A good day for Lincoln County

I read with considerable interest the article in the Leader last week about the vote to make Lincoln County a gun sanctuary county. I was surprised that the board vote did not meet the required majority and therefore the motion failed.

My comments are not about the gun control issue but rather the movement itself, which may well be emblematic of a more fundamental problem. It is worthwhile to examine the origins of this movement.

It first surfaced in earnest as a response to large metropolitan areas declaring themselves as “sanctuary cities” for illegal immigrants. Beyond that it has become a response to what many feel is a fundamental motive of the radical left, which unfortunately has become synonymous for Democrats.

We often hear the “Democrats are coming to take our guns.” I am an avid bird hunter and enjoy trap shooting and I recognize that any establishment of a Second Amendment Sanctuary County is only symbolic and a purely political statement as all local governments are ultimately subject to the gun laws of the State of Wisconsin, so why the need to do this?

Rather, this movement is a fair example of the division that presently exists in our country and our county, something ultimately more destructive than we know. I’m talking about civil discourse and the present lack of it. How many of us have inadvertently wandered into a political discussion with our friends and neighbors and found that the discussion ends abruptly? How many of us subsequently avoid those we have identified as “one of them”?

Understanding how things have gotten this bad is important and can lead to a regeneration of our political system which ultimately requires civil discourse. There are many contributors to this dysfunction, but as an example consider the three major cable news networks: CNN, FOX and MSNBC. While all three do communicate news, often it is mixed with opinion and a twist of the facts to meet their political agenda. They are not held to the same standard that newspapers years ago were held to and from which people my age relied upon. Social media is often more corrosive. Most importantly it is instructive to realize that it is in their financial interest to promote our political dysfunction.

Ultimately it falls upon us to require honest civil discourse in our political system, on us to take the extra effort to find the facts and not be told “the facts” by forces that profit from our division, on us to increase our civil IQ and upon us to elect local, state and federal representatives that exemplify civil discourse and respect for all.

When the vote to make Lincoln County a gun sanctuary county failed, I thought it was a good day for Lincoln County, a vote for civil discourse.

Larry Krause

Tomahawk

Wouldn’t it be great?

After what we have seen and heard from the lawyers in the Senate and House of Representatives during the impeachment trial, there is something we need to think about.

40% of the members of Congress are lawyers. 0.04% of the general American population are lawyers. Wouldn’t it be great if we had more hardworking men and women in our country representing us in Washington instead of these slick-talking lawyers in both parties who represent such a small percentage of our population?

Scott and Barb Theede

Tomahawk