LETTERS

Someone will suffer

Re the proposed online sales tax: The customer is usually located some distance from the vendor, which has large local taxes and travel to reach. All of us know that a 50-mile round trip can be quite costly in gas. I assume that the tax rate charged would be at the customer’s local rate, which is the way all other purchases delivered to the household are.

Then there are the multiple tax rates for different customers, so the online sales vendor would have to have a set of local sales-tax rates based upon the ZIP codes of the customer, plus some type of record-keeping system to allocate the tax back to the locality. The vendor, in turn, would have to properly charge rates and be able to prove that they were allocated properly.

Who suffers-the customer, the online vendor, the vendor cities?

Customers are going to choose the best deal for them regarding prices, mileage cost, delivery cost and return policy. In many cases, it is not the vendor in a remote location.

LANCE MYERS

Eureka Springs

Rights from creation

What do you believe? Do you believe you evolved? Do you believe you were created? Do you believe strongly in either? If so, how much? Or, do you pick and choose what you want to believe from each? If one believes she/he was created, then one believes in the Bible or some form of religion.

Here again, do you accept the entire concept of what you say you believe, or do you pick apart and say it’s okay to do this or that? I am also referring to pastors, ministers and all forms of clergy and lay persons of all religions who do not follow the doctrine of religion which they have professed because it’s becoming socially acceptable, even though it still so states in the Bible. How true can one be to anything?

A part of the preamble to the Declaration of Independence reads as follows:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Those of you who believe you evolved from whatever, why do you think or believe that you are entitled to rights endowed by the creator? Think about it. Many of these very same men who wrote the Declaration also wrote the Constitution that you enjoy the protection of because of a creator.

A.J. HANSON

North Little Rock

Pledge allegiance to …

I agree 100 percent with recent letters written by Robert G. Hall, Mickie Lewis and Jackie A. Waggoner. I wish they could be reprinted.

We should have strong background checks as stated in the Toomey-Manchin gun bill.

Everyone should stand up and be counted. Otherwise, I guess we need to pledge allegiance to the NRA and to those who opposed this bipartisan bill.

BOB DIXON

Pottsville

Resents the criticism

After reading about the museum at McGehee showing World War II Japanese internees’ hardships, let me say this: If McGehee Mayor Jack May doesn’t want this to ever happen again, he’d better not let the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor again.

We lost more than 2,000 American lives during this sneak attack by the Japanese. Our American government expected them to invade California, and we didn’t know if the Japanese living there along the California Coast would aid the invaders.

I am a former Korean War combat engineer veteran whose father and brother fought in WWII, and I resent the criticizing of my government for protecting my country from Japanese invaders.

ED FERREE

Deer

On whose authority

I read John Brummett’s columns each week, and each and every time I am reminded of Teddy Roosevelt’s quote about the “man in the arena”:

“It is not the critic who counts;not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

It is so easy to sit back and criticize our leaders and legislators who may have fallen a little short at one time or other, but I have difficulty putting any credibility in those who have not been “in the arena,” who have not taken any risks in life, who have not sacrificed for the good of their fellow man, and yet seem to be an authority on everything.

WILLIAM CORLEY

Benton

What can be reason?

What strange bedfellows: Christians professing to be concerned for the poor, sick, war-ravaged people and probably extolling our Christian nation while at the same time supporting politicians who oppose governmental programs which provide relief from those concerns.

The same politicians who believe in a god of peace will resist any attempts to assess more taxes on the very rich to help provide relief, and will also support a huge defense budget full of wasteful expenditures such as outdated, unused weapons and wars fought for unproven reasons, which result in a huge loss of life.

Why the alliance? Maybe moral beliefs. To wit: Abortion rights, same sex marriage, prayer in school, etc., have caused this coalition.

However, being a Christian, I find no laws that require me to practice such things, only to tolerate the rights of others to do so.

The principles I believe in and adhere to regarding the above can be followed with no legal recrimination whatsoever.

One would do well to study the political parties regarding historical stands on issues pertaining to the welfare of the nation and its citizenry, and also to discriminately study the intents of lobbying groups who spend large sums in influencing our representatives.

Become informed and when you vote, do not be guilty of biting the hand that feeds you or cutting off your nose to spite your face.

DOYLE E. COLLINS

Arkadelphia