LETTERS

LITTLE ROCK — It doesn’t make sense

Some things are absolutely moronic.

Because of concerns about carbon dioxide emissions, we have a policy that relies on Middle East drilling, which still shoots carbon dioxide emissions into the air. This policy is somehow considered better for the global environment than doing the same thing here. How does that make sense? When you factor in the environmental impact added by huge numbers of massive tankers trekking halfway across the globe and back, the process is self-defeating in terms of global-warming/climate-change dogma. This display of lunacy in action also denies huge numbers of jobs for Americans.

In my opinion, the warped thought process behind such policies was conjured up by those who sit around fantasizing in their ivy-covered and cloistered castles. As I see it, many have a string of letters behind their names because they granted one another advanced degrees based upon their research and their interpretation of writings by other reality-challenged galooties. So these folks have common sense and reality deficits which translate into an energy/jobs problem for the rest of us. I believe if they were not ensconced in government or higher-education positions, they would surely be housed in various lunatic asylums around the country.

By the way, did you notice the change in label from global warming to climate change? I guess they are covered with climate change if conditions go either way, cooler or warmer.

DON THOMPSON

El Dorado

Used prejudice as tool

Re the letter by Gene Mason, which promoted the Libertarian Party as an alternative for those wishing to protect Arkansas from the “black man in the White House” and the “wealthy, liberal Mormon.”

I find it troubling that Mason, a former Green Party candidate for state representative, would attempt to portray himself as sympathetic to the Libertarian Party using racial and religious prejudices as a motivational tool. In truth, racial and religious prejudices are completely incompatible with the libertarian ideology. Libertarians believe in individualism and selfownership, and as such we judge every candidate as an individual, and cast our votes on those individuals that uphold liberty, free-market capitalism, peaceful foreign policy, and constitutionally limited government.

My hope is that most people will not be fooled by this deceptive ruse, and will seek the truth about the Libertarian Party and judge each of us as individuals, based on our principles and philosophy of government, not the color of our skin or our religious beliefs.

DAVID J. PANGRAC

Van Buren

Idea is wrong solution

I have no simple solution to the Medicaid cost problem but that doesn’t deter me from addressing John Brummett’s unworkable but favored solution. I am also a retired physician so I no longer have any personal “skin” in the amount of physician reimbursement. I do know that at present reimbursement rates and increasing practice overhead, more physicians find it impossible to take new Medicaid patients and care for their established ones.

Under Gov. Mike Beebe’s bundling proposal, which Brummett seems to agree with, the problem is solved by providing medical care more cheaply (decreasing payment to all providers). That will actually mean that physicians, in the future, should see patients and lose money on every visit. The burden thus falls on physicians who are already underpaid by Medicaid. How long would supermarkets accept food stamps if they were commanded by government to charge less for food than their cost? Or a landlord rent apartments for less money than his mortgage and upkeep? How long would a newspaper columnist write articles if he was being paid less than his overhead? Not very long!

So, in my opinion, this solution would actually increase the problem for patients. It would only cost less and save money because fewer Medicaid patients would be seen by physicians.

I am in favor and much could be saved by stopping Medicaid fraud in every aspect of health-care delivery. But that solution requires another letter.

JACK STERNBERG

Hot Springs

Being left in the dark

Regarding the state law to have vehicle headlights on when it’s raining, have you noticed that the ones without headlights tend to be mainly dark-colored vehicles?

JOHN MOORE

Jacksonville

A sad state of affairs

A U.S. Army soldier stands accused of killing 16 Afghan civilians. How sad for this decorated veteran, who was on his fourth tour of duty and had sustained a head injury and lost part of his foot in previous tours. How sad for his friends and family. How sad for the U.S.A., you and me.

Should we as a country send a few willing and brave to fight for a cause that a Congress and a president don’t even think important enough to commit to a declaration of war? War was declared by this nation during the two great wars and all citizens were committed to the cause. Since those wars, presidents have committed a few brave men to fight without a national understanding of purpose. Many have sent a few over and over again.

Perhaps if a Congress and a president had to formally acknowledge and commit every U.S. citizen to the need for war, we would think twice before we launched actions that result in war-weary veterans with high incidents of post-traumatic stress. Maybe we’d give more thought to the decisions we make as a country if we had to publicly declare our intent and put all of our lives on the line.

How sad that we so easily commit the lives of a few willing and brave men and don’t commit to their purpose.

FREDDIE LOU QUIST

Heber Springs

Experiment still fails

Re David C. Cutler’s guest column: He stated that each presidency is an experiment.

However, the failed experiment of the current president has all come to show the futility of a philosophy that discriminates against the successful while rewarding the slothful, his brand of distributing the wealth. The U.S. is $5 trillion more in debt. The government’s heavy hand is in all aspects of American life and business.

In my opinion, if this president’s skin color was green he would be no less a failure or detriment to the American experiment that began almost 236 years ago. His social-justice mantra is not social nor is it justice.

Please elect candidates at all levels of government who believe in the people’s rights from the Constitution and the Republic so founded.

WILLIAM D. URSERY

Pine Bluff

It’s enough, already!

There are a half-dozen or so airports named for former presidents of the United States. But none contain the name of their spouse, especially one who is, in my opinion, correctly labeled the “Tammy Wynette” of political fame.

What a joke. Haven’t we honored the Clinton name with enough already?

Next this commission will pay somebody $40,000 to place Bill and Hillary Clinton’s name on some football field.

DON SHELLABARGER

Little Rock