Trump needs to be held accountable, Noem needs to clarify stance on school choice: Your letters

Your letters to the editor for April 2:

Passover reverberates today more than ever

Passover starts on the evening of April 5. It is referred to as the “Time of Our Liberation” and commemorates the Exodus from Egyptian Slavery 3,335 years ago.

The holiday will be observed by the Jewish community gathering for traditional Seder dinners, eating matzah and retelling the story of the Exodus.

Today we are blessed to live in a free and open society, in the most benevolent country to have ever existed. You and I have never been trapped in Egypt. The harsh and cruel realities of slavery are something of the past. So other than continuing tradition, what practical relevance does this holiday have in 2023?

Every person encounters boundaries and limitations they’d rather not deal with. Whether it be financial stress, strained relationships, or personal insecurities holding us back from reaching our full potential. Far too often we feel trapped and despondent. Passover teaches us there is always a way out.

Some soul searching helps us realize that often we are the builders of our own barriers. If so, then it is up to us to liberate ourselves of our self-imposed limitations and boundaries.

Perhaps we are too wrapped up with ourselves and our own feelings and aspirations. The solution is to think of others and play a more active role in society. In Sioux Falls we have so many opportunities to engage with and help others.

This universal message of Passover reverberates today more than ever. We are blessed to live in a country and era of unprecedented freedoms and educational success, yet too many feel a lack of direction and purpose. Many young people feel trapped, and for me the results of a recent poll indicating that many feel money is a greater priority than basic values is an illustration of this problem.

To address these challenges, the Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Schneerson, taught that education should not be limited to preparing for a good career, but also emphasize the building of character, with emphasis on moral and ethical values. To live life with an awareness of the Creator and the fact that every action can positively impact our universe. This meditation allows us to be truly free and properly relive the Passover experience.

− Rabbi Mendel Alperowitz, the first and only rabbi to live in South Dakota in several decades, co-founder and director of the Chabad Jewish Center of South Dakota

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Gov. Noem needs to clarify her stance on school choice

Recently, yet another effort to gain state funding for Lakota immersion schools has failed despite strong evidence of the efficacy of language-immersion education for Native American students. It is the third time in five years, and yet, opponents are repeating the same concerns about funding and governance, and the same promises that they are working to support Indigenous students in public schools. Education is clearly a priority for Noem, just not for Native students. Indeed, just last April she demonstrated her commitment to educational issues by unilaterally passing by executive order what failed in the Senate Education committee: banning Critical Race Theory (CRT), which she understands to be "a distorted view of the U.S. and its institutions". However distortedly she uses the term, it is beside the more crucial point: Noem has made it clear that she is not willing to work with state lawmakers, educational leaders, and Tribal leadership despite the fact that education, notably "patriotic" education, is one of her primary agenda items. Additionally, she clearly does not trust locally-elected school boards to be able to handle questions of curriculum themselves. This can easily be interpreted as government overreach.Noem's commitment to harder state control of curriculum and her vague stance on school choice is a combination one that highlights what is really going on: Noem is not committed to freedom of choice for South Dakotans, but to a state monopoly of education. While many republican lawmakers across the country are supporting school choice, South Dakota remains one of five states that do not allow charter schools. Efforts to make schools more accountable to their population by enabling public funds to be diverted to alternative educational options has been embraced by Native communities as a pathway towards educational sovereignty. But as we know, Noem has little regard for Tribal Sovereignty or Tribal relations. By analyzing the same issue, however, we can also see that she has little regard for the freedom of educational choice, or for democratic norms and responsibilities in her govenring of South Dakota.Noem's "no" to Lakota immersion school is a "no" to school choice in South Dakota, just as her executive order is an autocratic tactic in a state that values local independence. It is time for Noem to clarify her stance on school choice. It will say a lot about her level of trust in South Dakotans to govern their local schools, and about her commitment to democratic norms.

− Gavin Furrey, Winner

I'm sick of Trump's lack of accountability

Much is being made of the potential arrest and/or indictment of former President Trump, which has taken center stage in the media and has given him precisely what he wanted, which is weeks of free media time. As a registered conservative, I am sick and tired of his antics and lack of accountability for anything he does.As usual, political commentators, GOP pundits, and radio talk-show hosts such as the no-longer credible Mark Levin will dispute the merits of this case. The usual Trump cheerleaders will claim this is all a political witch hunt. They will argue that this is nothing more than political expediency to discredit Trump prior to the upcoming presidential election. They will claim there is no basis for this case. They are all trying to deflect from the main point of emphasis. Donald Trump is a lifelong serial adulterer who has cheated on all three of his wives. In addition, he is an unethical businessman with four bankruptcy filings who has no ethical or moral standards of any kind. The bottom line, whether any of his devoted followers will admit it or not is pornography star Stormy Daniels was paid $130,000 and signed a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) in order to keep quiet about an affair she was having with him during the 2016 presidential election. It used to be the case that elected officials who had extramarital affairs were held accountable by the media and the voters, but unfortunately that is never the case with Trump and his devoted legion of followers. All is forgiven when it comes to Trump, who is always held to another set of standards. Trump is simply unworthy and unfit for the office of the presidency and should not even be considered for another term. It is long past due that this despicable human being be held accountable for his past behavior.

− Steven Heisinger, Sioux Falls

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'Truth in Sentencing' will bloat the state prison system

The Truth in Sentencing Act is not all it's cracked up to be. All it does is increase the amount of individuals brought into and held by the prison industrial complex.

As an inmate just released from the Florida Department of Corrections after serving 24 years, 85% of my sentence, and that amount of time was not commensurate with the crime committed.

All Florida's Truth in Sentencing policy did was bloat the prison system from 73,000 inmates when I first went into the FDOC in 2000 to over 100,000 inmates by 2010. It also bloated the FDOC budget to over $2.9 billion a year.

They ended up building prisons in almost every county in Florida as a result. South Dakota is on the wrong track with this new policy.

Not having any incentive to behave in prison creates a bitterness toward society and tendency to increase lawlessness and violence in prisons. Most states that implemented the truth in sentencing policies in the nineties saw the same results and rescinded those policies to a degree. This is an unfortunate decision by a state legislature that seemed to take common sense in consideration when making laws.

Walking this back and deeming certain aspects unconstitutional might be difficult. As an inmate before I, and others, hoped the law would change in order to give us a chance to prove we rehabilitated ourselves, since the state doesn't do so, and incentivise good behavior. Nothing happened though.I just wanted to voice my opinion and give a voice to those inside and what South Dakota has to look forward to in the years to come.

− Michael Gisi, Hosmer

How to submit a letter to the editor:

Letters need to be no more than about 300 words, and will need to include first and last name, address, city and title. Addresses won’t be publicized, of course, but it’s a way for us to make sure those who submit a letter are who they say they are.

Letters will run on Sundays in print and online as we receive them. There may be moments, however, when we don't have any as we work to solicit interest and actively rebuild this part of our coverage for readers.

You can submit those to News Director Shelly Conlon by emailing sconlon@argusleader.com or submit them through our online form here, which also is sent directly to the news director.

This article originally appeared on Sioux Falls Argus Leader: Trump needs to be held accountable, Noem needs to clarify stance on school choice: Your letters