EDITOR:

The last year I felt pummeled by the word ethics ie: Delta County Citizens for Ethical Leadership. Luckily, due to the fact that I was required to take 1.5 credits every two years on the topic of professional ethics to maintain my Wisconsin engineering license before I retired, I have been grounded in the concept. The term usually relates to the tenets of a professional society or governing body and the practice of those tenets.

The ethics case studies sometimes focus on an issue that involves loss of life as the possible result of an ethics tenets violation such as something like a bridge collapse or a balcony collapse. The analysis will look at the civil engineering code of ethics tenets for that violation if it exists. The death threats leveled at our Delta County commissioners lately is the closest thing I have seen that invoke that concept, but that appears to be from the side that is foisting the word ethics on the rest of us. The things that were said on Facebook in my opinion approach the definitions of hate speech and are nowhere close to any ethics tenet I have ever seen. The only violation of an ethical code that I have seen was demonstrated by the last county administrator violating I believe, three

tenets of ICMA’s tenets in her exiting remarks to the board, but I digress.

The real issue that prompted me to write this letter is the recent attack on Sema Deeds through Facebook. I met Sema and her husband Darrell a couple of years ago through the Republican party. What impressed me was their desire to work hard within the political system to make it function well, and I was pleased to see they had extensive constitutional knowledge. Semma is of Turkish descent and a naturalized citizen. She does speak with an accent, but our neighbors in Florida say that I do too. It is her understanding of our system of government that makes me think sometimes we should all be required to pass the U.S. naturalization exam to prove we are knowledgeable enough to exercise our rights as natural born citizens.

Semma’s family is from Turkey a NATO ally that has participated with the U.S. in many military missions over the years. Since much of my family is found in Finland, the family connection mentioned on face book only interests me through the beautiful pictures she has of her family as one drives through her home country.

The point I am making is if the Delta County Citizens for Ethical Leadership is not going to censure one of their members for the use of this type of rhetoric it only proves what I have always believed. The word ethics does not apply to what they stand for, and they really don’t understand the proper use of the concept.

Think about this in relation to the future of our county government.

Randy Scott

Bark River