LETTERS

— C’mon, people, play ball

Earned income, unearned income, investment income, dividend income, corporate income, capital gains, etc. The common denominator is they all are sources of income. Our uncompromising national leaders should simplify this and treat them as one, taxed at a fair rate across the board. In doing so, it becomes a projectable cost of doing business or running a household. Everyone (particularly Mr. Corporation) needs to pay a share and in doing so has a right to the myriad benefits afforded by this still-great country.

The treatment of anything associated with income in the broad range of investments at a lower rate because of the “multiplier effect” of creating jobs and growing the economy (trickle-down economics) is based on a business principle that is slow to respond and often offset with tax breaks, outsourcing of jobs and accounting practices that boil down to cheating. I would venture to guess that if a uniform tax code that addressed those points was implemented, most of the points being wrestled over would dissolve.

While most of this would most affect those who lean to the right, I cannot finish without saying to those on the left that some government spending programs need to end and are an unfair drain on taxpayers. It fosters a climate of dependency by capable people and is a contributing factor in the cycle of poverty.

So suit up, Congress, and get out there and play ball without threatening to take the ball and leave. The ball doesn’t belong to you, anyway.

RUSSELL LEMOND

Little Rock

A will to be educated

It seems to me that President Barack Obama is an advocate in some way of the hip-hop culture, or at least he has lent his emotional support to gather votes. For example, the Korean “Gangnam Style” rapper performed for the president. I doubt rap music or hip-hop are in general conducive to higher education or the manners required for civil discussion in a democracy.

I did have the pleasure of seeing a movie recently about the first president elected from Illinois, Abraham Lincoln, who made the third president elected from Illinois possible. Details of Lincoln’s early life show him to have been poor, rural (way back in the woods) and self-educated.

I wish President Obama would honor President Lincoln in this way: Encourage the common man to find what Lincoln had—the will to be educated—and to filter out cheap baubles of entertainment that would rob us all of greater achievements. Also, the will to be educated is not the same as throwing money at the problems of education.

CHARLES VERMONT

Prescott

We should be insulted

Why did Little Rock change the name of its Christmas parade to the Big Jingle Jubilee Holiday Parade? Are the elected officials afraid of hurting some un-Christian people? Well, it sure has upset me. The biggest majority of Americans are Christians and I think they should be insulted by that.

I would like to organize a group of people who want to keep our Christian symbols. Maybe we could buy about 15 square feet in front of the state Capitol so that the Ten Commandments and other Christian symbols could be installed on our land.

JOHN F. HUM JR.

North Little Rock

Its negative influence

As I read John McPherson’s most recent letter, I felt some very strong emotions. Most of all, I was disappointed that many people still choose to ignore the atrocities that we committed against American Indians in the name of Christianity.

McPherson’s letter doesn’t mention that Nez Perce oral history states that the reason for the journey of the four warriors to St. Louis was to obtain information on the superior technology of the white man. Due to the language barrier that McPherson mentions, their intentions were misunderstood. They had not come for a Bible—that apparently is only what the religious folks back then wanted to believe, and apparently still want to believe today. So naturally, missionaries were sent to the Oregon Territories to try to convert the Indians from their “heathen ways” to Christianity.

I think McPherson obviously never read Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, or he would truly know what ensued when our predecessors traveled west in the name of “manifest destiny” and hammered our will in the name of Christianity in the Indians. The idea of manifest destiny is still having a negative impact today as we attempt to influence far-off cultures with our will.

This is an ugly and horrific chapter in America’s history that I believe is still negatively affecting lives today—just look at any reservation and you can see how great Christianity was for them. Once again, we see the negative effects that religion can have when forced on people.

AARON SCHAEFER

Little Rock

Just answer question

With the elections completed and the Arkansas Legislature due to go into session, I have a question that the citizens of this state should put to their elected representatives: Should state representatives and senators be reimbursed for mileage at a higher rate than other state employees?

I believe the response you receive will include information on how and by whom the legislators’ rates are established, that the legislative rate is lower than the federal rate, that the cents-per-mile disparity of the legislative rate over the state employees’ rate is a pittance compared with the overall state budget and that raising the state employees’ rate to match that of the Legislature would be an undue burden on tight state finances.

I submit that what you won’t hear from your elected legislators is an answer to the question posed. You won’t hear that they feel this disparity is right and proper, or that the Legislature is powerless to end this disparity.

SCOTT D. STUBENRAUCH

Roland

Serving up malarkey

Malarkey is what the gun lobby and gun lovers are trying to serve Americans. They love to say that “guns don’t kill people, people do.”

The truth is that it is the combination of guns and people that kill. Take one of these two things out of the equation, and no one will be killed by a gun.

PORFIRIO GUTIERREZ

Bella Vista

Dangers overlooked

Recent letters by Tom Kennedy and Jeffrey M. Graham did not mention the serious physical risks and financial costs that can follow as a result of armed private citizens intervening in what they believe is a crime.

Police can describe and confirm the panic, ambiguity and confusion that can occur during those situations. A real danger is that in the panic and confusion, another person might make a 911 call identifying the armedcitizen intervenor as the person on a rampage. Subsequent armed citizens or the police coming on the scene afterward might injure or kill him.

Graham agrees that pistols are inaccurate and that even police sometimes hit objects or people other than their intended target. As an armed private citizen, you might come upon what seems to be a crime and mistakenly injure or kill another armedcitizen intervenor or one or more innocent bystanders. It might not even have been a crime.

Armed private citizens who intend to intervene should remember that this is a litigious society and they should consider carrying liability insurance or financial protection should they injure or kill innocent bystanders. Insurance companies probably don’t or won’t even offer that kind of policy.

Even if an armed private citizen is later found to have been innocent of injuring or killing uninvolved people, he is likely to incur substantial financial costs defending himself from the lawsuits of the victims or their relatives.

GLEN SALTER

Fayetteville

Where’s good news?

“Scandal-beset UCA?”

I (we, everyone I have discussed this with) am so tired of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette’s apparent agenda to continually bombard this fine institution. And most of the time on the front page. And you turn to the inside to continue and read all over again, and again (and again) the past issues. I believe the most recent article could have simply been titled “UCA to install a hot line for anonymous tips,” put on the second page of the Arkansas section, and been four or five paragraphs (not an entire page).

Oh, forbid that Debra Hale-Shelton could write an article on, for example, UCA’s physical therapy school that is recognized as one of the top PT schools in the nation. And that example is just the tip of the iceberg of good news at Central Arkansas, my friends.

No, but that is not newsworthy.

I think Tom Courtway and his administration are doing an honorable job righting this ship. In fact, I believe it has been effectively righted.

Are you so struggling as a newspaper to publish and sell that negative articles like this are perceived as necessary? We are all tired of it. Find someone else to pick on.

STEVE CASE

Batesville

It preceded president

Re Barbara Rifkin and her letter regarding Obamacare: Just so she will know, any person who gets a job with a company that offers group insurance can be insured. This health insurance is available without a pre-existingcondition clause, and has been long before anybody knew who Barack Obama was.

The key here is a job with a company that offers group health insurance.

This quality of life has been available for some time, and it certainly wasn’t because of Obama.

WILLIAM THOMAS

Holiday Island

Shouldn’t be the focus

As we head into the 2013 legislative session, our newly elected representatives need to remember the needs of their constituents. Jobs, the economy and health-care reform must be their top priorities in the limited time they have to decide on policy next session.

Politicians who want to propose new bills restricting women’s access to abortion are simply out of touch with the most pressing concerns of those they represent. They need to direct their focus to strengthening our economy and innovative solutions that increase access to health care for all Arkansans. Leave women’s health issues out of it.

HOLLY AJANEL

Little Rock

Feedback

Not on fishing trip

I don’t get all the hype by the self-appointed guardians of our social mores over a compliment sent from one professional to another. If Jeff Long had sent the letter to Bret Bielema, that would be fishing. Since when did fishing become a crime, anyway? Politicians in this country just spent billions fishing for our votes, and it kept the media in the black.

Every salesman worth his salt asks for orders; otherwise he’s just an order-taker. In my day, we prized initiative almost as much as ability, since the absence of either would kill the other. I don’t know or care if Coach B. was fishing or not. His history says it was sincere. Let’s applaud his initiative and apply it to the gridiron.

ROGER BISHOP

Sherwood

Made right decision

Kudos to Jeff Long for realizing that to win consistently in the SEC, the Hogs must be able to play power football on offense and have a suffocating defense. His hiring of Coach Bret Bielema will bring these two elements to the Arkansas football team in the future.

Although the Hog fans will miss the wide-open and exciting offense of Coach Bobby Petrino, running the ball and stopping the run wins championships in the SEC. Just ask Alabama.

MADISON WINTER

Sherwood

Editorial, Pages 17 on 12/14/2012

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