LETTERS

Great writers live on

I especially appreciated Paul Greenberg’s column on the death of the editorial.

Though some current writers capture my attention, I wistfully remember some of the great writers of years past. The sometimes cynical, humorous and candid columns of Mike Royko of the Chicago Sun-Times and Tribune. The “I’m not making this up” humor of the Miami Herald’s Dave Barry. The common-man insights of Jimmy Breslin-I still have the column he wrote about the gravedigger following JFK’s funeral. Others include Art Buchwald, Jim Murray and Richard Cohen. I would love to see the paper occasionally reprise some of their landmark columns.

GEORGE ALDRICH

Hot Springs Village

Must think critically

We have reached a moment in history when the media and technology are helping to create a partitioned society. I think it will be evil if this tyrannical movement continues to grow, aided by conscienceless technologies and a plethora of media hyperbole.

It seems these mediums are doing what the Inquisition couldn’t do, what the Puritans couldn’t do and what the old oppressors couldn’t do-that is, crushing and obliterating unprejudiced, guileless problem-solving. We are being manipulated by a 24/7 avalanche of optic, audio and negative print imagery.

I believe there has never been a moment in the evolution of mankind when an independently arrived-at attitude is more important. We must resist the pugnacity we are so gleefully fed. We ignore the media’s dishonesty, which encourages them to flaunt it, allowing the perpetrators the license to forsake the truth. Our appetite seems anxious to swallow the warped diet of those who mislead us as we bow to their consciously shaped lies, distortions and twisted half-truths.

It is time to reactivate our underused critical-thinking abilities and enlist the aid of fact-checking skills.

It is time for us to get serious about the long-term political health of our towns, our state and our country. Such an effort will require thinking that is free from bigotry, to be nonpartisan, nongeographic and not limited by religious unreasonableness or undisciplined worldliness.

Are we equal to the challenge? It’s time to tear down the walls that are dividing us before it’s too late.

RAY WAIER

Bella Vista

Seems like big waste

Wow! Just when I think government employees cannot get any dumber or more dishonest, they spend $6 million on safety cables only to remove them a few months later.

WOODY NUTTER

Fort Smith

Back to the firing line

With all the problems states are having getting drugs for executions, I think the smart thing to do is to bring back firing squads. It’s cheaper and simpler to carry out. No need for fancy death rooms or equipment to administer the drugs, which can take up to 30 minutes to stop the heart.

Instead, line up half a dozen state troopers. Give ’em a bullet, which on average costs less than a dollar, and the inmate is dead before he hits the ground.

JOHN HOGAN

Little Rock

Restriction of freedom

“The press is our chief ideological weapon,” said Nikita Khrushchev.

There are many quotations one could choose pertaining to the freedom of the press in a nation. Most extol the necessity of a free press to protect the liberties and freedoms that such a nation should aspire to.

However, after reading the recent editorial in this paper about the president and the National Security Agency, I believe that the above quotation is more apt. In that editorial, you seem to leave little doubt concerning your biases for the restrictions of liberties, freedom of speech, freedom of privacy and unwarranted searches and seizures. It appeared an entire half-page was solely devoted to the justification of this government’s efforts to completely erase much of the Bill of Rights in the name of fighting terrorism.

It seemed to have been done under the guise of declaring that the president was about to, might, or perhaps was going to, rein in a few of the many programs that the NSA has been operating, with practically no public oversight, for many years. Even a federal judge has now declared some of these programs unconstitutional.

Fittingly, the column next to it by Paul Greenberg was titled “The death of the editorial.” In it, Paul mentions George Orwell as one who openly spoke his mind. If George were alive, I’ll bet he would have a heyday with the sheer schizophrenia of these two pieces, and a reminder of the society prevalent in his book 1984.

JERRY ROBERTSON

Van Buren

Permutation of liberty

Don Crowson recently wrote: “Republicans love liberty. The Tea Party is a grass-roots movement that believes in individual liberty, whereas it seems the Democrats believe in liberty for the masses.”

I’m sorry, but I didn’t quite understand what the difference was except for the obvious commie/socialist spinword for “those less fortunate than us.” This sounds like objectivist (Ayn Rand) philosophy to me-gobbledygook.

Just a few questions: If the Tea Party movement believes in individual liberty, does that mean that an individual has the liberty to choose whether or not they are gay? Does “individual liberty” mean that an individual has the liberty to choose whether or not they have an abortion? Does “individual liberty” mean that an individual has the liberty to smoke and/or grow marijuana? Does “individual liberty” mean that an individual has the liberty to be anything but a Christian?

Of course not, that would be liberty for the masses.

FLEMING STOCKTON

Little Rock

Editorial, Pages 17 on 02/05/2014

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