroy Elwood

Osceola, Mo.

Gusewelle column

I found deeply moving C.W. Gusewelle’s tender musings on his boyhood memories of small yellow butterflies and how a recent sighting of similar little swallowtails evoked memories he thought were “gone for good” (10-18, A2, “This memory never flew away”).

It also reminded me how Vladimir Nabokov wrote in “Speak, Memory” that a favorite swallowtail he kept locked in a ward-

robe in his boyhood Russia was sadly lost because of the clumsiness of a servant. The great writer, and lepidopterist, later imagined that after a 40-year endeavor he had recaptured his much-traveled errant pet on an aspen.

Larry Heffel

Lenexa

Frontrunner’s horn

Nero fiddled while Rome burned. The Donald, Republican presidential frontrunner, blows his Trump.

Jeanette B. Welch

Warrensburg, Mo.

Illegal immigration

I have a question. Why are illegal immigrants, convicted or otherwise, protected more fiercely than legal American citizens by President Barack Obama, Sen. Claire McCaskill and other lawmakers?

As an American citizen, I would be thrown in prison if I’d committed, and then was convicted of, any felony, period.

Sharon Stathopoulos

Raymore

Nixon’s panel

Gov. Jay Nixon established what is unfortunately named the Ferguson Commission, which suggests only localized efforts. The name works against Gov. Nixon’s aim to set the bar high and be an example for the nation.

I hope to see a simple change in the commission’s name to support that.

Cover-ups or “no tell” are status quo practices of the law-enforcement culture. These criminal acts must consistently be handled as such to affect positive change in law-enforcement culture.

To support our law-enforcement heroes, we must aggressively protect personnel from reprisals. I deeply hope the recommendations coming forth include encouragement and rewards for internal personnel to police the police.

Equally as important is that legal actions be taken against law-enforcement personnel as they are against citizens for withholding internal criminal information.

Thank you to our law-enforcement departments for sustained courage, protection and service to our communities. We are proud of you, and your sacrifices are greatly appreciated.

J. Brantley Briegel

Information Security

Professional (Retired)

Lone Jack

This story was originally published October 23, 2015 at 10:00 AM with the headline "Readers sound off on deer season, taxes, Donald Trump."