Vote Simmons
To the editor:
Let’s face it- smart, resilient and compassionate politicians like Rep. Tarra Simmons just don’t come along that often. She’s a true role model to women overcoming adversity; an example that’s especially needed at a time when the power-hungry religious right is ignoring the Separation of Church & State as they roll back the clock on progress that women and BIPOC communities have gained over the past 50 years.
It’s mind-boggling that “the other Washington” hasn’t yet ratified the Woman’s Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and shocking that Roe v. Wade was overturned by extremist Supreme Court justices. Crazy times progressive women never imagined.
So in times like these, I’m glad that we have a deeply caring woman like Simmons serving all of us in Olympia as the vice chair of the Civil Rights and Judiciary Committee, and as a member of the Health Care and Wellness Committee.
She works tirelessly addressing the rising homeless issues, fighting for the importance of healthcare as well as mental healthcare, and standing up for Civil Rights. She also cares about our atmosphere, our waters, and our carbon-sequestering forests, understanding the massive ecological threat of climate change to the planet and our future.
Those are the reasons why I support Simmons to serve a second term as our 23rd Legislative District representative. If you listen to your heart as well as your brain, voting for her is simply the right thing to do.
Cara Cruickshank
Indianola
Social contract
To the editor:
I found columnist Tom Tyner’s (8-26) reflection, comparing well-regulated traffic lanes to Rousseau’s “Social Contract,” interesting because I too was thinking of Rousseau — but that was Jan. 6, 2021.
Rousseau’s Social Contract is an agreement between members of a civic society and its ruler that defines the rights and duties and limits of each based on a utopian General Will, and undefined concepts of liberty and independence.
Rousseau writes: “Each of us puts his person and all his powers in common under the supreme direction of the General Will.” Rousseau expected civil society to be obedient to the collective virtues, morals and values of the General Will. He wrote: “The General Will is always right … whoever refuses to obey the General Will shall be compelled by the whole body.” Thus, the Social Contract, depending on its interpretation, could lead to a totalitarian left- or right-wing dictatorship or an Athenian-type direct democracy.
The General Will argument was used during the French Revolution’s Reign of Terror to justify the killings and that is what I thought of during Jan. 6, the General Will in action.
And, Rousseau is still on my mind when I read or hear about the stolen election or the “Covid Hoax” because Rousseau questioned the reliance of truth based on reason that the Enlightenment philosophers embraced. He championed feelings, sentiment, intuition and the irrational as the ultimate truth. He wrote: “What I feel is right, is right. What I feel is wrong, is wrong.” How contemporary a belief among some 250 years later…
James Behrend
Bainbridge Island
