Your letters to the editor for June 16, 2024:

Vote for the platform, not a pretty face

I am a liberal, United States Air Force Retired Veteran, believing in equal rights for all. All means Lesbian, Gay, Bi-, Trans, neither or both, blue, black, green, white or brown. There should be laws against businesses that refuse to serve gay customers.

As a democrat I support our government giving greater importance to equality and supporting laws and programs to enforce equality for all, and improve social and community life. We do not need a Republican government that wants to make corporations bigger, and shut down or reduce government agencies and programs like, HUD, and SNAP, or end social security and social programs our people need. We need to expand those programs to take care of the citizens of this country, not curtail them.

I believe that this country should be everyone’s country—- we should not have the right to exclude any law-abiding citizen from coming here: I believe in increasing quotas for immigrants, and giving amnesty to everyone here who is not a criminal.

I believe in a one payer health system, ie, Medicare for everyone. The Affordable Care Act was the first step in providing Universal Health Care. The opposing party should work with us to improve upon the Act, not try to dismantle it. After all, universal health care would be enjoyed by the families and children of every American.

I believe no one should tell a woman what to do with her own body. Freedom of choice must be here to stay. As a Democrat I support abortion rights and to keep elective abortions legal. No one should have to go to another state to save her life from a risky pregnancy, or from rape or incest or any other reason the owner of that body decides.

I believe Medical Marijuana should be approved in all 50 states to help control the pain for our cancer ridden children, and the rest of us suffering from intense pain, glaucoma, PTSD, and many other illnesses. Marijuana across the board should be legalized and controlled just like alcohol. As a first step, marijuana should be decriminalized immediately in all states and reduced to a fine just like a speeding fine or DUI. Many counties and states have already taken first steps in this regard.

Social security and disability, veterans benefits, food stamps, HUD controlled housing and allowances, and shelters and food for our homeless should be increased, not curtailed like the Republican party insists on doing.

How many more people must die at the hands of lunatics owning guns? Do Republicans love the 2nd Amendment so much that they want to walk into Walmart and face an angry customer who pulls out his gun and starts shooting? I do not want to even ride in the car with someone who keeps a weapon under his front seat. We have an active military and the Reserves and the Guard, and the police department to protect us. We do not need a gun loving, egotistical, macho nutcase carrying a gun in public period. Repeal the 2nd Amendment now!

We need our Party to stand up for increasing taxes on the rich and corporations to sustain our health care system, and to improve our decaying infrastructure. Higher income workers and corporations should pay taxes at higher rates to help support our social programs, help keep our environment under control and our people fed.

I support raising the minimum wage to help keep workers from slipping below the poverty line, and to allow those people to put that same money back into society. Republicans oppose raising the wages because once again. they are more concerned with hurting businesses rather than helping the worker.

I believe prostitution should be legalized in our country like it is in Germany, Holland, and many other countries around the world. This would provide a safe working environment for women or men who either must, or want to work in the oldest profession, to care for their children or for whatever reason they choose. Legal prostitution would end the in and out of jail baloney for both workers and customers, and save on associated legal costs. Workers would be given health cards and free screenings on a monthly basis. Men and women will always seek these services, that will never stop. If we are liberals in politics, we must be liberal in reality also.

Instead of spending billions chasing fictitious weapons of mass destruction, occupying countries and playing the big bully, America should spend our tax money on health care, education, and on research for cures for cancer and other deadly diseases. Big business and corporations should be made to pay more for these programs, not the middle class. Private industry needs to be regulated and work in tandem with the Federal Government to provide for the well being of America.

I may have a bleeding heart but I believe in humanity. Plain and simple.

…..SOME ONE RECENTLY SAID TO ME” I really don’t like either of those guys running for President.”. Jeez, I privately freak out when I hear that. This is why I am a Yellow Dog, I would vote for a purple moose or yellow dog before I ever vote Republican.

This is why I vote for the Democratic party/ I vote for the platform and the beliefs, not a pretty face or male or female, or younger or older.

We want something beneficial for the people, passed in the Senate, the House, and sent to someone in the Oval Office who will sign the bill, plain and simple!!

−Jim Grant, Sioux Falls

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South Dakota is no longer insulated from craziness ‘out there’

It’s happened. We’ve had honest-to-God real Nazis assembling on the steps of the State Capitol Building in Pierre and parading down Deadwood’s Main Street behind flags displaying the swastika. Too many times we South Dakotans feel that somehow we are insulated from all the craziness “out there.” With today’s technology, media communications, transportation, and commerce there is no more “out there.” It is all “here.” We have to deal with the same cowardly scum as New York, California, and the other more populous states. We do so by saying loudly in our daily interactions and politics that there is no place for this in our country and our state. And just to review a bit of history, this trash is of the same ilk as those who marched by torchlight in Charlottesville in 2017, chanting “Jews will not replace us”, and who were referred to by Donald Trump as “very fine people.”

− Bob Wilson, Spearfish

Where’s the coverage of leaving primaries as they are?

I don’t know if a logical person would agree with the article printed in the Saturday, June 8, 2024, but I certainly have some concerns about the reasoning used by its author. It would seem, from the article, that there is a dollar amount after which the value of what an election tells us is actually valid. It would appear the writer doesn’t think that if only the voters who care enough about choices on the ballots to actually show up to vote, then somehow the “will of the people” won’t be realized.Since when is it an obligation of eligible voters to vote? One would think they would want to, but it certainly isn’t an obligation. County and state authorities are constitutionally bound to put on elections and I believe those same constitutions outline their obligations for the states to have elections, and the rules under which those same elections are conducted. It has always been up to the registered voter whether or not they CHOOSE to exercise the right those founding documents provide them.The article appears to be a propaganda piece in favor of open primaries. I thought elections were intended to be a venue for voters to cast their ballots for the candidate or issue they favored. Open primaries merely serve to give the opposing party the opportunity to vote AGAINST a candidate from an opposing party that they would prefer to not be on the ballot against their candidate the following November, to give the candidate from their party a better chance of prevailing in the general.Nice try, Democrats. I must commend you. You seem to be persistent in demanding you be given the power to put your thumb on the scale during elections in yet another way. Perhaps you should concentrate on nurturing candidates that resonate enough with the general electorate that they can prevail of their own accord at the general on the issues with coalitions of voters spanning both parties.They have had a few party members who were able to accomplish that in the past with Tom Daschle and Stephanie Herseth. Perhaps their energies are better expended in finding and supporting good candidates in their own parties to the point that their party will have a primary themselves and they can pick the best of their ideology to carry their standard at the general.That is how it is intended. If people aren’t moved by their message and don’t care to vote in their party’s primary, it is a reflection on the strength and support for their message, not a condemnation of the rules that apply to the current primary voting situation.Why is it we never see articles that promote the logic of leaving primary elections as they are. They are a function of the party and a party’s primary should be open to only those voters registered to vote in said party.

− Randy Amundson, Sioux Falls

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Hereseth Sandlin should return to political office

I am a South Dakota Democrat who has voted across lines before. I would like to urge Stephanie Herseth Sandlin to consider political office again. I would not assume to know which would be the best place for her to serve the people of South Dakota, but feel she can make a difference. The Democratic party in South Dakota needs big name talent. Stephanie can deliver that. She has valuable experience from her time in the US House. Agricultural, banking, etc. Now she has been head of a prestigious private university. Education is paramount to the success of our young people. She has what the times need.

− Robert Budahl, Sioux Falls

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This article originally appeared on Sioux Falls Argus Leader: SD no longer insulated; Primaries should stay as they are: Your letters