What is your intent?
Congressman Bruce Westerman, I wrote you last week concerning this past presidential election and precisely what is at stake on Jan. 6 of next year. In reply, I received your standard form letter, where you stated absolutely nothing.
I refuse to accept that cop-out letter as being sufficient to satisfy my concerns over this situation.
I believe this nation was founded on Christian morality and commitment to all things good and right in the eyes of our creator and humanity. If you are complicit in allowing this national travesty, sir, you are no friend of mine and our Lord will pass judgment on you all, as will I.
Sir, I want, I demand to know what your intent is for the coming joint session of Congress on that date. Are you going to rise to the level of statesmanship and patriotism to defeat this communist insurgency or are you going to cower in the face of our enemies?
I demand to know. Yes, you will honor your oath to this nation or no, you will quietly bite your tongue and let this great nation be consumed by our enemies.
Simple and short. Yes, or No.
CHARLES TURNER
Carthage
Give a pardon, but …
I so long for Donald Trump to be gone, stripped of power, ignored and reduced to a footnote in our nation’s history.
But surprisingly, despite my intense antipathy for this—let’s at least agree—braggart, I have no objection to an immediate and wide pardon by President Biden, as long as Mr. Trump publicly accepts the pardon. President Gerald Ford was right to pardon President Nixon. His reason still stands. We had too much work to do then, as we certainly have now; we have no need to continue a useless debate about Trump’s “greatness.” History will unfortunately answer that question for us, and quite quickly, I fear.
We have a lot to do. You don’t have to be Chicken Little to recognize our to-do list is long and difficult, full of challenges; let’s not waste a moment more on a petty TV personality impersonating a president. Folks, the election was not stolen from him. He had his turn at bat and he struck out. It’s that simple; no complex convoluted conspiracy theory is needed to cover the facts.
Let’s leave the battlefield to the Trump coalition: white supremacists, conspiracy theorists, other true believers, members of unregulated militias and needy cult followers. Let them continue their search for meaning in his life and tweeted teachings while we learn from history and move on.
But—and a significant “but” here—there should be one essential exception to the pardon: treason.
If or when history reveals why Trump defended and protected the former KGB agent Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin at every turn, repeatedly undermined, attacked and minimized our intelligence services, fired attorneys general, the head of the FBI, uniformed soldiers and lifetime diplomats for failing the “Russia test,” and let Russia graze unhampered on our data, he should finally be held accountable, even if the trial is 100 years hence in absentia. He was the chief executive and he was completely responsible. This most recent Russian fiasco wasn’t someone else’s fault.
DANNY HANCOCK
Lonoke
Must be enforcement
Imagine that all law enforcement entities in Arkansas announced that they would no longer enforce the DUI laws because they unfairly impact the rights of individuals who like to drive impaired. Since there would no longer be a legal consequence for drinking and driving, accidents involving impaired drivers would undoubtedly go up. Then the public would become fed up with the increased risk that sober drivers were facing and demand a return to enforcement of the laws. The good of the many would outweigh the loss of freedom for the few.
Venturing into a Walmart or Kroger recently, you will have observed that our current mask mandates are not having the desired impact of making people wear masks to help stop the spread of covid-19. Since there is no legal consequence for endangering their fellow Arkansans, there is a small but significant number of people who flout the mandates, even when signage states that masks are required.
We are probably five months away from having a general distribution of a vaccine. Many covid-19 related deaths will occur during the period unless we adopt a mask policy that has consequences. If people who refuse to wear masks in businesses that require them could be fined and arrested, the number of new cases would drop dramatically.
To put this into perspective, Arkansas had 503 deaths related to automobile accidents in 2019 while there have been more than 3,500 deaths from covid-19 for 2020, almost an order of magnitude worse. As a state, why is it so easy for us to pass and enforce laws to punish citizens who endanger the rest of us for driving impaired, but we have no appetite for doing the same for people who are helping spread the deadly coronavirus?
PAUL SWEPSTON
Hot Springs