See no civility in that
Civility has gone down the tubes. If you only agree with me, you are free to say what you want.
I believe Philip Martin is no better than his Antifa compatriots (which is actually the alt-left) or the alt-right. It seems the alt-left is not violence-prone, it is violence in one word. In his Sunday commentary “When is it OK to punch a Nazi in the throat?” it seems he advocates violence toward the alt-right. In that response, violence begets violence and then complete anarchy will be the result.
HAROLD SADLER
Cabot
No person is supreme
I don’t believe in supremacy of a person or the ideas that bind them to others. I do believe in the supremacy of the God who created each of us. Who knew us before we were in our mothers’ wombs. I believe in him as father, son, and holy spirit. The one who knows the future of each of us and the world he made for us.
He does not look at skin pigmentation, intellect, societal status, or wealth. His concern is the heart. He looks upon the heart that controls the way we look upon each other. Jesus, the son, said, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” The heart takes first priority.
God knows the heart of each individual in that park in Charlottesville. He knows the heart of the man who allegedly drove the car and he knows the heart of the woman whose life was taken.
He knows my heart and he knows your heart. He knows the hearts of those who endured a horrific life as slaves on those plantations over 150 years ago, and he knows the hearts of those who treated them worse than animals.
I choose to work to make my heart like those of the composers of those wonderful slave hymns.
MICHAEL SANDERS
Little Rock
Leader’s incompetent
Almost every day we see a letter from a Trumpster that says we need to get off the president’s back and give him more time. I believe he has had sufficient time to display any show of competence to do the job he was hired to do.
It seems he has made absolutely zero effort to try to learn or improve in any manner. In any other job, an employee who could not do a job and did not try to improve after seven months would be run off, even by a Trumpster.
The other day, a news reporter was describing Kim Jung Un and said he is insecure, unpredictable, petulant, a bully, egotistical, thought himself all-powerful, and is unwilling to change or admit any faults. We are not sure if he really was actually describing President Trump.
PAUL WAGENER
Jacksonville
Privilege will not help
The mother of the woman who was killed in Charlottesville says that she will refuse to talk to President Trump.
I guess Trump will have to learn that you can’t get into the best clubs just like that.
MICHAEL KLOSSNER
Little Rock
To behave like adults
It should be clear to all that we have a so-called “president” who has the intellectual and emotional maturity of a 3-year old. “You hit me, I’ll hit you back harder” is just one of his infantile dictums.
It’s not fair to chastise White House staffers for their failure to keep Little Boy T. Rump between the rhetorical ditches with his impetuous, errant tweets and endless streams of off-the-wall statements. Their loyalties belong to him, the one who hired them.
I believe blame belongs squarely on Congress; specifically, Republicans who know Little Boy T. Rump is a spoiled brat who explodes when you fail to do what he demands. In lieu of doing what any responsible and caring parent would do with a misbehaving child, the GOP has become the Apologist Party, enabling its little boy king to turn his attentions backwards to the darkest periods of our past and get away with being a racist, misogynist, xenophobe … he’s a pure, unadulterated hater.
Why?
Because the Apologists claim they share an agenda with the so-called “president” when, in fact, I’m sure they all know that Little Boy T. Rump is not a Republican. He has no coherent, well-thought-through agenda. If anything, he’s a barrier to the GOP getting traction with its agenda and making something constructive happen.
I’m reminded of a Pete Seeger lyric in a 1967 song, “Waist deep in the big muddy and the big fool says to push on.”
Little Boy T. Rump has become the Swamp Monster. He just wallows around, throwing rocks at everyone. It’s time for members of Congress to grow up and behave like adults.
Painfully sad.
HARRY HERGET
Little Rock
Better ways to honor
Pieces of my Arkansas-Southern heritage that I treasure include: a legacy of growing up plowing and planting, going to the swimming hole and to the fishing hole, watermelon and fresh-churned ice cream and the extended family at “Pa and Granny’s” on the Fourth of July, and stone-ground meal for real cornbread.
I do not treasure statues dedicated to the Confederacy. Almost none of those statues were erected soon after the Civil War; most came during such periods as the rise of the Jim Crow era or in resistance to the civil rights movement. And they are monuments to the attempt to preserve a slave-based society. Even after accounting for economic injustices and northern complicity in building wealth based on slave labor, notions that the Civil War did not begin over slavery are fantasy. Fifteen minutes of serious research into documents surrounding the secession of Arkansas and any other state that joined the confederacy will dispel that fantasy. The “states’ rights” that were at stake were, almost altogether, the legal “rights” to own slaves.
We, as Arkansans and Southerners, have better ways of honoring our heritage.
CHARLEY SANDAGE
Mountain View
Editorial on 08/22/2017