LETTERS

LITTLE ROCK — Car dealers should collect taxFolks, we got trouble right here in River City, and that starts with T and that rhymes with P and that stands for paper license plates.

Am I the only one sick and tired of all these paper license plates, expired not by one or two days but one or two months, orcars with no license plates at all? It is not just used cars. I have seen expired paper plates on everything from 10-year-old cars to new Escalades and Mercedes-Benzes.

We all know the reason for these expired paper plates, or lack of. It is those folks who buy a vehicle and will not or cannot pay the sales tax. I have often pondered why car dealers are not required to collect the sales tax on cars when they sell them. Every other merchant who does business in Arkansas is required to collect a state, county or city sales tax, so why are the car dealers exempt from the same requirement? Can you imagine how our tax coffers would swell if these taxes were paid when they are due?

Requiring the car dealers to collect this sales tax is a win-win situation. If the person who purchases the car can pay the sales tax, the money will immediately go to the Department of Finance and Administration. If the car dealer finances the tax in with the car, again, the tax is paid immediately and the finance company is going to make a few more bucks on the finance charges for that tax.

Maybe I can't see the forest for the trees, or in this case paper license plates. Can someone please explain to me what I am missing in this picture?

DAVID CHANCE Little Rock

Wanted: Large trash bin

Well, Boobus Americanus, you now have what you so richly deserve: a chicken-hearted, do-nothing Congress afraid to take a principled stand, a know-nothing president whose greatest accomplishment has been to occasionally say "nuclear" correctly and a stop-at-nothing vice president whose Svengali-like machinations have brought forth a chorus of sycophants singing "The Battle Hymn of the Republic."

So what to do or not? Nothing? That probably would only lead to a fourth war in Iran. We are already engaged in a war on terror, one in Afghanistan and one in Iraq. So what if the Doomsday clock moves to about 30 seconds to midnight? Our Charlie McCarthy in the White House has assured everyone that preventing Iran from securing "nuculer" weapons even with the military option will prevent World War III. This was supported later by the veep in his imitation of Edgar Bergen. Why wouldn't he do so? They were his words to begin with.

Another choice is to throw out all the garbage and start over, beginning by insisting that everyone running for office will faithfully and fully support the Constitution of the United States and, if they fail to do so, throw them out or, if necessary, throw them in jail.

Of course, should this course of action be taken, it would be very difficult to find a trash bin to handle all the garbage. What do you think?

JOHN CHAPLIK Hot Springs Village

Wesley Clark is a pawn

Wesley Clark wants the whole world to know just how little common sense he possesses. Clark wants Rush Limbaugh taken off Armed Forces Radio because he said something about phony soldiers when talking to a caller on his radio program.

Rush was referring to this guy Jesse Macbeth and other phony soldiers. This guy claimed he was an Army Ranger who witnessed terrible atrocities by our troops in Iraq. Now we know that Macbeth was never in Iraq and he wasn't an Army Ranger. He has since been sentenced to five months in prison for lying to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

Limbaugh is very passionate about his support of our military men and women. He has visited our troops in Afghanistan, he has raised millions of dollars for the Wounded Warrior program and he has visited our soldiers in military hospitals on many occasions. Rush would never make a disparaging remark about our military personnel, and only an idiot would believe otherwise.

Clark has very little regard for . . . the damage his comments have on our war effort and very little regard for the damage his comments have on troop morale, which makes him a typical Democrat and a favorite pawn of the terrorist network.

FRED LEMON Cabot

Cut back immigration

Shortly after World War II started, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which authorized military authorities to exclude anyone from anywhere without trial or hearings, thus setting the stage for mass eviction, evacuation and incarceration of some 120,000 Japanese Americans from theWest Coast.

They were housed in temporary barracks built for Works Progress Administration laborers. For the most part, they were American citizens and had not committed any crimes, and their sons fought with the 442nd Regimental Combat Team in Italy.

Today we are at war with an enemy being dark-skinned, dark-eyed and darkhaired. We have some 12 million undocumented immigrants who fit that description, but nobody is talking mass evacuation or incarceration. President Bush, Ted Kennedy and our two Democratic senators want to make them legal.

Undocumented means you don't know what you've got, murderers, rapists or thieves. In fact, you don't even know what country they are from. But I do know they have a high birth rate that means several more million in a few years, which means a good, healthy redneck is going to be hard to find.

They are producing children, which by some stupid law makes [those born here] American citizens. Mother can now take her little American citizen and, being a single parent, can go to the welfare office and apply for all the free programs the taxpayers support.

I hope someday we cut down the amount of immigrants coming in before we become a Third World country.

JOHN FREY Berryville

Things a mayor can do

So the Little Rock mayor needs some duties. Suggestion: Put the mayor in charge of finding homes, medication, counseling and jobs for the homeless, and volunteers to drive them to AA meetings. What could be a better job? I suggest that Mayor Mike Bush of Hot Springs do the same.

How about a race to feed the homeless and house the homeless? Organize the banks and all corporate businesses. Get a coalition from each church; use their palatial buildings.

Yes, Little Rock and Hot Springs, there is lots to do, and this is the mayor's office, a full-time job, well needed. And the money he is paid will be well earned.

NANCY LAIDLAW Hot Springs

Nutt at heart of problem

Before we get excited about the 44-8 victory over Ole Miss, just check out the won-loss record of the teams we have beaten.

The most disheartening thing about this season is the amazing level of talent that is being wasted by our "junior high school" coach, Houston Nutt. I pray he doesn't destroy the careers of our NFLcaliber players (Darren McFadden, Felix Jones, Peyton Hillis) by his ego. Hey, Houston, the team concept also includes the coaches checking their egos to better the team.

Think Jeff Long will tolerate the soap opera carried on by Nutt and Teresa Prewett's childish antics? How old is this female? Did she realize she was e-mailing a kid in Mitch Mustain? My 9-year-old daughter doesn't text her li'l "boyfriend" as much as Houston did his friend.

ALAN DAUGHERTY Hot Springs

'School funding' a ploy

Dennis Bosch's letter indicates his belief that backward Arkansas' poor education performance is connected to having no state lottery. Bosch needs to do his homework.

The New York Times recently conducted a study of state lotteries and learned that those promised education dollars really didn't amount to much. Generally speaking, lottery money earmarked for schools in 23 states only paid out from less than 1 percent to 5 percent of the total revenue of these states' schools.

Not surprisingly, the study found that the bulk of the money from the lotteries is used to promote and perpetuate the lotteries. The Times learned that lotteries are one of the nation's largest marketers and that the big winners are actually the retailers who sell lottery products. Of the 42 states that have lotteries, nearly all have raised the amount of payout to winners and decreased the amount designated to programs such as college scholarships.

The ploy of school funding that got the lotteries in these states instituted in the first place turned out to be just that, a ploy. The money for schools either never materialized or decreased over the years with an accompanying drop in the state revenue funds previously designated for education.

If Arkansas wants to compromise its purpose of protecting the general welfare of its people by instituting a known vehicle, i.e., a lottery, for gambling addictions and other societal ills, don't do it under the guise of providing money for education.

C.M. SIGMON Rogers

Public history was taken

A thought comes to mind regarding the premise that papers should be public. Sandy Berger went into the National Archives and stole countless papers, stuffed them into his clothes and walked out with them. Some he [hid] at a construction site.

At this point, nobody had any idea what or how many of them were public property. All he got was a slap on the wrist. Berger stole some of history belonging to the people. To me that is more than very criminal. Did anybody else have something to do with this?

ROBERT W. VOGT Hot Springs

Tolerance isn't a virtue

"You can't judge others." "You shouldn't impose your religious views on anyone while serving in a public office." "Separation of church and state is in our constitution." "Christians are intolerant." "You can't pray in Jesus' name at high school football games." "Don't mix religion and politics." "Pastors need to only preach about the Bible and nothing else."

What's disappointing is that these statements are being made by Christians.Whose side are Christians on? They are the blood-bought saints of a living God. He called them to be bold, to be the salt and not be afraid. But there they sit, believing they are to turn the other cheek. That's true if you are being hurt, but not when your lord and savior is being mocked and scorned.

They hide behind nominal Christianity. They listen to what their itching ears want to hear. They need to wake up. According to a Christian Web site, California just passed a law that words like "mom" and "dad" are hurtful to gays, and supposed transgender children and teenagers can pick and choose what bathroom to use in the public schools. Eleven-year-old girls in [one public school in] Maine can get the pill without parental involvement, and the sex therapist on "The Factor" laughed about it. They forget that Jesus is narrowedminded, very intolerant and whipped the money changers.

The Lord's Prayer says his will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven. Whose will do these nominal Christians want to obey, God's or man's?

VANCE MARQUIS Jacksonville

Sympathy inconsistent

Who's heartless? Democrats and leftwing hacks like Bill Gwatney are, oh, so caring about children-unless they are unborn.

GREG MEDLOCK Sherwood

Feedback

No apology necessary

The recent furor over California Congressman Pete Stark's remarks about the war in Iraq is ludicrous, to say the least. Congressional Republicans want Stark to apologize and to be censured for disrespecting the president. Excuse me?

Has this president ever apologized for disrespecting Congress? Or the people of the United States? Has he ever shown any sign of regret over causing the deaths of over 100,000 innocent civilians? The death of some 4,000 and the permanent disability of tens of thousands of our own soldiers?

Surely the U.S. Congress has better ways to waste its time than clamoring for the humiliation of a lone member whose only crime was to say aloud what so many of us have been thinking.

JOHN C. EBBING Harriet

Senate plan backfired

I called Sen. Blanche Lincoln's office and asked her aide if she had signed Sen. Harry Reid's letter censuring a private citizen (actually trying to get his employer to muzzle his comments). The aide said she had, indeed, signed the letter.

Not only did the letter backfire on the Senate leader, but we can thank Lincoln and the 40 other Democratic senators who signed for raising over $4 million for the Marine Corps' Law Enforcement Foundation. I hope this doesn't become a campaign issue for Lincoln.

HARVEY HJELM Hot Springs Village