Example of ignorance
Some wise person once said that ignorance in action was the most dangerous thing in the world. This latest session of our General Assembly gives us cause to consider this statement.
It seems the legislators want the Capitol grounds to become a forest of monuments. That is what it would appear to be if all the religions choose to put up their monuments; all religions have the right if one religion has. At the same time that they want '"thou shall not kill" carved in stone, they endorse capital punishment. Capital punishment is killing regardless of how a person attempts to justify it. It is still killing. This was without regard for what the U.S. Constitution says about separation of church and state. Also without regard for what the Bible says, "vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord." These are contradictory values.
Can a better example of ignorance be found? Do people not know that a value destroyed today can be used against us tomorrow?
MARJORIE LeCLAIR
Shirley
Displeasure is proof
A note to letter-writer Howard D. Hughes in response to his suggestions regarding the columns of Paul Krugman, John Brummett and Philip Martin: He thinks they're writing too "caustically" and/or pedantically, and that the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette should essentially censure them via more severe editing and fewer appearances.
Mr. Hughes, I believe these three represent the best editorial pontificating that this paper offers--period! That you disagree with their biting opinions is your problem. You have a right to disagree with what they say regarding the jerk that got elected president (by too many people in a country that don't pay enough attention), but to suggest that they aren't great at what they do shows you off as just another conservative who can't stand hearing the truth done right. In fact, your specific displeasure with their words proves just how good they are.
DANE BUXBAUM
Little Rock
That finger of blame
If you attempt to fix blame for the execution of a person in our state, think about this. We have a written constitution by which our people are governed and guided in our state. It was selected by and is changed by a vote of our citizens.
Our legislatures are chosen by our citizens, along with our judges and our governor. In turn, legislatures and courts establish laws governing the arrest, trial and executions of persons convicted of capital crimes. Juries, selected by those same laws, protect us citizens by voting for death sentences as punishment for those who have been found to be worthy of death for capital crimes.
So when a citizen blames someone else for the execution of a convicted person, include yourself. Don't blame juries, judges and others. All of us citizens, collectively, are as guilty as if we had injected the needle. If you don't like the death penalty, write your legislator to change the law.
ORVILLE CLIFT
Tontitown
State shame deserved
The black-eye shame Arkansas has experienced will last a long time. Our decision to go ahead with eight state executions within two weeks had a certain macabre ring to it, and the world paid attention. We are defamed, and rightly so.
Oh, I know, we were just following the letter of the law--the governor, the courts, the prison system all said. But until the last moment, it seems no one even spoke of the deception in the process of acquiring one of the lethal drugs to be administered. And most of us had no idea of it.
An old Chinese philosopher, Lao Tzu, said, "Only the Divine knows the proper time for a man [or woman] to die." He also spoke of the false notion that state-sponsored execution was a deterrent to mayhem and murder saying, "Only if death was a rare and unusual occurrence would men so fear it."
For many Christians, state-sponsored executions represent the ultimate hypocrisy. Not only does the good book admonish, "Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord," it teaches of reacting to great darkness in others with the light of the Christ. Two evils do not one virtue make.
For me, a native Arkansan, Lao Tzu's final argument against capital punishment now inflicts a particular sting: "For men to take the life of other men in retribution is like an apprentice thinking himself wiser than his master. When an apprentice thinks himself wiser than his master, he is the one most likely to be mangled."
JOHN ROBERT BOMAR
Arkadelphia
May peace be with us
We mourn the grotesque and bloody suffering by victims' families, and year-after-year in the rathole of hell for the accused, one life for another. To those who, at last, are prepared to go for they see there is nothing here left--no love, no grace--only hate spews forever from our earth. How tired can one be, not asking to be free? So all the cruel, the pain, and the final justice, as it drips from the point of a needle, will be.
Yet those who cry out dare not ever tell us the reprisal check written shall be fully negotiated to bring them peace. So why not let it be? God's love assures us, "Vengeance is mine, not thine." May the force have mercy upon us all, though sinners with you, sad but true, we choose not.
CHERYL DEES
Little Rock
Editorial on 04/19/2017