Letters to the editor for March 8

For safety’s sake

For safety’s sake, a new Thurston County courthouse is needed.

After my experience as a juror in a criminal trial, I dread receiving another jury summons. I am willing to again perform the civic duty of juror, but I don’t want to go through the feelings of insecurity I experienced in the current overcrowded and outdated courthouse. Jurors, defendants, plaintiffs, judges, attorneys, court reporters, bailiffs, law enforcement, observers, and witnesses moved within arms’ length of each other in the crowded hallways. Everyone was within earshot of everyone else. This makes for a risky situation where people feel threatened, intimidated, and unsafe.

The space constraints of the current courthouse are so limited that when the jury was sequestered for meals and deliberation, there wasn’t even room for us all to sit comfortably in the small room in which we were held.

A new courthouse at the proposed Plum Street location near downtown Olympia would alleviate these problems, as well as many other issues, including inadequate technology infrastructure. With the Legislature giving the county the ability to amortize the bond over 25 years instead of the usual state limit of 9 years, the cost of a new courthouse would be spread over a much longer period of time.

It is estimated that the tax levied on a $300,000 home would be about $12 a month. I believe that passing such a modest tax rate would be well worth the improved safety and security it would provide for everyone using the county courthouse.

The demise of decency and democracy

Since the advent of the Trump regime, I have been haunted by these words of Voltaire: “Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.” From the outset, Trump has replaced fact and truth with illusions and outright lies. As a result, we have traveled deep into the abyss of despotism over the last three years.

Until recently, a central tenet of our democracy has been the belief that we had a built-in safeguard of checks and balances to curtail an autocracy by the executive branch. With the moral collapse of the craven Republican Senate, and now with only sycophants as advisers, these guardrails have vanished.

Every time I see a Trump rally, I am reminded of the precipice on which we teeter. More than a third of our populace (the Trump base) believes Trump’s absurd claims. And, with the anti-democratic Electoral College, this minority may well keep Trump in power by nullifying a popular vote against him.

The specter of atrocity can easily be seen in two key administration figures, Attorney General Bill Barr and immigration adviser Stephen Miller. Barr is currently turning the Department of Justice into a personal political police force for Trump. And God only knows what the overtly racist Miller will come up with next. He has already facilitated the atrocity of separating migrant children from their parents and putting them in cages.

So, it seems to me that there are dark days ahead for decency and democracy in our country.