EXECUTIONS

Killing not the answer; criminal rehabilitation is

Is it state execution or society’s euthanasia? Is it punishment or rehabilitation? If criminals are ruthless and apathetic enough to do the crime, are they really cautious and intimidated toward lethal injection?

All humans have value and are salvageable. We need to agree that the severity of the crime should fit the rehabilitation. The vicious and vilest of all is murder. That severity is a candidate for punishment, not execution.

Capital punishment is said to be to the body of politics what self-defense is to the individual. Humanity should come to the conclusion that crime is a mental illness and will be treated, not punished.

If people are not afraid, it is useless to try to scare them with death. If people are afraid of death and you make a point of killing every criminal and patient, then who’d dare do the killing?

MARSON HOLMQUIST, Boise

Idahoans should put stop to capital punishment

Way to go, Idaho. Pen someone in a 9- by 12-foot coop for 27 years and then kill him on behalf of the people. One of the few states of one of the few countries left to participate in this brutal and useless ritual that Amnesty International and others are trying to put a stop to. Idaho citizens, as a whole, are as guilty as anyone for allowing this to happen.

JOHN ANGUS, Boise

UNIONS

Those in the far right are mean-spirited, paranoid

When I was young (I’m now 77), it was the common wisdom that working people built this country and it was a source of great pride.

And that most of the workers belonged to unions and that is what made the middle class.

Now that has all been given away, thanks to years of effort by the far right in this country. I have noticed that the far right have some common traits, they are mean-spirited, selfserving and paranoid.

When the unions go away, so will the middle class.

PAUL VALAS, Meridian