Punishment for lying
When I was growing up, I always thought of the United States as the greatest country in the world. The older I get, the more lying and crooked activity appears be showing in government. Why do the citizens of this country seem to approve of so much dirt?
Doesn't it seem odd that a country as large as ours with reported to be an elected Congress, president and others in powerful positions who reportedly run the country can lie so much, with impunity? It seems like the public would prefer to have honest people to run the country. Congress is apparently exempt from almost everything. No one seems to be held accountable, and lying seems to be most prevalent. Even the news doesn't seem to hold them accountable.
Just think how much better it would be to have nothing but honesty in all of government. Let's make lying a federal crime with 10 years in the pen as a penalty and no parole.
ROBERT MAYNARD
Hot Springs
A familiar situation
It's easy to see how German citizens were overwhelmed and left without hope as the Nazis slowly and stealthily took their rights away. It started with a lie used over and over again. The lie became the truth. Those in position of leadership joined in and echoed the lie. Truth became irrelevant.
Rights were taken away. Laws were changed. Minorities were persecuted. A mass movement swept the nation. Neighbors turned on neighbors. Lies begat lies. Punishment and death followed.
The same thing is happening here. One man started the lie. His party is echoing the lie. Legislators are distorting the truth. Elections are being investigated without merit. Laws have been changed. Voting is being suppressed. False narratives are spreading across the land. The Capitol was stormed.
How will history judge us? Will the resistance rise up? Where will it end? Will truth overcome lies? Will democracy survive?
I wonder ...
DORRIE MECKES
Cabot
Purely hypothetical
The following is an honest hypothetical question, and I would really like an elected representative to provide an answer:
I am a Black person legally and peacefully marching down a mostly white residential street in protest of police brutality. All of a sudden, a white couple appears in front of their stately mansion and point their firearms directly at me. Am I not completely within my rights, according to Arkansas law, to immediately shoot that couple dead because I fear that I am in imminent danger? I have no obligation to retreat or otherwise seek any other de-escalating alternative, do I?
Asking for a friend.
STEVE OWEN
Hot Springs Village
Inequity in America
In his recent column, "Equity is Marxism," Professor Gitz attacked equity and equated it with Marxism, declaring it "the centerpiece Biden administration agenda."
First, beginning in the late Middle Ages, the English Lord Chancellor held court to correct the faults and flaws in the common law. "Equity Delights in Doing Justice," and by 1903 all of Arkansas was serviced by equity courts presided over by chancery judges. There is a very real distinction between the history of freedom for the people and that freedom which claims that a single individual has the right to any and everything regardless of the consequences to other. One secular restatement of equity is Rotary's Four-Way Test. By Professor Gitz's analysis, Rotarians are Marxists, and the clubs will doubtless soon disappear from Arkansas.
As to socialism, those who read their Bibles rather than just worship them know that the earliest followers of Christ banded together in a commune. Early in the 19th century Christian Socialism arose and became a political movement. What Karl Marx offered was scientific socialism, which predicated that capitalism was inherently unstable. Its collapse would allow the workers to take over. Turning this into violence came about in Russia mainly from the country's collapse during the Great War. In the dictatorship of the proletariat, the workers got lost and dictators took over.
Those who champion inequities in American life rely on Darwinian Survival of the Fittest. Doubtless Professor Gitz would have supported the late columnist Walter Williams, who at the outset of the covid pandemic praised the young entrepreneurs who set out to monopolize the supply of masks and make millions for themselves. Memorial Day might remind us, if any more than just a few bothered to have celebrated it, that it is "We the People."
MICHAEL B. DOUGAN
Jonesboro
Get the vaccination
It is now clear that state vaccination lotteries work. Arkansas already has a lottery system in place. The South has the lowest rate of vaccination. I am begging the powers that be to create a vaccination lottery. I would suggest possibly having one large-dollar winner and many smaller-dollar-amount winners so that more people can potentially benefit.
Some will say people shouldn't be paid to get a vaccination. I say do whatever it takes to get as many people as possible vaccinated. This is the only way we can safely resume our pre-covid lives. If you want the economy to improve, get vaccinated and encourage everyone you know to follow suit. Please.
JANET NEILL
Little Rock
In his fever dreams
Donald Trump seems to believe that he will be back in the White House by August. I think he is confused, and perhaps means "Big House."
MARY N. WATERS
Little Rock