Stand up or get out of the way
If our senators and representatives aren’t getting into good trouble right now and ensuring that Trump’s authoritarian agenda goes absolutely nowhere, then they are undeserving of their office. The cruelty will continue and people will die because of cuts to healthcare and social services, the quashing of dissent and the export of American weaponry to create the largest generation of child amputees in history in Gaza, according to the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
This regime is immoral. It is unethical. It is disgusting and un-American. It cannot be allowed to stand.
Our national elected officials should be raising hell on a daily basis, trying to protect what’s left of a potential democracy in this country before it’s lost for decades. But the fact that their names or faces rarely make an appearance in the news cycle is extraordinarily telling. They’re doing too little to fight back and, by embracing apathy in the face of fascism, proving that they’re nothing more than corporate mouthpieces and authoritarian appeasers. If they don’t have the courage to speak up, especially from a position of influence, then they should resign immediately, even though the realists among us know they likely aren’t going anywhere.
I sincerely hope there’s a shred of conscience in them and that they’ll step up in this important moment to be an actual fighter for all of us, especially those who are suffering the most, both here and overseas. And if they’re not willing to do that, then let’s hope that, if there are midterm elections in 2026, there are enough change makers who are brave enough to run.
– Sam Fogleman, Erie
Registries, restrictions are unconstitutional
I appreciate the honest reporting on the sex offender article (“Longmont weighs ‘arbitrary’ sex offender residency restrictions,” May 8). A perfect example of politicians not doing what’s best for their communities but instead what’s best for their political career.
People don’t realize that the Constitution exists to protect exactly the kind of rights that the Longmont council voted into law. You can’t punish people after the fact, you can’t impede on a persons’ right to travel and move about freely, and you can’t banish a group of people you don’t like from your town with policies that don’t work — even if it is in the name of “protecting children.”
There is, however, something in the article that I did want to bring your attention to. I’m sure you didn’t mean to write something untrue, but most things people assume about sex offenders registries aren’t true so the mistake is understandable.
You wrote: “Residency restrictions are definitely effective at one thing: banning registered sex offenders from certain neighborhoods.”
Residency restrictions ban people from sleeping in certain places; they don’t ban sex offenders from the entire neighborhoods. They’re residency restrictions, not “no-go zones.” They control where people reside.
Believe it or not, sex offenders have cars. Another fact that people don’t know: Sex offenders have their own children. Imagine the number of children in the country dealing with the ongoing, daily shame of having a parent on the sex offender registry.
Why do we always have to have a group of people to hate? We hate them so much that we even write laws making it legal to deny them their constitutional rights, put them on registries to publicly punish and shame, forcing them into homelessness and unemployment — for life!
I’m still waiting for one, just one journalist to ask this question: Do we really believe that putting people on a public list that shames and labels a person for life is protecting children from dangerous rapists? Of course we don’t!
We put dangerous people in prison, remember? Let the rest of us move on with our lives.
Unless of course you don’t mind a drunk driver registry. Get a DUI and get put on a list for life. We should probably protect our children from being killed by a drunk driver by knowing all the people in our neighborhood who have ever been drunk behind the wheel, right?
– Richard Seago, Albuquerque, New Mexico
Get to the root of the problem
I just read the sex offenders in Longmont article in the Weekly. I have a suggestion for another article: How about someone does a deep dive on how sex offender treatment is conducted?
I may be out of date on this, but both sex offenders and domestic violence perpetrators who are subject to court-ordered therapy are given shame-and-blame cognitive behavioral therapy. No wonder there’s so much recidivism.
In my opinion as a retired therapist, if you don’t get to the root cause and heal that, of course they will re-offend. To say sex offenders can’t be rehabilitated is true if you don’t use therapy that’s effective.
I have a colleague who used to see court-ordered domestic violence perpetrators. He was barred from using experiential therapies because the powers that be were too worried that these men getting in touch with their anger and rage would make them more angry and rageful. This is very short-sighted thinking.
I thought folks might want to understand this part of the equation.
– Kim Thomas, Boulder
Whip it good
It was amusing that your piece about the dangers of whippits (“The return of whippits,” May 22) — that is, nitrous oxide cartridges — abutted a frolicsome and glamorous full page liquor store advert.
While it’s true the potential harms of huffing laughing gas are real enough, frolicking in the creek with lovely Hazel when juiced up could also be fatal. Slippery when wet! As Devo sang in 1980, “When a problem comes along / You must whip it!”
– Earl Noe, Boulder