To the editor -- I have some questions about the fireworks ban. Should it apply to everyone? Whose independence are we celebrating? Does a ban violate our rights as a people?
As I see it, the whole idea is to celebrate Independence Day. It is the only time of the year people gather together as a free, independent people. I don't believe nontribal people should be punished for celebrating the Fourth of July with fireworks in a designated area.
I have been in the fireworks business for 20 years. We have always provided a place for people, both enrolled tribal members and nontribal members, to shoot off fireworks on our property at 16th and Gilbert. As stand owners, our responsibility is to educate the public about fireworks safety. We attend a meeting every year to get our permit to sell Class C fireworks. We understand the dangers at hand.
The June 28 article said fireworks are permitted in the Yakama Nation, "but not on private lands within the reservation. Under a strict reading of the county fireworks ordinance, only Yakama tribal members are allowed to possess or discharge fireworks on the reservation."
I think this discriminates against people who just want to celebrate.
MELISSA M. PEALL
Union Gap
Popular sovereignty
To the editor -- Those of us who are sick and tired of how politicians are running our country will begin the moral and solemn process of holding our (servant) government accountable to the Constitution -- under threat of withdrawal of allegiance, support and tax money.
On June 30, approximately 1,200 citizens began exercising a profound, but little-known, 800-year-old right first articulated in the Magna Carta by formally serving a "legal notice and demand" for redress of grievances upon the president, attorney general and every member of Congress.
Academic research since 1986 makes clear this right is not a redundant statement of the right of speech. It is the individual exercise of popular sovereignty. The first Congress wrote:
"If money is wanted by Rulers who have in any manner oppressed the People, they may retain it until their grievances are redressed, and thus peaceably procure relief, without trusting to despised petitions or disturbing the public tranquility." (Journals of the Continental Congress, 1:105-113)
The notice includes seven petitions regarding substantial constitutional violations, including the war, money, privacy, arms and tax clauses.
If liberty and constitutional order are to survive peacefully, it is imperative people learn about and exercise the unalienable right of redress.
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