The best way to observe Father’s Day

Each year in America, 100,000 dads watch their daughters disappear into the horror of human trafficking. In cities across the country, girls as young as 11 are lured from their homes … from their dads, with promises of adventure, money and freedom. What they get is torture, rape and slavery. These are little girls, just like ours.

What if you were one of those 100,000 dads? What if you knew your daughter was being held against her will by men who sell her to other men? No real dad would wish this on his worst enemy, and no real dad should pretend the risk isn’t real. The fact is that men are buying and selling our little girls for sex.

This year let’s celebrate Father’s Day by taking on a mission. Let’s defend our kids by leveraging our political will to ensure men who buy and sell our children are fully prosecuted. Let’s leverage our compassion so the daughters trapped in this nightmare can be rescued and restored. Let’s leverage our moral courage, by taking a stand against the commercial sex industry and its attempts to glamorize prostitution and traumatize our daughters.

Men create the demand. Let’s be better men and end the demand. Happy Father’s Day.

Tomas Perez

Vancouver

Politicians say anything to get elected

“I am a firm believer in government living within its means, the same as you and I do.” (http://www.tommielke.com) Tom Mielke proudly displayed this philosophy on his website from the 2008 campaign for Clark County commissioner.

The June 16 Columbian story reported “Mielke urges higher vehicle fees to fund road projects.” Now he supports raising vehicle fees on the backs of taxpayers to pay for road improvements?

Another politician saying what he has to say to get elected. What a flat-out hypocrite.

Michael Dalesandro

Battle Ground

Sentencing disparity vexes observer

I have some questions. Does anyone have answers?

I am a Clark County resident who recently spent some hours observing cases coming through local courts.

Two people illegally in the U.S. were caught selling drugs and deported in January. In March, they were once again illegally in the country, in Vancouver, selling drugs. (At least they’re getting caught.) They are charged and turned over to federal officers to be deported again. These criminals are on rubber bands, they bounce back here quickly and taxpayers are paying for their “travel.” Is anyone coordinating the tracking of this “rubber band” route?

On this last visit to court I observed the sentencing portion of criminals for embezzlement, multiple DUIs, stealing cars, domestic violence, and pedophiles. These offenders had pleaded guilty to their crimes. A repeat DUI offender got five years plus fines. Stealing cars was 25 years plus fines. The pedophile (two known victims) got five years. This man had also committed the same crime in Oregon. He was sentenced to 25 years there, but only five years in Washington for two victims.

How do we get the judicial system to deal with a pedophile in Washington state as strongly as it does a car thief? Has a person’s car become more important than a child?

Sharon Sue Geiger

Vancouver

Mistakes made by president

As costly as the oil spill may turn out, the response of President Obama to suspend drilling for oil in the Gulf of Mexico is a comparable colossal economic mistake. The action merely compounds the problem.

Consider the stupidity of closing down all of the nation’s airlines following the crash of just one airplane. How much longer will it take for Americans to discover just how truly inept this lightweight leader really is? This response to the oil crisis reveals just the latest in a long list of wrongheaded inadequacies of Barack Obama. God speed the year 2012 when we can hopefully replace him with someone capable of handling the job as president.

Elwood Bonner

Vancouver

Blame game at full play

I am so tired of everything being political and of always playing the blame game.

How is this oil spill President Obama’s fault? Was he in office when the permit was approved? Was he in office when the rig was built and corners were cut? Was he the one who lied about the ability to clean up a spill (a spill that we were told there was zero chance of even happening)? No. But he did send experts down there immediately to see what else needed to be done.

Now the Senate wants to raise the cleanup cap from $75 million to $10 billion (or remove the cap altogether) so that the American people don’t have to pay for this mess they didn’t create. But it only takes one senator to block this legislation. Let’s hope that BP is true to its word that Americans won’t have to pay a penny for the cleanup.

It seems to me that we could use our ire about this (and other issues) more productively if we worked together to solve the problems we face as a nation.

Caren Lorenz

Battle Ground

Support green energy

In the course of human history, great societies were unable to adapt to changing times, technologies and challenges. Those societies stepped aside or vanished, as others moved into their place of prominence. Like the old British Empire, we are being stymied by huge monopolies that use their wealth and influence to destroy competition and preserve their own position at the expense of the nation that nourished them, much as the East India Company and other Goliaths did to Great Britain.

We need to change and adapt or become a third-rate nation. On the dust heap of history, it was the vanishing buffalo and the failure of the Plains tribes to adapt to changing times. Today it is the source of oil that fuels our way of life, like the buffalo it is vanishing, so we need to adapt now.

Support green energy. It is not a slogan; it is a reality.

Chris Thompson

Ridgefield

Incompetence passes as standard

The unfortunate events at Arlington National Cemetery cause me to relay my own experiences. (June 11 story “Grave mistakes at Arlington: Civilian leaders to resign after Army finds that remains misplaced, misidentified.”) During my 22 years of active duty, I had many occasions to work directly with civil service employees.

I learned early on that the civil service was, in large part, a haven for the totally incompetent and lazy.

The fact that a civil service employee cannot be fired except under the most egregious circumstance only adds to the problem.

Kermit Baker

Battle Ground