Speak Out 2/16/05

We need farmers

TO ALL of you condemning farmers for the government money they receive to help feed you, just remember: No farmers, no food.

Blame yourselves

IT AMAZES me that so many people are balking at the cuts the new governor and the president are proposing. What did you think was going to happen when you cast your votes to elect conservative Republicans to such high offices? The Republicans have been cutting programs that help our country since Nixon. Each time a new Republican administration is put in power, the little people suffer and the rich get richer. It seems to me you have no one to blame but yourselves.

Motorists in a hurry

THE LEFT lane is for people who want to go faster than the slow lane and need to get somewhere on time.

Smelling sweet

APPARENTLY, THE Southeast Missourian wrongly sees some correlation between Southeast Missouri State University's modest winning streak in men's basketball and the changing of the nickname to the puzzling but politically correct Redhawks. You would be well -advised to remember Shakespeare's stipulation that a rose by any other name would smell as sweet and the philosophical insight that the name is not the thing.

Not the answer

WOULDN'T IT be terrible to be a liberal and see conspiracies everywhere? The $90,000 wage cap on Social Security taxes is not a dirty little secret but common knowledge and being discussed at great length during reform talks. The problem with Social Security is not that we are not paying enough. The problem is that, at the end of the year after all the benefit payments go out, the money left over is not put aside to keep the system solvent. It is taken by politicians on both sides, spent on pet projects and replaced with promissory treasury notes that will someday have to be repaid. If you have any common sense at all, you have to see that giving politicians even more money to steal is not the answer.

Lost campaign

IF THE Iraq war is the wrong war at the wrong place and the wrong time, why did John Kerry stop talking about it after the election? I judge all public officials by what they do after they are either out of office or have lost an election. President Carter did more out of office than in. Kerry has done nothing about everything he brought up during his campaign.

Eye of the beholder

IN RESPONSE to Gary Rust's comment that Bobby Seale was "no hero," I'd say heroism is in the eye of the beholder. I'd pretty much bet that the Black Panthers were heroes to blacks in big-city neighborhoods who were regularly brutalized by the police in the 1960s.

Ending the abuse

BOTH GOVERNOR Blunt and President Bush are willing to listen to individuals express themselves in favor of continuing programs. The problem is that all programs have been abused and that some needs could be met a different way. Not everyone is willing to put his neck on a chopping block in order to fix that which is abused. Too many individuals are reaping the benefits of abuse. If you truly need a program, you'll show you need it. If you are abusing it, now is the time to do what the rest of us having been doing for years: work.

It's not reasonable

APPARENTLY, there will never come a day when human beings can accept the fact that sexual performance is not necessary for a normal, healthy life. We have been taught to believe that having sex is an essential, especially for males. Many couples find a more meaningful relationship with each other when they can stop thinking about sex. Viagra for seniors is not a reasonable or responsible use of our Medicare dollars.

Honoring our heroes

I'M NOT a Southerner, but I hold to the noble Southern principles that a conservative is someone who has something to conserve, sticks to constitutional law and treats all of humanity with whatever respect it deserves. The Veterans of Foreign Wars, the American Legion and other veteran groups understand and appreciate what it means to honor fallen heroes with flags on their graves. My maternal ancestry includes both Yankees and Rebels who fought against each other in the Civil War. Both flew their flags with honor. There is absolutely no law that says I cannot fly whichever flag I want on my ancestors' graves. The flags under which they fought honors them, just as the Missouri battle flag honors Col. William Jeffers, who is buried in the Jackson Cemetery.

Retirement planning

IT'S INTERESTING that there are those who believe the wealthy should pay into the Social Security system but not be allowed to withdraw from it. It is frightening to consider what bureaucratic idiocies would come of means testing Social Security benefits. And it's astounding that so few citizens don't call for all civil service employees and elected politicians to be forced into the Social Security system instead of retaining their more lucrative retirement plans.

Out in the real world

THEORETICALLY, David Limbaugh is often correct in what he asserts in his acerbic column. In the real world, applying his ideological solutions to perceived but often non-existent problems would mean unmitigated disaster.

Cover it -- for good

MAYBE AVANT-GARDE artists Christo and Jean Claude could be talked into coming to Cape Girardeau and draping forever the downtown floodwall.

Poor man's income

I'VE LIVED in Cape Girardeau for 15 years and drive a truck for a company in Columbia, Mo. The reason I work for a company outside of Cape is there are no jobs that will pay as well as what I can make at the Columbia company. Cape Girardeau wants to do all these big projects with a poor man's income. If it really wants to do some projects that will help get more tax dollars, why not try to recruit more companies to move to our area? There were at least four projects listed in the paper that I thought could be dropped.

No preaching required

IF YOU want to ban the Bible from the workplace, maybe you should also stop people from talking about how much they drank last weekend or what adult club they went to. When people see me with my Bible, they know not to talk about such things. I do not have to preach to them.

Time with the Bible

I WOULD rather walk into a business and see a Bible than some of the smut books and calendars. I guarantee more time is wasted gossiping and smoking than talking about the Gospel.

Giving and taking

IN RESPONSE to Jon Rust's comments on the charity of Americans to the rest of the world: We should be charitable. We 5 percent of the world's population consume more than 30 percent of the world's resources used on any given day. Most of the world's resources move from poor countries toward us, the most voracious consumers in the history of the world, through transnational corporations.