Destruction our fault
Re "Remember Desert Storm": I believe all the U.S. wars in Iraq were fought for corporate empire and nothing more. They were and are a waste of American treasure and lives in pursuit of corporate lucre.
What a tragedy that this newspaper continues to obfuscate to the public about the true nature of this and all current U.S. conflicts abroad. There's nothing noble or uplifting about incinerating whole families--men, women and children--to ashes inside their own homes.
The people of Iraq have every reason to hate us. We created ISIS by creating a power vacuum there with our military actions. We have destroyed the very cradle of civilization itself in pursuit of corporate lucre.
May God have mercy on us.
BRAD BAILEY
Fayetteville
Lesson on liberalism
Ashton Miller III's recent letter denouncing "free health care" offers insight into the prevailing American ethos of neoliberalism.
References to liberalism are confusing, yet all refer to a social order based on a market economy. "Liberalism" (with a capital L) took form when 17th-18th century merchants sought to free themselves from mercantile constraints imposed by kings and nobility. It emphasized freedom in economic affairs that could come only with freedom from kings who claimed to rule by divine right. As their revolutions succeeded, merchants and bankers envisioned a social contract governed by constitutional (or contractual) government.
Market and technological advances led to the industrial revolution, which in turn led to corporate dominance over the new laboring classes who now sought to free themselves from corporate control. The effort was called "liberalism" (small l), seeking liberty and justice for all, employing strategies of labor unions, universal suffrage, and "big government" to protect the interests of labor.
Big business, humbled by the Great Depression and reconciled to labor's needs during World War II, begrudgingly tolerated liberalism during the New Deal. But the Reagan Revolution of the 1980s initiated a reassertion of corporate dominance. "Neoliberalism" reaffirms the legitimacy of corporate dominion and attacks the ethos and structures that affirm liberty and justice for all.
Ayn Rand/Frederick Hayek neoliberals seem like the ant who stands atop an anthill and proclaims himself self-made and responsible for no one but himself. A sober corrective might be found in the Book of Amos or in Shelley's poem "Ozymandias."
DAVID SIXBEY
Flippin
I choose to serve him
I agree, Mr. Al Case, in your letter that many agnostics and atheists can act in love and the highest moral principles. Wherever there is love, there is grace. But I truly believe that Christians behave well not because of the threat of hellfire but out of an overwhelming desire for a relationship with God.
I am curious about the religious beliefs you find inadequate. If I think my own human judgment and morals are faulty and I know they are, how can I possibly believe in any God who created an incomplete me? You say that we cannot comprehend such a deity, but I get a glimpse of him in the four gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. This God, in the form of Jesus Christ, is not cruel or barbaric as are many other gods "of a small world."
I believe Christ came as shown in the gospels to give us new life in him, a new moral compass, and to breath into us a bigger world, a universe. Bob Dylan wrote that song "Gotta Serve Somebody." Well then, I choose to serve Christ.
CAMILLE BEARY
Batesville
Suppression or fraud?
On July 8, the Washington Post revealed that Arkansas was the only state to have sent information to the presidential commission trying to collect personal data on voters. The story was mostly about a lawsuit to block the commission, but the online comments were almost all about Arkansas. It's impressive how many ways literate people can say "stupid."
The lawsuit will review whether the president can legally order the creation of a national database of voter information and will examine security procedures.
The commission, I suspect, is not about salving Donald Trump's fragile ego over losing the popular vote. The Republican Party has been systematically involved in voter suppression--unlike "voter fraud," a real threat--for decades. The Supreme Court recently invalidated their schemes based on race and is looking at others. If Republicans can put together a national database of voters' personal data, voter suppression will become much easier.
Almost none of us has a unique name. Other people with my name, or yours, may be felons, and many have voted in other states. If I do not respond to a postcard sent to some Roger Webb, maybe I will be declared dead. I will not know I have been removed from the voting rolls until I am prevented from voting.
I wish I could attribute Mark Martin's compliance with the data request to stupidity as readers of the Post were ready to do. I suspect he was eager to send data that would make it easier for Republicans to keep me from voting.
Since July 8, the Arkansas Democrat Gazette has printed one op-ed piece supporting the commission, but I haven't seen a single news story on what is going on or our status as the one compliant state. Be careful guys, your bias is showing.
ROGER WEBB
Little Rock
Better uses for money
More than $54,000 has been raised to erect a new Ten Commandments monument in front of the Arkansas state Capitol. Meanwhile, more than 2.5 million children under the age of 5 die every year due to conditions that could have been prevented or treated with access to simple, affordable interventions.
With $54,000, these Christians could have administered 20,255 vaccines, protected 32,400 children from malaria by supplying 10,800 mosquito nets, or drilled two deepwater wells in central Kenya providing 6,000 people with fresh drinking water.
Perhaps Jesus prefers his people spend money on a stone monument, but it is my understanding that his priorities lie elsewhere.
NATALIE GRAUMANN
Little Rock
War of psychopaths
Sunday's editorial "A Twitter war?" stated: "The man in charge in Pyongyang is a known psychopath who may or may not be sober at this moment."
That is apparently a true statement. Unfortunately, I believe the man in charge in Washington, D.C., has proven himself to be a known psychopath who may or may not be sober at this moment.
LAUREN RUPERT
Maumelle
Editorial on 07/13/2017