Socialism in America
Re Gene Mason's letter about the Great Society: The principles of socialism are all around; he apparently doesn't recognize them. I believe they are obvious in Obamacare, the VA, NSA, IRS and many other policies of the Obama administration. That includes borrowing money from China to pay for his social programs. (Socialism is always financed by other people's money.)
Have you noticed how many socialist, communist and Marxist countries have a wealthy government and most of the citizens are poor?
And John Wilson's letter implies that Christians should say something good about people or say nothing. Unfortunately, too many people disregard the righteousness of Jesus. Should Christians tell the truth and stand against corruption?
DON CROWSON
Benton
How to stop the leaks
Stop the leaks. We have a leaky border for which the president wants an additional $3.7 billion. The IRS and other agencies send out tens of billions of dollars to ineligible recipients.
Mr. Obama, learn what is going on in your administration. Show real leadership--stop the IRS leaks and use the money to stop the border leaks. If your "pen and phone" are insufficient to do the job, ask the Congress for the authority.
JACK SCHMEDEMAN
Little Rock
Update TV listings
Ditto to the letter from Stephanie Starnes regarding the deletion of the late-night listings in the Sunday TV Week. Also, you need to keep the channel listings updated on U-Verse. Looked in my (not-so-trusty) NW Arkansas TV Week for A&E so I could watch Longmire. Wrong channel listed!
Why don't you do a little updating in a positive way instead of jerking your subscribers around? My husband and I still love reading paper newspaper.
CONNIE DIANE COOK
Rogers
Help our people first
It doesn't make much sense, does it? The homeless go without eating. The elderly go without needed medicine. The mentally ill go without treatment. Troops go without proper equipment. Veterans go without benefits that were promised.
Yet we donate billions to other countries and excessive immigration before helping our own first.
This doesn't make sense, and we need to do something about it.
CARROLL FITZHUGH
Malvern
On moral convictions
Re the Hobby Lobby ruling: My question is: Where are the moral convictions of Hobby Lobby? It makes huge profits buying and reselling goods made in a country where the workers are paid slave wages.
The law of that land apparently still is that, after the first child is born, subsequent pregnancies are to end.
DALE GODWIN
Ash Flat
A new game to play
There seems to be a new game in town.
Monopoly: Go directly to jail, do not pass go, do not collect $200.
Politicalopoly: Do not go to jail, pass go, and collect your $200 ... and more!
Kind of makes you wonder about our state politicians. They approve and spend multimillions of dollars on bike trails and bike bridges for the European wannabes, but won't appropriate dollars for the security of the general population.
Want to play the new game in town? Vote for these clowns once again in November.
DENNIS MILAM
North Little Rock
Government can't fix
It is sad that someone of Esther Silver-Parker's stature, education and career path would, by implication, blame the government and white flight on the poor state of public education as it applies to minorities--especially to black Americans.
I think of all people, she should especially know that the blame lies squarely on the shoulders of Lyndon B. Johnson for the legislation he rammed through in the 1960s that awarded single mothers, and thus rewarded them for having more children out of wedlock. While all "poor" people were affected regardless of race, none more so than the black population where over 70 percent of all births have no married mother. Sadder still, this encouragement also meant no lasting father figure in the home. Ms. Silver-Parker had a married mother and father, and a father who helped raise her.
Our jails are overflowing in large part due to this lack of family dynamic and parental support of a two-parent versus a single-parent home. As we are also sadly learning now, "attending college" is a far cry from obtaining a college degree in a field in which one can get a job that pays enough to pay off the student loans.
Another enslavement of the poor and loss of the middle class.
I believe the government cannot solve this problem of unequal education. Only the black community can solve it when it decides to practice better family and child-rearing control, and insist that the teacher-education colleges up the admissions requirements and only graduate teachers who actually earned their degree though academic excellence and teacher apprenticeship accomplishment.
JOE TUCKER
Cabot
Aliens are our burden
I want to say something about the influx of illegal aliens on our borders. When will we ever come to the realization that this country was founded on legal immigrants (who came with documents and intentions of becoming citizens, worked, paid taxes and generally took care of themselves)?
Now we have illegal aliens all over our country and borders and--guess what--we will have the burden to feed, clothe, educate and take care of all their needs. Guess who will pay for all this? You the taxpayers, not the politicians who make the rules.
It seems this is on the merits of a rumor; just imagine the numbers we will see when they see how easy it is. These children are not making the decisions to cross the border, their parents are. Oh, they may already be here or on their way.
DONNA DUNCAN
Sherwood
Editorial on 07/16/2014