Don't forget how U.S.
destroyed a culture
It is often said that the "original sin" of the United States was slavery. There is a great deal of truth in this assertion. The original, legal system of slavery ended in the 1860s, but its deleterious effects are still widespread and deep to this day.
However, there is something else that preceded slavery, continued throughout it, and continued after it that to my mind also qualifies as an "original sin": Genocide. I am speaking, of course, of the near-extermination of the indigenous population -- "Native Americans," "Indians" -- who were living here prior to, say, 1500.
Population figures for Native American are extremely difficult to ascertain and vary widely, but a conservative figure estimates the pre-Columbian population within the present coterminous U.S. at 1.5 million. By contrast, in 1900 the Bureau of Census gave the number of Native Americans as about 237,000. This shows a decline of about 84%.
There is no argument that the Native American lands were invaded, occupied and the peoples were displaced, infected by new diseases, killed and eventually herded into reservations. The conquerors not only killed people but, equally important, destroyed the way of life, the entire culture, of the native people. They did this without any "right" to do it, without any justification except that they wanted the land, the country.
In some respects this is the history of the world, and we should not beat ourselves up now over it. Still, we should not forget it; we destroyed a people and their cultures. While we cannot be proud of that, perhaps we can be proud of what we've created since, a brave experiment in constitutional democracy that has been a beacon to the world, the "shining city on the hill." And we should be determined to preserve it, to "protect and defend the Constitution" against all foes, foreign and domestic.
I invite my fellow readers' comments.
Russell G. Brasher
Fayetteville
Jail expansion too big
an approach to woes
We've heard for a long time that the Washington County jail is overcrowded. Sheriff Tim Helder first raised the issue in 2014. The 710-bed facility has recently held as many as 800 detainees. The reason often given is that as Northwest Arkansas's population grows so does the number of criminals. But evidence does not support this conclusion. More than half of those detained are "pretrial" and are awaiting their day in court while their lives, families and jobs (if they can keep them) are on hold for 60 days or more. The driving force is policy, not population.
The Judicial System Assessment ordered by the Quorum Court in 2019 states that the time to dispose of a case doubled between 2015 and 2019. Building a bigger jail will not address that problem, but adding resources to support overworked courts will. And do so with much less expense. The sheriff's 1,700-bed solution is a bit like having a clogged sink and deciding to put in a larger septic system. You can dig up the yard and put in a bigger tank or you can call a good plumber to unclog the pipe.
Let's use common sense to put our resources where they will do the most good and not expand the jail. Vote "no" on the sales tax increase.
Mac Mayfield
Fayetteville