LETTERS

— These rights already exist

Re the proposed amendment to the Arkansas Constitution to provide that Arkansas citizens have a right to hunt, fish, trap and harvest wildlife subject to regulations that promote wildlife conservation and management: A careful and skeptical reading of the proposed amendment shows that it really does only one thing. It grants to Arkansas government a sovereign immunity to suits in place of constitutional immunity.

We already have the right to hunt, fish, trap and harvest wildlife, and we have those rights without the baggage of promoting anything or managing anything. We are already constrained in what and how we hunt and fish by Amendment 35.

This proposed amendment does not alter Amendment 35, so our hunting and fishing rights still will be restricted and controlled by the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission. We will, I believe, still have the right to hunt and trap cockroaches and mice without interference from the commission. Whether we will still be able to hunt deer or turkey is not covered by this proposed amendment.

If an amendment is needed, then wording such as “the citizens of Arkansas have the right to hunt, fish, trap and harvest wildlife” should be sufficient. This proposal is a fraud and should be voted down.

Sieg heil, y’all RICK SCOTT Maumelle

Senator isn’t listening

Letter writer Sarah Erwin Lodge must have been asleep and having a dream about Blanche Lincoln having a listening ear for the citizens of Arkansas. According to polls, the majority of Arkansans did not want Obamacare, and Blanche did not listen.

The majority of Arkansans do not want record federal debt, and Blanche did not listen. The majority of Arkansans want a balanced federal budget, and Blanche did not listen. Blanche listening to Arkansans is a dream or a joke.

During the recent Democratic primary, Blanche ran one ad stating that she was the deciding vote for Obamacare. In another ad she stated that she was “independent” and had stood up to the Obama agenda. I suppose it depends on who Blanche is talking with who decides which side of an issue she is on.

I suggest that friends of Blanche donate to buy her a new pair of flipflops, since she has worn out her old pair.

DAVE GARRISON Camden

More gobbledygook

Re the letter from Steve Copley and cap-and-trade: Where do I start?

Interfaith Power and Light? Just another gobbledygook front organization that does not actually represent anyone other than its board members. (By the way, interfaithism is anathema per our articles of religion). Copley certainly does not represent me or many of those I know in the Methodist Church.

Global warming? Guess he hasn’t been keeping up with everyday stories. “[S]mall changes that add up to a big difference”? Poppycock. “Green” jobs? Another mind game. Current energy policy “represents a profound moral failure”? Let me ask Copley this: Did Christ rail against the Valley of Gehenna?

This all amounts to washing the outside of the pot while the food rots on the inside. Imagine that.

DON CARVER Little Rock

Attack national debt

It has become patently obvious that our elected representatives are quite incapable of restoring fiscal discipline to federal operations.

They have been unable or unwilling to address this crisis that has been smoldering for the last 30 years. If left unaddressed, it shall certainly spell doom for life as we know it. It is time that we begin taking matters into our own hands and force our public servants to live as they preach for us to live: within our means.

My first contribution toward this restoration of common sense, a proposed 28th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution [under which] Congress and the president of the United States shall approve a budget no later than three months prior to the end of the current fiscal year; said budget shall be balanced unless otherwise approved by three-fourths of the Congress and signed by the president; any surplus revenues produced at the end of the fiscal year shall be applied to the United States’ debt obligations or, in the event that no debt obligations exist, shall be returned to taxpayers in the form of a tax credit.

This amendment has been sent to Congressman John Boozman and Sen. Blanche Lincoln in the hopes that they will propose this to the Congress for its consideration. If you agree, please contact your representative and one or both of our senators and express your support for this amendment.

BRIAN FRENCH Hot Springs

Comments revealing

Paul J. Hansen Jr. of Sherwood wrote his observations and concerns about a woman smoker driving in front of him one morning. She could have been an administrator, cafeteria worker, librarian, maintenance worker or someone in a borrowed car, but he knew she was a teacher because of the license plate.

He pointed out the car had a Jesus fish with an eye cross. With that fact stated, he could now show her as a hypocrite. With his amazing vision, as he drove behind her, he noted that she took one last drag from her “coffin nail” and “belched out” smoke from her window.

While “coffin nail” is intended as pejorative slang, “belched out” is a consciously inaccurate choice of adjectives to describe a person exhaling. But it paints his picture. Then with his hawklike vision, as she pulls into the school grounds, he tells of her throwing her “lipstick-ringed butt” out of the window. And finally he wistfully imagines all the wonderful things he thinks students should be taught by her words that day instead of the example she sets by her actions.

To Hansen I say judge not that ye be not judged. Sir, we need not see your actions to know you. You have accomplished that with your words.

WILL COHEN Little Rock

Priorities disordered

Re Blanche Lincoln’s locking in funds for a summer feeding program: This whole idea makes me very angry.

Why do we need a summer feeding program? We prosecute people for starving their animals and we rescue animals from deplorable living conditions, so why is thereno law against parents and guardians starving their children on weekends and in the summer?

And why are children ignored who suffer filthy living conditions? We kill our children and protect our animals. Our culture is upside-down in morality.

JOAN YVONNE MILLER Scott

Diversions unwanted

Letter writer J.D. Finney recently blasted the Southern Baptist Convention because of its stance on openly gay people in the military. He added that Southern Baptists historically were racist, against women’s rights and desegregation.

Nonbelievers are always waiting for Christians to stumble and ready to pounce on them. I am a Christian and a military veteran. I am not only against gays in the military, but am against a gay lifestyle, period, because it is an abomination before God. It also is a distraction to our fighting men, who need to be concerned with roadside bombs and not being hit on by a homosexual.

I don’t judge anyone. God will do that. I am not for desegregation,either. It doesn’t work. How about getting the best teachers in inner-city schools instead of burdening the taxpayers with busing kids to those who are thought to be the best teachers? No Child Left Behind simply means you have to pass a student who isn’t ready to pass.

Why don’t we let military personnel vote on whether they want to serve with homosexuals? They are the ones it affects. I am for women’s rights. Liberals have turned our country into a sewer, and Barack Obama is proof that you shouldn’t vote for someone simply because of the color of his skin. God loves all.

MIKE JENKINS North Little Rock

Good deal possible

With yet another Republican, Joe Barton of Texas, being rebuked for speaking his mind, it becomes obvious that there is a double standard at work in political speech.

Apparently, Democrats can say anything they want about a Republican president, including calling him stupid, a liar and a murderer, and pretty much nothing happens. But if a Republican speaks his mind regarding the actions of a Democratic president, then all hell breaks loose and he is condemned and threatened with punishment, with much of the criticism coming from members of his own party.

That’s the part I don’t understand.

FRANK LATIMER Little Rock

Inconsistency noted

I would like to congratulate the Bayo Meto Water District on receiving enough money to begin large-scale progress on its plan. The district is an example of progress that can be made when water conservation, not water control, is what a plan is based on.

I thought district officials would like to know that there is an irrigation district with a set of pumps sitting in a warehouse in Memphis that would work nicely with their plan.

As soon as that irrigation district accepts the reality that it will not need those pumps, I bet officials there will give Bayou Meta a good deal on them.

NEAL GALLOWAY Stuttgart

Lincoln doesn’t care

An effort to extend benefits for the long-term unemployed stalled recently when the Senate voted 45-52to block passage, Arkansas’ Blanche Lincoln listed as not voting.

Well, I hope every unemployed Arkansan will put the “not caring” senator on the unemployment line in November. And to think she has the nerve to say she cares about Arkansas. What a joke.

EARLENE GALBRAITH Newport

Forethought lacking

Except for all the dithering, I see no real action on how to deal with the hurricane(s) coming, which will make our current mess seem trivial, spreading the oil far inland. There is no time to lose. Action must be taken now.

W.G. WELTER Eureka Springs

Feedback Boot camp for all

Gangs, drugs, theft, rape, obesity, truancy, school dropouts, teen-age pregnancy, divorce, poor work ethics, excessive prisons, gambling and excessive credit card debt are mostly due to the lack of discipline.

The answer: one year of Marine Corps-type discipline for everyone, no exceptions, when high school is complete. Dropouts would start training immediately and finish when those who had finished high school complete their training.

Relax. There is no hope of passing such a law. No politician would think of losing votes by proposing or voting for such an idea.

LAYTON JACKSON Fort Smith

Time to go home

Please refresh my memory: How many times have we taken Kandahar? Once should be enough.

Shouldn’t Hamid Karzai’s soldiers be able to hold it after we hand it to them on a greenback platter?

I believe we are flogging a dead mule over there and should pull out and come home.

WILLIAM McKINNEY Cleveland

Editorial, Pages 13 on 06/22/2010

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