LETTERS

Life in the Dark Ages

We’ve had pious presidents who ruled by religion. Remember George W. Bush reportedly saying that God okayed starting the Iraq war?

The Bible was written back when everyone thought the world was flat and reasoned that natural disasters were caused by angry deities. Living in the Dark Ages without science or any outside knowledge meant being in the dark mentally and physically.

So what happened in Sodom and Gomorrah can happen everywhere there are volcanic mountains that explode and kill all the people around by raining fire and brimstone. The Bible writers with their dark-age mentality blamed it on their deity’s anger about the locals’ behavior that were no doubt practiced everywhere else in the savage world it was back then.

What Lot (the only good man in Sodom and Gomorrah) did in that cave with his daughters was so bad that the Voices page won’t print it. Before that even happened, Lot tried to offer his virgin daughters to all the village’s men to do whatever they pleased just to protect some “angels” at his house eating flat bread and water.

Now, are we going to base our laws on something this ridiculous? Most of the world doesn’t and is prospering while religious areas that live by dark age myths stay in the cobwebs.

GARY McLEHANEY

Benton

Memories writ in ink

Thank you for publishing the article on the historic Jerusalem tattoo parlor.

My husband and I were tattooed there in 1966 during the three years that we taught at Aleppo College in Syria. Our students had told us about the custom, which is many centuries old. In all the years we have been back in this country, we have never met anyone else who has this tattoo.

D. CAROLINE RIGGS

Little Rock

Shouldn’t forget them

Unless I overlooked it-which means it wasn’t prominent enough-Armed Forces Day 2013 was omitted from mention in the Saturday paper.

I offer my thanks to all who serve or have served.

RON SINGEL

Sherwood

No reason to be afraid

John Brummett writes eloquently regarding fear and freedom. His Lifequest class of mostly left-leaning active retirees has decided that the government was right to secretly collect phone records of Associated Press reporters. Brummett opines that means “security out-polled freedom, meaning fear out-polled a full and literal application of American liberty.” He says, apparently in all sincerity, “we’re the land of the mostly free until we become the home of the fearful.”

I have one comment for Brummett, and all his geezers too, along with the rest of us: Be not afraid.

Our Constitution is the same yesterday, and today and forever. We maintain freedom precisely by refusing to give in to fear when “a full and literal application of American liberty” is challenging and frightening. Just because the government thinks someone has acted so egregiously that it is justified to ignore such things as warrants does not mean that the government has the right to do so.

Be not afraid. Brummett and the senior assembly, I’m sure, will appreciate my assertion that there is a nonreligious similarity between the Constitution and the Bible. Both are easy to criticize, both written by politically incorrect old men with foolish ideals unsuited to our modern sensibilities/ethics/sense of justice. Anyone can find sentences/paragraphs/ideas to debunk. Both have withstood centuries of criticism. Average Americans always decide to support the Constitution and Bible in the end. Be not afraid; neither be thou dismayed. Speak up.

TOM MURRAY

Bella Vista

Stunning logical leaps

Scandal or not, I believe the Tea Party was breaking the tax laws by claiming to be nonpolitical.

And as far as the Associated Press is concerned, if it divulged classified information, it should face punishment. Outing a CIA agent is not good reporting.

Last point: We send American soldiers to make Afghanistan safer for children going to school. We then fail to require all sellers to perform background checks at gun shows because people will break the law.

Well, with that logic, we should pull up speed limit and stop signs because people break those laws also.

STEVE WHEELER

North Little Rock

Stands for his beliefs

For years now, it seems the Democratic Party and mainstream media have attempted to brand the Tea Party as extremist, militant, racist and being totally out of touch with reality. I think the Democrats actually have been privately jealous of the Tea Party. In the last 12 or so months they vocally supported Occupy Wall Street. Do you remember them? Would you invite them back into your community?

I attended a Tea Party rally in Fayetteville a few years back, and to my surprise not a single politician was featured as speaker. This rally was conducted by what seemed to be average folks who felt threatened by our government’s ideas of higher taxes and lax border security, and who had determined that our Constitution was being ignored. I don’t remember a single speaker mention a Democrat, as they were actually protesting all politicians who neglect to support the principles held in our Constitution, which is the foundation our nation was built upon.

There are some who feel the Constitution is outdated, that it doesn’t apply in this day and age. That’s just not so. This document was written by men who had in some cases experienced tyranny in Europe and, because of it, knew full well how to protect the people from it.

Yes, I welcome the Tea Party in my community because it stands for the things I stand for: honesty, integrity, responsibility in government and freedom from oppression.

LARRY HARRIS

Springdale

Now that you say that

I just wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed Frank Fellone’s story on Arkansas Speak.

I am sorry that I didn’t pay better attention to my grandparents in Rose Bud when they said things like “It’s comin’ up a cloud!” or “Lord, I’m hot as a fox!” (I always wondered how hot a fox was or where that came from), but it was just things they said.

Once again, thanks for a great story.

SHERRY BRUNO

North Little Rock

Editorial, Pages 17 on 05/23/2013

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