LETTERS

LITTLE ROCK — Selfish votes come to light

Recent actions of Congress have raised a concern for every American voter. All of us have at one time or another served on committees faced with deciding on different issues. Thankfully, the issues were examined and a vote cast for or against the issue without coercion or reprimand for the decision.

Unfortunately, this is not the practice of our Congress. Recent decisions regarding the health care debate have awakened many of the electorate that this is not the way the game is played.

We find that our elected representatives hinge their vote not on what is best for our state and nation, but what is in it for them and their state. One of the most recent examples has been where the senator from Louisiana changed her vote from nay to yea after receiving $300 million for the state. Many such examples have come to light.

Even more disturbing is that while the health care proposal had not been publicized, the supporters and undecided had already signed on as in favor, while they had no knowledge of the contents in the legislation. This is similar to providing a book report on a book you never read. We desperately need a Congress that will support the people, not the Washington establishment and lobby groups. The complete disregard of public opinion illustrates a need to remove those in office and send representatives who will serve the people.

ROY LANGE Bella Vista

Stop insurance fiasco

Prior to the French Revolution, it is said that a member of the French royalty, when told that the peasants were starving and had no bread, said, “Let them eat cake.”

Whether this remark was actually made, it is often cited as a shining example of the ignorance and outright stupidity that sometimes afflicts ruling classes. We now have our own version of this. When informed that 45 million Americans were without health insurance, Barack Obama and the ruling Democrats said, “Let’s pass a law that forces them buy health insurance.”

At this point, I don’t believe the United States is as bad off as the French were prior to 1789, but unless the American voting public wakes up and decides to stop this fiasco, we soon will be.

GARY R. BATES El Dorado

Nobody read the bill

Mark Pryor and Blanche Lincoln both said that the Senate health care reform bill is good for Arkansans. What they don’t know is what the bill even has inside because, I think, those morons haven’t bothered to read it. Nobody bothered to read it.

How can anybody pass any kind of bill without reading through it first? What we need is smarter senators who actually care about the state and our country.

TIM KROGEN Batesville

Vote went with party

In a recent news story on your front page, Blanche Lincoln declared, and I paraphrase, that she did what was good for the people of Arkansas on the health care debacle. I say bull.

The citizens of Arkansas told her to vote no. She did what the party leaders told her to do in Washington so someone would back her in the election next year. Well, the morons in Washington do not vote in Arkansas, if I recall correctly.

If for nothing else, she should have voted no because of the corrupt back-room deals and arm-twisting that went on the week before the vote. Yep, I am talking about Ben Nelson from Nebraska. Problem is that Blanche and Mark Pryor think that the party know what’s best.

I have thought that I should throw my name in the ring and run next year. Problem with me running is that I would refuse to pay any party to get my name on its ballot. The good thing would be that I get up every morning and go to work, collect my pay checks and live within a balanced budget. Imagine that.

ROBERT R. WALKER JR. Rogers

Attitude uncalled for

Little Rock airport police should be required to take classes in how to behave and talk decently to people. Some seem to enjoy picking on good intentioned, law-abiding, sweet little ladies who already have low self esteem due to being brought up during the era that referred and looked upon women as the weaker sex so that when they are approached by one of these overweight, balding, disrespectful, so-called public servants, [they can be] embarrassed, hurt, humiliated beyond measure.

This happened recently to my sister, who was doing us a favor by taking us to the airport. She didn’t know why the policeman was stopping her afterward, and when she rolled her window down, the first words out of his mouth, in a very hateful, smart alecky tone, were “I’m sure you don’t want a $185 ticket.”

She had no idea what she had done. Being stunned and bewildered by how he talked to her, she answered that she hadn’t realized that she was breaking a rule. His attitude ruined what my sister was thinking was a good deed. My question: Why did the overweight, balding, disrespectful policeman wait until she had got in her vehicle and started driving off to decide to stop and harass her? Was he too cowardly to confront her in front of other people? What was his idiotic reasoning?

Shame, shame, shame.

SHIRLEY STANDRIDGE Little Rock

Heroes affected lives

Recently, I read about a man, Maj. Philip Wise of the Salvation Army, who worked to make a difference for the good of mankind. Evidently, he reached out to others without discrimination and met needs of the less fortunate on a daily basis. He worked fearlessly in rough neighborhoods.

Today I posted a picture of Wise from the newspaper next to a picture of a fallen U.S. Marine, Maj. Kevin Nave, who lost his life in Iraq. Both Nave and Wise, fought the good fight and are true American heroes.

I look forward to meeting Wise and Nave in Heaven one day. It will be an honor to tell them how they affected my life by the lives they led. God bless America.

WILLIAM PORTER Little Rock

Loss of privacy grows

Our loss of privacy seems to grow continually. The government’s appetite is insatiable. It has gotten so bad that even the cartoonists in the comics, specifically Brian Crane, who writes the “Pickles” strip, has seemingly joined forces with them.

We strongly suspect that he or his minions have secreted cameras throughout our house and have been making public the situations that occur there. Well, such is life. Have a happy new year, y’all.

DON & CHRIS MILLER Horseshoe Bend

Other areas corrupt

Can you tell me the difference between a politician handing out $10 bills to solicit votes in his district and a senator handing out millions-$300 million-to buy one vote for his bill?

We talk about corruption in Afghanistan?

HOMER SHEPPARD Hot Springs Village

TV coverage lacking

The major story this past weekend was the flooding around the Little Rock area. After driving to and from Beebe to meet family members and then return home after Christmas, I think I may be more informed about the Christmas weekend’s big story than our local TV news crews were.

KTHV told us Christmas morning that they didn’t know what roads were flooded, despite people sitting in traffic long enough to run out of gas. A day passes and people still can’t get past Jacksonville in under two hours. KLRT’s newscast Christmas night had no information about alternate routes or comment from local officials in Jacksonville. The next day, KTHV again had no specific details about Jacksonville traffic and flooding.

How about comment from Jacksonville officials on drainage issues? How about comment from the police about which roads are still flooded a day later? If there are no police or public officials to talk to, how about calling them out on that? Then residents of Jacksonville, instead of just us passersby, would know that they didn’t have any police out managing traffic and checking on flooded and flooding areas.

KTHV did send a camera to the mall to talk to people returning presents. And another one to find out that some people in Conway had not just turkey, but ham, too. Good thing such critical news didn’t get scrapped due to the deluge.

ROBERT CLAYTON Little Rock

Hope for new senator

This next new year, we will be electing a new senator. Blanche Lincoln has been in there too long. It’s time for her to be replaced by Curtis Coleman. He’s a man with principles to represent Arkansas in Washington, D.C. He’s not liberal like Lincoln. I hope that in 2010 when we go to the polls, Coleman will win by a margin.

DONALD L. PUTMAN El Dorado

Accord doesn’t help

We in the United States should be very proud that the current president was able to save the world at the climate summit in Copenhagen. He single-handedly negotiated the redistribution of $100 billion a year from richer nations to poorer nations by 2020, which is going to save the rain forests, glaciers and all of the populations on the endangered species list.

Forget that the agreement didn’t put any kinds of limits or enforcement on carbon emissions, which are what is killing us all right. As long as money can be taken from the rich and given to the poor, then the planet can be saved. What a joke. The United States already gives billions of dollars every year for world hunger, fighting AIDS and other humanitarian initiatives that the non-corrupt governments of other countries use accordingly. We can all see the results.

I hope everyone has seen by the result of the agreement in Copenhagen that global warming, climate change or whatever it is called now is a hoax and that it is all about money and “spreading the wealth around.”

CHRISTOPHER NELSON Van Buren

Issue is about rights

Those Christians complaining about the Arkansas Society of Freethinkers’ display at the state Capitol are missing the point. The society and the American Civil Liberties Union did not fight to silence Christianity or trample on hallowed holiday traditions, but against having their freedom of expression stifled in the public square for no better reason than the secretary of state office’s dislike of their religious beliefs.

The issue here is not hostility to Christianity or some nebulous war on Christmas, but rather that of government officials quashing the constitutional rights of citizens with whom they disagree. Preserving and defending the liberty of all faiths-and the non-religious-is not a threat to Christianity, but an affirmation of this country’s greatest hallmark: the freedom to believe and worship without state interference.

So as we Christians go to worship our Lord and Savior in whatever way we choose, we should all be thankful that we have the freedom to do so without the state stepping in and telling us no. If we had lived in 18th century England, the government could have done just that. We should all be thankful that our Founding Fathers had the wisdom to enshrine religious liberty in our republic’s government.

PATRICK M. HAYES Little Rock

Feedback

Shouldn’t do both

Yet another story in the Democrat-Gazette makes me shake my head-kudos-as I read about the revolving-door pocket-lining of public employment.

When one retires, one generally does so with thoughts of retirement, period. If one must instead work to make ends meet, then one works, period.

But to retire and then relatively quickly (or immediately) return to the taxpayer’s wallet to receive both retirement pay and employment compensation simply because you can says volumes for the leeches that take full advantage of these rules to line their pockets.

It may be within the word but not the spirit of the rules, and normal folks see something wrong with this on so many accounts.

I would be ashamed, but then again, I plan toward retirement, and when it comes, I’ll not be playing it against my neighbor’s paycheck.

TERRY OXANDALE Little Rock