Manifest Destiny back to finish job

For all that live on the Olympic Peninsula, how do you feel about Trump’s vice president pick’s statements of the First Nation’s people? (“JD Vance called Native Americans the ‘enemy’ and Indigenous Peoples Day a ‘fake holiday’,” msn.com)

The story notes, “Vance argued last year against renaming the Wayne National Forest in Ohio, he referred to Native Americans as the ‘enemy.’”

Further, “On another occasion, the GOP’s 2024 vice presidential nominee called Indigenous People’s Day — which some cities celebrate instead of Columbus Day — a ‘fake holiday.’”

Annette Pember of the Red Cliff Ojibwe Tribal Nation in Wisconsin dug up a 2021 tweet from Vance which the eventual Ohio senator wrote: “Indigenous Peoples’ Day is a fake holiday created to sow division. Of course Joe Biden is the first president to pay it any attention.” (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)

The First Nations people on the Olympic Peninsula did not escape the slaughter and blind brutality of Manifest Destiny.

To some in this country, it is appears it was not enough to have stole everything of value from them along with planned systematic genocide.

Are you all OK with finishing what Manifest Destiny set out to accomplish? (Manifest Destiny was the idea that white Americans were divinely ordained to settle the entire continent of North America. As a result, the federal government forcibly relocated Native American tribes, leading to immense suffering and loss.)

Dennis Hamner

Sequim

Political bias clear in Supreme Court term limit suggestion

President Biden recently spoke about term limits for Supreme Court Justices. The purpose of course is so that any left wing president would get to nominate four justices during two four-year terms.

Let’s be real, the Supreme Court is not intended to be political. The entire purpose of the highest court in the land is to weigh matters brought before them against the Constitution and past precedent. There should be no politically biased judges on the court if they are not able to separate their political leanings from their rulings.

A constitutional conservative is actually the ideal judge. There are not supposed to be activist judges. In fact, there should not be left leaning judges at any level if they let their political leanings taint their judgment.

Every judge should be a constitutional conservative in order to do their jobs as intended. Their sole job is to apply the Constitution to our complicated lives. All the laws and precedent have either been deemed constitutional already or should be looked at.

Term limits for Supreme Court Justices is intended to politically bias the court.

Mark A. White.

Port Angeles

Focus on forests

I was saddened to see that not all candidates were represented in the recent forum (“Van De Wege sole candidate at Carlsborg Public Lands commissioner forum,” Sequim Gazette, July 31).”

While fire issues are of huge importance for the state, also at issue is our dwindling legacy forests. Many of my contemporaries are not anti-logging but are opposed to logging certain tracts — specifically legacy forests. If we need to increase plantation forest acreage, let’s do that.

Legacy forests evolve, they aren’t grown. Once we cut legacy forests, they can’t mature into old growth forests. We don’t fully understand the complex inter-working of either legacy or old growth forests but we know that both of them are more fire-resistant, sequester amazing amounts of carbon, and are more genetically and biologically diverse than other forests.

Only a small percentage of our forests are legacy forests, let’s look for solutions that protect those on public and private lands while we continue to learn from them. They cannot be replaced.

There isn’t a price we can place on harvesting legacy forests. They may bring in more money at auction, but their loss is valuable beyond estimation. Preserve the legacy and old growth forests and increase the plantation farms.

Cath Hickey

Sequim