LETTERS

On begging for money

I’m a 74-year-old man who has been a patron of the horse races at Oaklawn Park in Hot Springs. Recently I was approached there four or five times by panhandlers.

Finally, I asked one what they were collecting for and was informed it was for a senior trip for a local high school. At that time, I informed a boy and girl that I pay school taxes for them to go to school.

My generation and that of my children held car washes and did not panhandle.

Personally, I believe no young person should beg money from strangers for a senior trip.

WALLACE RITCHIE Ozone Should feel ashamed

Randy Veach, president of the Arkansas Farm Bureau, lauded the passage of the U.S. 2014 Farm Bill, feeling “moved” (toward the bank, I suspect).

Why the need for a farm bill? Seems simple. Population size and demand determine food need and that determines price in the market. Why any legislation?

I’m in the furniture business, and no one is offering me taxpayer research-funding, payment-in-lieu-of-taxes or conservation programs. These are, as it seems Rep. Tom Cotton was honest to imply, simply government handouts, sanitarily dubbed subsidies for farmers.

Veach says, “One in six working Arkansans has an agriculture-related job.” Baloney. He fails to note where he got this number, as he does with his assertion that “$17 billion of value to the Arkansas economy, almost 17 cents of every dollar in our state,” are attributed to agriculture. Indeed, it seems that in over a half-dozen monetary or statistical claims, Veach does not cite a single source outside one from the Congressional Budget Office.

I don’t particularly trust Cotton, but I believe he’s correct in voting against a bill that’s apparently become nothing more than welfare for lazy farmers and food stamps for a growing class of Americans with no pride or willingness to work.

Veach says, “The farm bill is not something of which our nation should be ashamed.”

Along with the food stamps and giveaways to farmers, maybe Veach would have liked shame itself to be subsidized in the bill; it’s a commodity indeed in short supply.

ANTHONY LLOYD Hot Springs

Fending for ourselves

I am a descendant of Francis Scott Key. The cherished words of our national anthem state, “Land of the free and home of the brave.”

Are we free to give billions of dollars to other countries when our own people who are legally born, work and die for the United States are subjected to so many takeaways, such as food stamps, care for the elderly and children, and last but not least, our veterans? TV ads jump on the “give” bandwagon, asking to help other nations when our own need this help more, including our homeless.

Wars overseas-and many believe these countries may revert back to the way they were when we pull out-are very sad due to many lives and the generations that could have been are gone forever. When did we vote to send rockets toward the sky and monies overseas to help others when that money won’t give or buy us respect?

I believe that all the people of the U.S. really care for is to help those who truly deserve that help and not those who take from us and run. The people who run our country, will they ever wake up and truly help our own? CHARLES JAMES Siloam Springs

Can find agreement

I am not an atheist; I believe in God. So I find it odd that whenever I read a letter in the newspaper from Mr. Al Case, I find myself agreeing with 95 percent of what he says.

Mr. Case must be a very smart man. I would enjoy meeting him someday.

JOHN WALLACE Maumelle

To find social justice

In his column, “The egalitarian passion,” that appeared last Monday, Bradley Gitz imagines a world of pristine freedom, which some use responsibly and prosper, while those less gifted fail and resent the consequent inequality.

In his world, those on the political right stand for freedom and responsibility, while those on the left(whom he can’t help but label communist and socialist) suffer an egalitarian passion that sends them on a fools’ errand to use government to crush freedom in order to redistribute wealth and opportunity. All this “in order to satisfy an abstract conception of justice” that can never be realized.

Gitz seems oblivious to the fact that social orders are human constructs designed to favor some over others, and that negotiation for social justice is an ongoing process.

Did George III use England’s power and wealth responsibly while George Washington and the colonists revolted out of egalitarian passion? Did Abraham Lincoln abolish slavery to satisfy an abstract conception of justice?

It seems those who control society ever rely on political pundits like Gitz to justify their rule. Kings were once said to be picked by God to rule by divine right. Gitz appeals to natural law, arguing that those striving for social justice are at war “with nature itself.”

American anthropologist Clifford Geertz, writing of humankind in general, noted that “man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun.” I believe Bradley Gitz offers a striking individual example.

DAVID SIXBEY Flippin

Gosh, so eye-opening

Oh, dear, Bradley Gitz.

I always wondered why Mother Teresa was poor. After reading Gitz’s recent columns, I now understand that she was just irresponsible.

If I had only encountered Gitz earlier in life, I might have avoided doing that irresponsible scientific research for two decades as a graduate student and post-doctoral fellow that has left my bank account suffering. Now that I understand that, in this just capitalist society of ours, money follows on the heels of responsible action, I will attempt to improve my fortunes by being a responsible investment banker or stock broker or maybe a college football coach.

Gitz has really opened my eyes.

I will pattern my life on Bernie Madoff-oops, but he ended up in prison. Maybe Marc Rich is a better mentor. At least he had the responsibility to cultivate powerful friends to help him out of the misfortune that threatened his otherwise responsible and prosperous life.

Thank to Mr. Gitz for opening my eyes to the justice of our rewarding capitalist system.

KATHY CURTIN Fayetteville

Taking over our state

It seems the Koch brothers are going to take over Arkansas. It’s their pitiful ads you see against Mike Ross and Mark Pryor.

I’m thankful that Ross voted to help stabilize the economy. It saved Americans’ investments and pension funds. I’m also thankful for basic health care that my disabled friends get and the small Social Security check another friend gets. Not all of us are lucky enough to get our own oil and gas wells.

One more thing: If you were paying $247 for health insurance for three, you had no health insurance. Your deductible was $10,000 or more. Guess who paid the bill when you couldn’t meet that deductible. Or maybe the hospital stopped treatment.

STEVE WHEELER North Little Rock