Letters

Immigration reform

The RAISE Act is the latest GOP proposal to reform immigration policy. I went through the questions and only got 20 points, 10 short of the minimum to apply for a visa. Fortunately, I am native-born, so this doesn't matter to me. You can take the test yourself at tinyurl.com/raisetime.

If you are undecided about this act, consider the following:

(1) If you like to eat poultry, pork or beef, you can thank an immigrant. The majority of employees at the local Tyson, George's and Cargill plants are very likely immigrants. I work with these people every day and observe them performing jobs that "Americans" don't want. I have yet to see any "Americans" lining up to apply for jobs at any of these plants.

(2) If you enjoy eating ethnic foods, such as Mexican or Chinese, you can thank an immigrant. If not for them, these restaurants wouldn't be here.

(3) If you enjoy not having to get out on hot summer days and maintain your yards or your subdivisions' common areas, you can very likely thank an immigrant. I know the lawn-service companies that service my neighborhood use employees that appear to be Hispanic.

(4) If you enjoy the fresh fruit that is produced in states like California, you can definitely thank an immigrant. These crops will rot in the fields without the only people willing to work long hours to bring the harvest in.

One final thought: Unless you are Native American, you are descended from an immigrant as well.

JUD HANSON

Fayetteville

What champions do

Champions not only win fair and square, but also lose fair and square. So do members of a democracy. After all, democracy sorts us into those who get their way and those who don't. Robert E. Lee showed us how to lose, and this is why we need him.

Furthermore, his statues spark conversations that we obviously need to have.

Bottom line? Lee was a standout in his profession who picked his best choice from a buffet providing only bad choices. When he lost, he didn't leave the country or shoot the president. Instead, he channeled a career of service in a different direction and rebuilt a university.

I dare his detractors to do better.

CARI KING

Pocahontas

About the memorials

The Southern Confederacy is hardly in the same class as the Nazi regime of World War II. However, you have to admit that it's very clever of those leftists who want to tear down any reminders of that conflict to paint anyone objecting to their point of view as some sort of racist neo-Nazi.

It would also help if we stopped trying to make the Civil War about slavery from day one. In that era, many believed that America was a union of sovereign states. They would have thought of themselves as Arkansans first and Americans second. The union fractured over whether or not a state could withdraw from that union. Only two years into the conflict did Lincoln make it clear that they were fighting to end slavery.

Tearing down monuments to Confederate heroes and war dead accomplishes nothing. Even in Germany, there are monuments to the war dead from all wars. While I do not endorse the Confederate cause, I do respect the sacrifice of those who died for their beliefs.

JOE WHALEN

North Little Rock

The motives of Nazis

Historians have a word for Germans who joined the Nazi party not because they hated Jews but out of a hope for restored patriotism, or a sense of economic anxiety, or a hope to preserve their religious values, or a dislike of their opponents, or raw political opportunism, or convenience, or ignorance, or greed.

That word is "Nazi." Nobody cares about their motives anymore.

They joined what they joined. They lent their support and their moral approval. And, in doing so, they bound themselves to everything that came after. Who cares any more what particular knot they used in the binding?

So my question is, do you renounce evil?

RICHARD MOORE

Little Rock

Erases part of history

The front-page article in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette on Aug. 13, "Protest over Lee statue in Virginia turns violent," does nothing if not point up the tactic of erasing parts of our history.

A vote was taken to remove the statue of Robert E. Lee where it stood in Charlottesville, Va., in what was formerly Robert E. Lee Park (which name was even changed to Emancipation Park) where protesters to this action rallied. When the counter-protesters showed up--the politically correct crowd--a melee ensued, of course.

Erasing history is a darling of communism, a handmaiden to political correctness, i.e., thought control, which has us by the throat. The latest to come under attack is the Confederacy and anything having to do with it. Just throw it down "the memory hole" (which, by the way, is full to overflowing).

Aren't we better than that?

CATHERINE WILSON

Morrilton

Avoiding constituents

It's amazing the lengths Congressman Steve Womack will go to avoid his constituents. He's scheduled just one town-hall during the August recess, on the same day as the much anticipated solar eclipse, Aug. 21.

But the real kicker is that it's barely in the state, on the north shore of Peel and Bull Shoals Lake. The only way to get there from the Arkansas side is to take a ferry, which can only carry about 12 cars at a time and, I believe, charges a fee.

What are you afraid of, Congressman?

KELLY McCLEARY

Bentonville

Give Trump a chance

I did not vote for Obama, but he was our president and I supported him in governing our nation.

Give Trump a chance. Get off his back and give the man some room to work. Why do you just hate everything about him and everything he says and does?

JOHN SCHMIDT III

Hot Springs Village

Editorial on 08/17/2017

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