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

DATE: THURSDAY, October 20, 1994                   TAG: 9410210007
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-16   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

GOVERNMENT HAS BECOME THE ENEMY

AMERICANS ARE beginning to let it be known that they do not support a huge new bureaucracy in the Clinton health-insurance plan. Moreover, we have much less confidence in our current leaders who are bent on spending more, reducing our personal freedoms, interfering with free enterprise, and developing social programs for criminals who should be punished instead.

Not many refer to ``our government'' anymore. The federal government has become an entity to be endured, a creature to be watched, lest it strike. While causes of this alienation are many, it's hard to deny that the New Left bears much of the responsibility. The vituperation heaped on government during Vietnam couldn't help but seep through society and infect the middle-class core.

Isn't it ironic that President Bill Clinton, who as an anti-war protestor did his best to discredit his government, should now ask the middle class to trust that same entity?

ROGER L. WESLEY

ROANOKE

Fast understands family budget woes

RICK Boucher has done some things to benefit Southwest Virginia, and he has done favors for some individuals, but I ask you to consider the overall picture. He cast the deciding vote for the largest tax increase in this nation's history. That's no big deal for Boucher, who has no wife and children to support, and who voted in the middle of the night to raise his salary to the current $132,000 plus perks. Have you noticed it's harder now to make ends meet? Could that be because Boucher voted in 1993 alone for bills that cost the average family $4,189?

Taxpayer-funded abortion was a major part of President Clinton's health-care plan, and yet Boucher repeatedly has told me to my face that Clinton's plan didn't include abortion.

Boucher voted with Clinton 82 percent of the time.

Fortunately, this November we have a very positive alternative to wasteful big spending. He is Steve Fast, a man who understands families because he has one.

DAVID McPHERSON

GALAX

Worry about women who could've died

REGARDING Robert S. McCormick Jr.'s remarks about legal abortions (Sept. 30 letter to the editor, ``Legal abortions also take lives''):

He would do well to become more knowledgeable about the emotional effects for women who make those difficult decisions. Unlike his impression from watching women display themselves on television programs, careful psychological studies involving thousands of women show that the predominant psychological effect on these women is a feeling of relief.

McCormick certainly has a right to believe that God considers medical abortion to be spiritually wrong. At the same time, God has arranged for the extraordinarily prolific reproduction of all species. Men produce millions of spermatozoa, and women thousands of ova. All of this is living material wasted, along with an estimated 40 percent of all actual conceptions that end up being naturally aborted. Is this waste of reproductive tissue by natural laws evil and reprehensible? Shouldn't it be accepted as part of God's plan?

I, for one, reserve my concerns and regard not for some unborn tissue, but for the thousands of actual living women who could have died without the option of medical abortion.

EILEEN G. TAYLOR

ROANOKE

Liberal rumblings on conservatism

IN RESPONSE to the Oct. 9 editorial, ``The betrayal of conservatism'':

I assume the comments and criticisms you offered were aimed at those who support and plan to vote for Oliver North.

As a regular reader of your newspaper, I already know where your editorial sympathy lies, and also the liberal spin applied to all political reports.

Your cause would be better served if you would just stick to the standard fare of the liberal left: North is a liar, felon, etc.

The nearest parallel I can draw concerning the advice you offered would be for the granddaddy of all liberals, Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., to seek out Rush Limbaugh for advice.

RAYMOND A. SIMMONS

ROANOKE

Robb betrayed former supporters

THIS ELECTION isn't about Oliver North, Sen. Charles Robb or Marshall Coleman, but about President Bill Clinton.

I've voted for Robb since he ran for governor, but I feel he betrayed me. He betrayed me on the North American Free Trade Agreement, the crime bill, and every other bill backed by Bill and Hillary.

So now, who should I vote for? Semper Fi, North!

MARTIN CARLE

ROANOKE

by CNB