LETTERS

Intelligence is lacking

I guess the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette feels it needs to present multiple viewpoints, but I find the frequent postings from ultra-liberal political cartoonist Clay Bennett to bea complete waste of ink. I think this guy is so clueless it’s laughable, and his portrayals are flat-out distortions of the truth.

A recent cartoon shows a man looking at his truck’s flat tire and cursing Barack Obama. This would make perfect sense to me if the man standing there was Obama and the cursing was aimed at George W. Bush, since blaming Bush for everything is all Obama has done for the last five years.

Near the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech, Bennett’s cartoon showed a 50-year-old car and a modern car with identical bumper stickers calling for equal voting rights and the end of racism, suggesting nothing has changed in 50 years. Where’s this guy been for the last half-century, living under a rock?

If you’ve got to present a liberal viewpoint, can’t you at least find a liberal with a modicum of intelligence?

JIM LAUX

Sherwood

Weaponized humor

Isn’t it funny that what goes around comes around?

First, Iraq’s Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction (probably made in Russia), then he didn’t have any.

Then, Syria’s Bashar Assad had chemical weapons of mass destruction, and reportedly used them on his own people.

Now Russia’s Vladimir Putin is going to confiscate Assad’s chemical weapons and dispose of them. That’s a joke, ha ha!

NELSON GATEWOOD

Highland

Could have saved life

If Obamacare had existed a few years sooner, it might have saved my son’s life. He died from a cerebral aneurysm.

Doctors couldn’t find what caused his symptoms. They were restricted in what tests they could use because he was not insured.

The system failed him and we lost a very smart, beautiful person who might have been saved by better health care.

VIRGINIA COX

North Little Rock

Thanks for explaining

Big bad John Brummett has done it: He has revealed the secret of President Barack Obama’s success. Cliché-king Brummett opined that U.S. Rep Tom Cotton “intends to cut off his nose to spite his face” regarding Obamacare. Cotton’s nose will disappear because he says he and his staff will follow the law as written and will not accept subsidies. That is the “principled silliness” addressed.

The “silly” law required congressmen and staff to be treated like everyone else. But the president had his people check the law. But-and here is the big but-the secret of President Obama’s success, so well explained by Brummett.

The law as written includes congressional employees, “but they found that nothing prevented Obama from having his people provide, by regulation, that these employees would continue to receive that basic benefit …”

So we learn that Obama has his people, his employees, and at his direction they can do whatever he wants them to do. We already know we have spent five years with an administration that frequently delays laws, ignores laws, changes laws, and regulates them all.

Regulation is the secret. No law ever said he couldn’t regulate our lives as he sees fit. The ex-law professor apparently knows that the Constitution also doesn’t prevent “Obama from having his people provide, by regulation” whatever he decides is best for the rest of us who aren’t his people. Obama is the ultimate community organizer. Sounds to me like unprincipled silliness.

Thank you, Mr. Brummett, for explaining how simple it has been to pervert our system of government.

TOM MURRAY

Bella Vista

On our responsibilities

I would like to suggest that the American people search their hearts and souls to find some way forward in getting along with one another. We are sadly lacking in a cooperative and nonjudgmental manner to find the solutions to our many problems. We do not need the absoluteschism in our political system that is currently confounding us.

For all those of you to whom “no government” is the solution to so many of our ills, I ask the following:

If you are over 65, do you partake of Medicare coverage or do you refuse it? Likewise, do you return your Social Security checks to the government?

Do you use public highways and roads? Do you wish to have some protection at work from accidents and injuries? Do you accept IRS refunds? Do you tell the National Guard to get lost in disasters? Do you use the post office? Have you ever needed unemployment payments? Do you believe that police and firefighters are superfluous? Do you think that all business, industry and utilities should be entirely unregulated?

Politicians are terribly afraid of not being re-elected. They shout and harangue; they cower and live in the shadows. This they do simultaneously. Is that what we want? Is that why we elected these people? Many of the loudest shouters and biggest cowards are simply using you to make their careers.

We must find our own voices and insist that the government do our business. Yes, this includes health care. The Affordable Care Act will do much for many who now have nothing. Please consider your rights and responsibilities to this great country.

MARTHA A. STARK

Hot Springs

Not-special election

The special-election boogeyman is approaching the stage.

This week, the Little Rock City Board will vote on whether to schedule a special election on Dec. 10th regarding renovating Robinson Center Music Hall. I’ll leave to others the question of whether it’s worth spending $60 million to $70 million to spruce up Robinson for the next time Fiddler, Cats or Oklahoma roll into town (again).

My beef is that local politicians seem addicted to special elections, whose sole purpose appears to be to suppress voter turnout.

Old Robinson is not going to collapse before the general election in November 2014. Remember, we’re talking about the taxpayers’ money. Schedule the election for Nov. 4, 2014, and let as many voters as possible decide the issue.

SCOTT VAUGHN

North Little Rock