Letters to the editor for Friday, Dec. 4, 2015

Yes, leaders should be held accountable

In “Take me to your leader” in the Nov. 29 Appeal, John Barrette suggests political officeholders shouldn’t be accountable to their constituents: Their “decisions aren’t just black or white ... they usually deal with shades of grey ...” Barrette enlists Edmund Burke in pointing out “the unchangeable underpinning of a civil society in which elected officials must assess competing views and interests.”

Does Barrette intend this to apply to Republican-in-name-only state legislators who got a well-deserved back blast for voting in favor of Sandoval’s job-killing tax increases last session? Regarding “competing views and interests,” for example, the destructiveness of the Commerce Tax is “black or white,” as much as some would like to make it a “shade of grey.” The tax-hike votes were lined up when Sandoval’s cronies interfered with the legislative leadership selection process.

Republicans who voted to raise taxes committed a premeditated fraud on their constituents. Promising to support lower taxes and smaller government is what elects Republican candidates. Period. Barrette’s pseudo intellectual rationalizations are unlikely to quiet the protests of the contributors, precinct walkers, letter writers, and voters who were cheated into helping elect these liars.

Marshall Goldy

Gardnerville