LETTERS

LITTLE ROCK — Vote your vegetables

I can climb past the Richie Rich stuff and the prayer undies and golden-plates stuff, but what I’m still waiting for is for Mitt Romney to openly disavow, disinherit and discredit the shrieking fantasists out there in radio land.

Until I hear the man say that folks similar to or actually named Rusty, Michael, Glenn or Rushbo are verging on sedition and are inciting their listeners to commit (fill in the violent crime of your choice here) and should be shunned-until that happy day, I’m voting the strict vegetarian ticket this year.

If Romney, by his tacit acceptance through his silence, needs the votes of the tinfoil-hat brigadiers that badly, well, he’s not smart enough to be my president.

’Nuf sed?

ELIZABETH K. HARRIS

Evening Shade

Find new knowledge

The price hadn’t changed in years, but a large increase in the price of this paper caused me to ask, “Can I still afford it?’

My two-word mission statement for a daily newspaper is “Be Necessary.” This one is. I must continue to subscribe, at age 76, for my education and edification.

I read editorials and columns from all persuasions. What can you learn reading only those with whom you agree? I often disagree with the editorials, but over time they expose me to a classical education. I mine the editorials and columns for nuggets. Example is a recent opinion section:

From the editorial: “Stay a gentleman. Or a lady. Your opponent could be. And, for all you know, may even be right.”

From a Dallas Morning News column: “Obama got it right when he stated, ‘No party has a monopoly on wisdom. No democracy works without compromise.’ ”

From guest writer Adam J. Reeves on animal rights: “No dog has ever asked to be part of a fight to the death.”

From letter-writer Sandy Wylie: “Put this question to your friends: When did you choose your sexual orientation? . . . Then read autobiographies in which people discuss their sexual histories. They show that sexual orientation isn’t chosen, it’s discovered.”

Mine for new knowledge. In this newspaper, you can do it every day. Those who must call other people names mostly show that they haven’t yet found knowledge.

JIM HITCH

Mountain Home

Differences divide us

When you hear and read about the past, the United States of America stands out. We were not only united in our thoughts, but were able to negotiate our differences.

Today, we live in the un-United States of America. We have Democrats and Republicans who dislike some of their own party members as well as the opposite parties and the president.

The voting public puts a candidate in office to represent not only them, but the American people overall.

Some of our candidates for office, and some present congressmen, reportedly have pledged that they will not vote to pass anything that is on a list of items that outside forces submit for rejection. They may have not even heard or read what is involved.

No wonder our country is in trouble.

CHARLES McNUTT

Little Rock

Conservative canard

Bradley Gitz is the pot calling the kettle black again.

He complains that “liberals” have anti-freedom belief systems forbidding people to make the “wrong” choices, so they embrace government violence/ power as a remedy. That sounds to me a whole lot like “conservatives,” who applaud that same violence/power when it comes to drugs (even benevolent home-grown plants), encourages the state to kidnap “illegal” foreigners, and wants the central government to define marriage, an institution that was totally outside government purview for most of human history.

It seems that conservatives are deathly afraid that someone, somewhere, might be joyfully having sex with a lover.

Both “liberals” and “conservatives” embrace government violence when it comes to war, empire and foreign occupations, although with slightly different rationalizations; one favors humanitarian mass murder, while the other offers national aggrandizement excuses.

One request of Mr. Gitz: Please don’t steal libertarian slogans andpretend they are conservative. “Mind your own business” is a libertarian sentiment. Pretending that conservatives enforcing their morality and brutal occupations through state violence is “minding your own business” is just plain denial.

BILL ORTON

Fayetteville

Those gloomy liberals

Leave it to Bradley Gitz to accurately sum up the solemn state of the liberal psyche. While liberal Americans continue to spend their lives obsessing about mundane matters such as war, economic poverty, the cost of health care for low-income patients, and the corruption of our financial system, Bradley apparently likes to spend his time sipping mai tais with Mitt Romney in the Cayman Islands.

Worrying about people’s preexisting conditions can definitely put a damper on one’s croquet game.

Bradley also mentions the fact that the “left” is full of hatred for conservatives, whereas conservatives just view liberals as well-intentioned folks-which is true unless you include Barack Obama being accused of supporting the terrorists in Libya, or that he’s a non-American Muslim with a fake birth certificate, or that he’s a wimp because he hasn’t nuked Iran.

Which one is the angry one, again?

JOHN LANCASTER

Donaldson

Picking and choosing

Carolyn Kirk must be afflicted with the malady that affects most Democrats. It is known as “selective memory.”

No doubt she was referring to Gov. Mitt Romney’s fundraising visit to our state and how it relates to needy children.

Selective memory kicks in when she forgot to mention the dozens of fundraising events attended by President Barack Obama.

How many needy children did his events help?

As they used to say when I was growing up: “Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.”

DON GIBSON

Searcy