Dear Editor,

I do not usually react to those persons who have an opinion about my opinion because that is what it is and everyone is entitled to an opinion, and we also can agree to disagree. But it is clear to me and to those people who called me concerning Happy Lyn's reaction to my letter stating that Happy Lyn did not understand where I was coming from.

Has Happy Lyn ever heard people here say to one the other: "If you do that to yourself, what would you do to me?" So why would Happy Lyn think that if human beings can do that (boxing) to themselves why would they not do likewise with animals.

Again there is always money to be made, whether by gambling or organizing. Happy Lyn also disagreed with me but agreed that what I mentioned was true. (The fate of the retired animal is not pretty, documented evidence of abuse to make them go faster).

Again, I will say like I always do, decisions are difficult to be made because we do not want to step on toes.

Talking about stepping on toes, it seemed like I did that by telling my Minister that I do not want him cleaning up people's litter. There are many other ways of leading by example and in my weird opinion, I decided that this is not the way, I who have served and protected for years right here on St. Maarten, and in doing so have delved in all kinds of whatever you want to call it, want my Ministers to lead by example.

If by voicing my opinion where I want to is so offensive to whomever, that that makes me weird then we should check to see if or where the law on freedom of opinion states where and when one can voice one's opinion.

If my memory serves me well, there was once a comment quoted that people became teachers when they could not find anything else to do. And at that time I asked myself, does that person who repeated that quote have children and if so does he send them to school or does he home school them? At that time I thought that was weird. Makes me think of the saying "It takes one to know one." But in this case birds of a feather do not flock together.

I do not wait to get you one day. And I help to solve problems not cause them or provoke them. Voicing one's opinion in a straightforward way without being offensive should be the way to go.

Russell A. Simmons