
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, May 28, 1994                   TAG: 9405310114
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-9   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Long

GOVERNMENT WON'T BE EASILY OVERTHROWN

I CAN'T believe that supposedly educated people (doctoral student James W. Bishop, May 13 letter to the editor entitled ``Taking steps toward holocaust'') are still espousing such drivel about the need to keep and bear arms so that we may violently overthrow our government, should it become tyrannical.

If you even think about amassing enough weapons to threaten our current (untyrannical?) government, you'll be branded a terrorist and exterminated.

If you don't believe me, ask any Branch Davidian.

ERIC SHEFFIELD

BUENA VISTA

Boucher wears a Republican cloak

I'M A lifelong Democrat and will die one, but I cannot vote for or endorse a Democrat in Republican clothing. And that's what Rick Boucher is. To vote for a candidate like him is worse than voting for a Republican who stands for nothing.

Boucher has not voted for one bill that President Clinton wants passed to help the American people. He voted against the president's tax bill, but had the nerve to say that his district received the largest tax benefit ($13 million) in the state, and near the top of the list in the nation. The National Rifle Association has him in its pocket, with NRA money for his campaign. He told one person he couldn't vote for the gun bill and expect to be elected. He didn't consider that 80 percent of Americans supported the gun bill, which passed. He wants health-care change, but doesn't support businesses to help pay for it. He meets with businesses, doctors, hospitals and insurance companies, but won't meet with uninsured voters who can't afford premiums on minimum wages or who are paying big premiums.

If he can't vote for bills to help his district's voters and the American people, then let's send him to join Mary Sue Terry.

OPAL A. PRICE

BLACKSBURG

Robb appeals to the mainstream

AS A NEW Democrat, Sen. Charles Robb has supported fiscal responsibility, a strong national defense and progressive social policies. Such approaches appeal to important constituencies among Virginians, making him the most electable candidate the Democratic Party can offer.

Forthright in his opinions, Robb has effectively addressed vital family issues of health care and welfare reform, violence in schools and job opportunities. He joins with the mainstream of Virginians in advocating equality for all. He's returned more than $1 million to the U.S. Treasury from his Senate office funds.

I urge all Democrats to support Robb, who's responsible for initiating the rejuvenation of the state party, in the June 14 primary.

GERRY JENNINGS

ROANOKE

Banning sportsmen is the 'deal'

SPORTSMEN, wake up! We're losing the right to enjoy land we paid for. The 91 million acres making up the National Wildlife Refuge were purchased by funds raised by the Pitman-Robertson Act. This act was brought before Congress by sportsmen to impose a voluntary tax on sporting goods for the purpose of purchasing and maintaining the land known as the National Wildlife Refuge system.

The Clinton administration has cut a deal with The Wilderness Society, Defenders of Wildlife and three Audubon groups, which brought a lawsuit against the government. It will require the Fish and Wildlife Service to produce a documented study of every refuge, by October and every year after, to justify hunting, trapping and fishing and to prove that adequate money and manpower exist to oversee these activities. These reports must meet the criteria of those who brought the lawsuit. This puts animal rights' groups in the driver's seat. Because of lack of funding, the new Fish and Wildlife Service director has ordered some refuges to shut down. Good-bye hunting.

How did this happen? Time and again, Congress, the federal courts and the federal executive - all three branches of the federal government - have rejected these proposals. But now Clinton has padded his administration with very ``green'' individuals. George T. Frampton, The Wilderness Society president when the lawsuit was filed, now serves as assistant secretary of the interior for fish and wildlife parks. His boss, Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt, is former governor of Arizona and supported Arizona's 1992 Proposition 200 to outlaw hunting, trapping and fishing on public lands there. Arizona citizens defeated the issue.

It's time to defeat this ``deal'' to stop sportsmen from using the National Wildlife Refuge. When will they extend the ban on hunting to include your back yard?

DON L. GARDNER

HUDDLESTON

There's no crisis - for Congress

AT LAST, the time has finally come for drastic, yet meaningful change. Let's face facts. Our concerns have outgrown the handful of pitifully inept representatives in Washington.

For instance, Sen. Bob Dole and his lap dog, Newt Gingrich, boldly announce that a health-care crisis doesn't exist. No, not for our privileged members of Congress; they get free health care. But let one of us lesser individuals have a prolonged stay in a hospital, and we soon find out what a financial burden health care can be. My house is paid for, and I don't want any hospital owning it.

The time has come for a national referendum on issues affecting us as much as health care. Please don't allow our lives to be reduced to petty bickering by spoiled politicians who only want to promote themselves.

LLOYD M. HOLFIELD

ROANOKE

by CNB