Not government's job
My wife and I recently watched the 1960 movie "Inherit the Wind," a fictionalized account of the famous "Scopes Monkey Trial." In 1925, the state of Tennessee convicted a high school teacher of violating a state law prohibiting the teaching of the theory of evolution.
We both noticed the similarity between 1925 Tennessee and 2021 Arkansas. The biggest difference being that in 1925, Tennessee (like most of the South) was solidly Democratic. In Arkansas today, it is Republicans, the party of small government, that tell us what to believe and how to live our lives. The two groups share, however, the belief that they alone "know" what is truth; science cannot interfere with that belief. Both also believe that everyone must believe the same things they do. Neither, by God, is going to let the schools infect their children with any heresy.
As we celebrated the Fourth of July, the lessons in this comparison became clearer. In America, we do not need government help, at any level, to tell our schools what ideas are appropriate to teach. People can make up their own minds, and come to their own conclusions. We certainly don't need government to tell us what to believe.
We call this concept "freedom."
JIM GIFFORD
Hot Springs Village
The responsible party
On Jan. 6, 2021, right-wing armed militants led a planned, violent insurrection against the Capitol of the U.S. government. President Trump encouraged them; urged them to march on the Capitol, to be strong, and fight to take back their country. He called them patriots.
We're pretty sure the horde weren't tourists, nor Muslims, or Mexicans, or LBGT militants, or Black Lives Matter, or socialists, or even Antifa.
The hundreds and hundreds of videos from that day sure make it look like it was a mob of angry white Trump supporters, but surely those are all fakes given to the liberal fake media by the Deep State.
The Republicans are working overtime to convince us that it didn't really happen, or at least that it wasn't that big of a deal, but regardless, it certainly wasn't their fault.
A wise soul once said that if it quacks like a duck; well, you all know the rest of that.
RICK ARMELLINI
Eureka Springs
Question on shooters
Reading about all of the shootings over the July 4 weekend, I wonder if the bad guys with guns are any good at shooting them at all. So many children got shot. Are the bad guys that bad at shooting, or that bad as people?
DUANE BARBOUR
Little Rock