Guidance of common law should prevail in Alaska
Weighing in on the Discreet Deliveries controversy, the common law developed over centuries, wrests protections for individual rights from governments. Alaskan law is based on common law. Under common law, a crime has two elements: injury and intent. To be arrested for a crime, you must cause an injury and intend that injury. In these twilight days between passage of the pot initiative and implementation of the law, Alaskans should adhere to the common law. Is Discreet Deliveries causing or intending any harm or injury?
No. No injury, no crime. Leave the businessman alone.
As a side note: Alaska's economy and tax base needs to diversify from oil. Cannabis will provide desperately needed tax revenues to our state. When implementation of the cannabis law begins, this pioneering businessman will be filling Alaska state coffers with no delay because he's already in operation. He may even choose to pay retroactive taxes.
— Lindianne Sarno
Homer
Secrecy shuts public out
When I was a kid in school we were taught that citizens are the prime stakeholders in the governance of the state. We all share the fiscal burdens, and our government is the way we attend to and maintain these tasks. From the get-go, we put trust in our chosen leaders to follow the policies and guidelines established and approved by us stakeholders via our representatives. When our chosen leadership imposes secrecy on each other to exclude other leaders and the stakeholders, isn't that comparable to a illegal takeover of our government process. A little reminiscent of the Frank Murkowski days, would you say?
— Pat Wendt
Soldotna
Whered sin tax money go?
I see Anchorage wants another sin tax on alcohol. I would like to know where all the other sin tax money went? Alaska ranks near the top of alcohol tax rates in the country.
— James Christenson
Willow
Depictions not as barbaric as killing in name of God
Some, especially Muslims, but also others, are concerned that a few lines on paper — said to depict the Prophet Muhammad — are offensive to many Muslims and should not be published. These lines on paper are thought by some to be blasphemous and, presumably, against the wishes of God, or Allah, or whatever name one wants to use for The Almighty.
How much more blasphemous — compared to a few lines on paper said to "depict" the Prophet Mohammed — must it then be for those offended to presume to know the mind of God? How much more blasphemous is it for those who are offended by killing in the name of God?
No, the only answer to such people is to flood them with depictions of the Prophet Mohammed so they become desensitized to such depictions.
(:-) There, that's a depiction of the Prophet Muhammad. So sue me.
I have high respect for religion, including Islam. And certainly think no one should be forced to create such depictions, nor to look at them).
But to force others not to create such depictions — at pain of death — is not religion, but barbarism.
— Rick Wicks
Anchorage
Unpopular opinions should not get Americans fired
ADN ran commentaries Jan. 9 about how democracies must rally to the defense of free speech after the attack in France on Charlie Hebdo because of the publication's cartoons about Islam.
On the same day, Christianity Today published an online article stating that Kelvin Cochran, fire chief of Atlanta, was fired because he published a religious book with a perspective on homosexuality that the mayor called inconsistent with the city's work as a welcoming place.
In 2014, Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich was ousted — for what? Donating $1,000 to a winning democratic political proposition campaign in which California voters tried to define marriage in their state. In both cases the only offenses were having an opinion and publicly expressing it.
We should all be concerned when people are fired not for work-related actions, but for expressing personal opinions in their off-work lives. Free speech issues are not just something faced "over there" in Europe.
They are also a pressing domestic issue. Can we all commit to defending the rights of Americans to have unpopular opinions including opinions we find distasteful? Isn't that what tolerance is all about?
— Ruth Poglitsh
Wasilla
The views expressed here are the writers' own and are not necessarily endorsed by Alaska Dispatch News, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a letter for consideration, email letters@alaskadispatch.com, or click here to submit via any web browser. Submitting a letter to the editor constitutes granting permission for it to be edited for clarity, accuracy and brevity. Send longer works of opinion to commentary@alaskadispatch.com.