LETTERS

LITTLE ROCK — Readers get the message

OK, OK, OK. We get it. The subscribers and occasional readers of this, the only daily statewide newspaper in Arkansas, get the message loud and clear. The publisher and editorialists do not like the health care reform law.

We also understand that the majority of Americans don’t like it, either. At least that is how y’all tell it. We get a clear picture that death threats, spitting on Congress members and hurling racial slurs are a norm for a majority of the citizenry. We get it. Most Americans are punks. While most Americans claim to be Christians, we as a majority would rather spoon-feed millions of dollars into the bellies of CEOs than take care the folks who are having a difficult time making a go of it. Here’s a tip o’ the hat to “In God We Trust.”

Some of us, now certainly not me, might be a little skeptical about the tea party. It might seem odd to a few folks that only Republicans running for office or FOX pundits appear before this esteemed group.

A very small minority of Americans might remember that Republicans have opposed Social Security, rural electrification, Medicare for the elderly and civil rights-with the exception of Dixiecrats, who later switched parties. Minimum wage was opposed, too.

We get it. CEOs are really groovy people and it is our patriotic duty to help them reach their fullest potential.

STEVE WALLACE Little Rock

This act will work, too

In 1935, Congress enacted Social Security. This was done despite the fanatical attempt by the Republicans and their fascist corporate masters to condemn it as socialism, un-American, the destruction of democracy and even worse. They were wrong and the end result has been tens of millions of elderly Americans living a more secure life.

In 1965, Medicare was passed despite the same tirade and basically the same words used by the same type of people against this act that allowed people over 65 to acquire health care unavailable to most of them prior to that time.

Now Congress, without a single Republican vote, passed a national health care act that will benefit over 95 percent of the American people. Again this was done despite rabid and fanatical screeching by the same type who opposed the other two, but with racism, sexism and bigotry added due to the successful passage being done under the watch of our first African American president and female speaker of the House.

I fully expected the negativism, specifically from the brainwashed ditto-heads whose major source of information is from well paid corporate propagandists such as Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin, but any normal person benefiting from or who has had a family member benefit from either of the other alleged socialist programs opposing this next step is either foolish or a hypocrite.

LEW HUDDLESTON Pea Ridge

View was one-sided

The viewpoint of the Kansas City Star editorial, “Clean up the tea party,” recently on your Editorial page, was rather pointedly one-sided.

I don’t support threats or intimidation of any kind to make a point or display opposing views. That said, I don’t suppose the Kansas City Star has noted some of the threatening behavior shown to Sarah Palin, George W. Bush, Eric Cantor or tea-partiers by the Service Employees International Union.

I do believe the drive-by media are frightened by citizens who are finally waking up, asking questions they should have been asking and being a presence again in public meetings in the city and state and on the national scene. We are writing letters, calling, blogging, texting and going on Facebook in an effort to inform and engage people. Many of us are confronting what we see as bloated and fiscally irresponsible government.

I am one of the founders of the Faulkner County tea party in Conway. We gather to learn how to be better informed citizenry, promote fiscal responsibility and constitutional governing. We are not interested in violence or intimidation of anyone. We are interested in making our voices heard. There is so much to do and so much at stake.

JANET CROW Conway

Live less frantically

Re Helen Sinclair’s letter, “Learn to slow down”: I must say hooray for speaking out about the expertise of older Americans behind the wheel.

I’m offering a seminar on just this subject, “Peaceful, Aware Driving.” I contend that there is no way to be safe on the roads while whizzing along with our minds on everything but the road and others’ well-being driving along with us.

Also, many young ones passing me traveling at a safe speed whirl around me with just inches to clear my back bumper. I know none of these wellmeaning yet unnecessarily hurried ones intends any harm to me, they just aren’t paying attention. I believe there’s a great need to go back to the 55-mph limit that was instituted years ago for energy conservation. This time it’s so we can slow down and live less hectically.

I suggest that one way to slow down in increments is to fully stop at stop signs and red lights with a moment for a breath of fresh air, gazing at a cloud, listening to a few notes or words from an inspiring song or even uttering a silent prayer of kindness.

We also could practice getting our heads together before we exit the front door and cease hopping immediately on the cell phone. Finally, we could be cordial to our fellow travelers and toot to let them on the freeway and stay off their bumpers.

TRUE ALISANDRE Little Rock

Position understood

Sen. Blanche Lincoln stated that she works for no party. I guess I have been misled all these years. I really thought she was a Democrat. However, after Vice President Joe Biden dropping the F bomb, setting a wonderful example for our children; President Obama’s health care law; Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama’s pastor for 20 years, preaching his hate-America sermons; and the blood left by Bill Ayers, you can understand why she doesn’t want to be a Democrat.

BILLY J. BURKE Hope

Speed up the process

I think there should be a law that sex offenders who abuse and kill should get the death sentence, and when they are on Death Row, they don’t sit there 10 to 20 years. They didn’t give their victims a chance.

KATIE McDONALD Bearden

Term seems correct

Re the recent letter from Bill Buford of North Little Rock: I understand that some people don’t care for the term “retarded,” but what does that mean? By Webster’s, it means slowed or limited in intellectual or emotional development. Seems spot-on to me.

Why does everybody have to start tiptoeing around words because someone doesn’t like it? Heck, let’s start calling short people “vertically challenged” or bald people “follicledeficient.”

Maybe we could come up with these fancy terms for everybody so nobody has to feel bad or want to change himself for the better.

NIKKY RINDES White Hall

Information overload

The next bill the Democrats will offer up is that everybody who dies should goes to Heaven. The Bible is too discriminating. Murderers, thieves, rapists and terrorists should not be denied access to Heaven because most have been born and raised poor.

The Republicans will vote against it because it will cost too much. They will offer an amendment that makes it illegal for anyone to die because they will need the poor to continue to paytaxes so the rich can continue to live lavishly.

The Democrats will amend the bill to require that the rich people should all die and go to Hell so they can no longer steal from the poor. Meanwhile, the tea-partiers will be demonstrating, holding up signs saying all officeholders should die and go to Hell. Their position is who needs government anyway, given the mess it has gotten us in to.

My definitive position is that I am probably with them, I think. I’m not rich or poor, a criminal or a politician, but a very confused citizen. There is just too much information to deal with. There is one thing I can say with certainty: My patience is wearing thin. I don’t know how much longer I can wait on utopia. Promises, promises.

E.T. GREEN Little Rock

Cost will always rise

The Republican Party said no to Social Security, no to civil rights and no to Medicare, and now it is saying no to health care reform. Republicans, along with their attack-dog group, the tea-party movement, are demanding lawsuits and state attorney general’s opinions as well as saying things like the new health care law is an infringement against states’ rights.

For those less fortunate than them-people with pre-existing conditions, people without employer-based coverage, uninsured children, sick Americans who could’ve had their coverage dropped, young adults who can now stay on parents’ insurance until age 26 and receive other benefits-I and many others ask: What would Jesus do?

Government costs will be with the country as long as the country exists. Our grand- and great-grandchildren will add to the cost to run the country when we are all dead and gone, but they will look back and build on what this great country has done for all Americans, especially those less fortunate than ourselves. Jesus said something like what you do for the lesser of these, you do also for him.

SHIRLEY M. HARVELL Forrest City

Election is the answer

The health care law must be terribly good. It is just such an honor for the president of the United States and Congress to win the praise of Fidel Castro. If it were possible, Marx, Lenin and Stalin would be high-fiving, dousing each other with vodka and doing the Cossack dance amid the fires of Hell.

Barack Obama, the arrogant peacock and socialist, with the help of his Senate and House bootlicks, is doing what the Communist U.S.S.R., and earlier the combined efforts of Imperial Japan, Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, could not accomplish. He is bringing the most powerful nation in the history of the world to its knees.

This control freak is closer to becoming a dictator than any of us might want to think. He disregards the Constitution, bypasses normal procedures and now is trying to cozy up to our military. If we don’t vote all of his stooges out of Congress, the free America that most of us love is a goner. The answer to the problem is in the general election, not the Democratic primary. There is no sense in replacing something bad with something just as bad or worse.

JACK MAYBERRY Sheridan

Feedback Cartoon excessive

Holy smokes, the tea-party people are depicted in Clay Bennett’s editorial cartoon as a murderous character from a horror movie, complete with goalie mask and bloody knife.

I think he doth protest too much. He must really be afraid of the tea parties to resort to an image like this. Hey, Bennett, other people have read Saul Alinsky’s rules and are fully aware of the tactic of isolating and demonizing a target.

The tea parties may prove too large a target for the likes of Bennett to destroy.

BRENT BAILEY Ward

Expand editorials

There are many reasons to buy this newspaper, but one of the best reasons is the Editorial page.

I may not always agree with the conclusions, but the concise, factual approach to problems affecting all of us is indisputable.

The Democrat-Gazette should expand the Editorial page into areas of investigative journalism on topics covered in the editorials. Speaking out with factual comments has a way to clear the smoke-and-mirrors effect used by many public servants.

DOUGLAS MOECK Little Rock