First off, Rich Elfers’ very valid point of conservatives wanting it both ways (“Ironies over individual rights,” published Sept. 15), i.e.; me refusing to wear a mask because it’s my body, putting any number of other citizens at risk of death, including myself, as opposed to a woman choosing to end an unwanted pregnancy because it’s her body, which they refer to as murder. By that reasoning, you are committing murder by giving the virus to someone who dies because you refuse to wear a mask.

Now, as unpleasantly surprised as I was by Dan Shannon’s column of last week (“A White Elephant problem,” published Sept. 8) I was pleasantly surprised by David Cannon’s column citing reasonable and mostly factual information regarding racism in our country.

One glaring omission was the fact that the Southern Democrats that he refers to multiple times as being the continuing cause of racism after the Civil War became Republicans after the Civil Rights Acts of the 60s and continued their racist ways up until and including today. You need not look any further than all of the racist and bigoted organizations in our country supporting and even running for political office in the Republican Party.

Moving on to all of the other wonderful letter writers, namely Peggy LovellFord (“Columnist fails to grapple with the complexity of immigration,” published Sept. 15), who responded to the half-truths and outright lies of Dan Shannon’s column of last week, and Mitchell F. Barker (Loving our country means loving each other,” published Sept. 15) which referenced a recent letter from local Jon Buss (yes, I responded to that one too).

Now regarding Elaine Biggerstaff’s letter, I too was pretty irate when I heard, some time ago, about the state possibly charging taxes on miles driven. We drive a hybrid vehicle and I at first thought we were being unduly penalized for trying to do the right thing for the environment. I soon realized, however, that once a majority of miles driven in our state are by hybrids or all-electric cars the state would be losing billions in gas taxes to maintain our roads and highways. Thus, the only other viable alternative, facing that eventual reality, is a mileage tax.

I shouldn’t fail to mention Harold Borland’s letter either, whom I agree with wholeheartedly (“A sad state of affairs,” published Sept. 15).

And, last but not least, another rant of half-truths and outright lies by Jon Buss (Not on Trump’s watch,” published Sept. 15), hopefully someone else will take him to the woodshed on this one as I have responded to him so may times in the past I think I’m going to pass on this one. And a big thanks to all of the readers who have responded favorably to my letters in the past, I hope to keep calling out falsehood and bigotry, thinly disguised as patriotism, for a very long time to come.

Larry Benson

Enumclaw