What Democratic Party really believes
Bradley R. Gitz’s recent column lists nine propositions that he thinks Democrats believe. Well, here is what one Democrat believes about Gitz’s list. Drilling for oil should start with the many undeveloped leases Big Oil already owns. The Gitz suggestion that drilling on new leases would reduce gas prices anytime soon is fantasy. Because some Dems disagree with Gitz on affirmative action does not make them racist or sexist. Is peddling that smear racist and sexist itself ? You decide. Democrats are not afraid to debate how to best reduce abortion. Democrats want to reduce unwanted pregnancies. That position was strongly stated in the draft Democratic platform that Gitz calls fuzzy. The idea that using military power as a last resort is not appeasement, it is an American ideal ignored by George W. Bush. Acts of terrorism are not America’s fault and to suggest that Democrats believe they are is pure slime. Democrats believe everybody should have affordable health care. That isn’t socialized medicine, but if it were, it would still be right. The reality that America has a “living” Constitution is more than 200 years old. Constitutional literalists want to take us back to 1887. Why would anybody want to be politically incorrect ? In political discourse, political correctness aside, truth is always a defense. On the issue of tort reform, there is room for compromise. Court decisions should be reasonable and protect both sides.
ROBERTS A. BRADEN / Harrison
Agenda outlined clearly
Kudos to Bradley Gitz for his piece titled “What Democrats believe.” I have never seen the Democratic Party’s agenda spelled out with such clarity. This column should be required reading for every voter in the U. S. It should be shouted from the rooftops and bounced from the ceiling of every tax-paying home in America. Heaven help the United States if Democratic socialism is allowed to turn us into the Third World country that Barack Obama thinks we should be. I hope it’s not too late for us to wake up.
JOHN G. VOWELL / Little Rock
Stock guarantee needed
Freddie Mac is in financial trouble and wants investors to buy its stock to raise money. I’m in financial trouble, too. I bought Kmart stock and the bankruptcy judge nullified it and then authorized Kmart to issue new stock to people to whom Kmart owed money. They made a killing, and Kmart made so much money off of its sweet deal with the court that within two years it had enough money to buy Sears for billions in cash and stock. The creditors got to sell their shares of stock for a nice profit, too, something like 10 times what it was worth when issued by the court within a year. Back to Freddie Mac. I would buy shares in this company, but I have to have a guarantee in writing and registered with the SEC that under no conditions can my shares be declared null and void, that I will always be able to sell my shares for money. Bankruptcy, legal problems, criminal acts, takeover, you name it, I want a 100 percent guarantee that my stock will be as good as cash. I’m sure other financially poor people like me would buy stock with that guarantee.
WAYNE HOLDEN / Searcy
Commentary in disguise
If letter writer George W. McClain really wants a complete research project, he may want to throw in left-wing hate network and cable television. NBC, ABC, MSNBC, CNN—all effuse that all things Republican and conservative are evil and a threat to the very survival of the nation and disguise it by calling it news, not commentary.
NATHAN L. GRANT / Batesville
Increase hurts economy
In August 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed legislation increasing estate and gift taxes, and the marginal rate on individuals and corporations, and taxing dividends, formerly untaxed. By then the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which hovered around 280 prior to the 1929 crash, had recovered from 100 in 1934 to 187.
In August 1937, the Dow began its second decline in the decade to 119. The United States wasn’t any closer to ending the depression than in 1934. Just a coincidence ? I doubt it.
Barack Obama has proposed repealing President Bush’s tax cuts on almost the identical indices that the 1935 revenue act increased. With the U. S. close to a second depression, all it would take to collapse the economy completely is to repeal Bush’s tax cuts. The suffering would be greater this time because we no longer have enough farms to sustain families. If there is another terrorist strike, the depression will be deeper.
Obama is believed to be informed on economic affairs but is showing that he doesn’t understand the consequences of raising taxes—mainly that it shuts down the job-creation mechanism. He is proposing middle-class tax cuts and increased health care spending to compensate, but regardless of where taxes are increased, the effect will be the same. New Deal programs may have been necessary to preserve life and maintain civility, but in terms of restoring the economy to full employment, they weren’t very useful. THOMAS POPE / Little Rock
Was column catharsis?
Is it possible that Professor Bradley Gitz of Lyon College in Batesville is an angry white male and writes columns as cathartic venting ? Other than for that reason, I can’t wrap any logic around why he has written his nine-point “What Democrats believe” column. His nine statements seem to be from the Karl Rove play book. Throw anything against the wall and perhaps Dumb and Dumber will believe it. Incite the crowd and throw in a few choice words and phrases like “political correctness,” “ abortion on demand” and “racial preferences.” His Rove-guided rhetoric is an insult to the intelligence of Arkansans. This Presbyterian household is certainly happy that our two Presbyterian children didn’t attend and graduate from the Presbyterian Lyon College. It would have been too much damage control if Gitz is what the college serves up. It’s sad when a white male who has obviously achieved his dream to become a full college professor and columnist views himself as an unprotected white Christian male. What went wrong ? Really, why is he so angry ? Democrats and liberals can’t be that threatening to an arugula-eating person like Gitz.
PAULETTE MABRY / Little Rock
Miracles before millions
This breaking news just in: Barack Obama set a new Democratic record and performed two miracles in front of millions. He performed one miracle by turning millions of Democrats into Republicans in a year in which the Republicans could not win unless Hell froze over. Oh, that second miracle ? Obama froze Hell.
PAUL HITE / Pleasant Plains
A dangerous infestation
The black widow spider, Latrodectus mactans, is infesting the state of Arkansas. I work at a business in Maumelle and have killed five black widow spiders outside on our picnic tables. I also found one only a few inches from my head just outside the kitchen door of my house.
I discovered a web on the threshold of my front door the other day and got some bug spray and, yes, killed another one.
I went to El Dorado over the weekend and went to a well-known drugstore there. As I was leaving, along their sidewalk, which runs parallel to their store, I found three more nests of them.
So let your children be aware of what they look like: shiny black, rather large (from one to two inches ) with two long front legs. She has a bright red spot on her abdomen shaped like an hourglass. The venom is 15 times deadlier than the rattlesnake’s and even deadlier than the king cobra’s.
They can become aggressive now that their egg sacs are also formed (a half-inch oval white sac ). Make sure you destroy them also, for they contain 400 dangerous little spiders in each sac ready to hatch out next spring.
TOM KNIGHT / Little Rock
Debt continues to grow
The Republican Party is now trying to prove that Barack Obama is a racist. I don’t care. Recession is when you lose your job and depression is when your neighbor loses his. For most of the United States, we are in a recession now. Let’s see, at the end of Bill Clinton’s term the national debt was paid down, and now at the end of George W. Bush’s term we are looking at almost $ 9 trillion in debt plus $ 400 billion for the wars. The Republican Party doesn’t believe in paying its debts off, it believes in borrow-and-spend. How dumb. John McCain wants to make permanent tax cuts that got us into this mess. I can’t believe it, but he really does. I remember Ronald Reagan saying the same thing in 1980.
BUDDY WILSON / Hot Springs
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