ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, July 14, 1996 TAG: 9607150129
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
TYPE: LETTERS
OVER THE past two years, I've read several articles saying that a growing number of Americans are in a general state of malaise, a bad mood, a depression, but they can't put their finger on the cause. I believe the results of a statewide survey commissioned by The Roanoke Times and The Virginian-Pilot shed light on the reason (July 4 article, ``Poll shows citizens feel ignored'').
The poll showed that citizens feel ignored, not heard, by the nation's leaders. Therefore, they feel themselves powerless and unable to affect the untoward course our ship of state is steering. The people have genuine doubts about our more perfect union, about our government for the people and by the people.
Ironically, the culprit may be those surveys and polls. Do you imagine that Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and others who framed our government foresaw that there would someday be a method for candidates to know, with great accuracy and well in advance, precisely what voters want to hear? Of course, they didn't. They would have thought it impossible.
Today, it's a science. Politicians sound alike, they know too much, their rhetoric rings from the same bell. They simply parrot back what the polls tell them. How can voters tell what they're truly for or against? They can't, and that effectively takes the people out of the loop.
Being out of the loop makes people unhappy, and when people are unhappy, the government is destructive. According to the Declaration of Independence, "Whenever any form of Government becomes destructive ... it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it."
Abolishing is unthinkable, but perhaps it's time to do some altering - soon.
|J. RICHARD BROWN |ROANOKE
VMI tradition lost|
for an ego trip|
WHAT WILL the colossal egos of the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Organization for Women pick to destroy next? Does tradition mean nothing to these people? Two schools in the entire country are all-male, state-supported military schools. It's not like we're overrun with them.
Are the all-female schools ready to admit men? It would be discrimination otherwise. Of course, if that ruling were made, NOW and the ACLU would run screaming and crying that women's rights were being violated. Apparently, the rights of young men to attend the Virginia Military Institute aren't as important. As a matter of fact, the men don't seem to have any rights at all. I hope any young woman attending VMI likes the shaved-head look. Not many women wear that look well.
The next step for women will have to be a ruling that will break the no-women-in-combat code. The Supreme Court won't rule that unconstitutional, though. It's too big an issue, and the real women of this country wouldn't stand for it.
It's about time the people in our government stood up for what is right, and didn't bend to the will of those with the most money and the biggest mouths. The same government officials who spend (waste) huge sums of our money gratifying their own egos find it wrong to spend a vastly smaller sum educating young men who traditionally go on to serve their country. How two-faced of them.
The people of Virginia should have been allowed to vote on whether to continue supporting VMI. Unfortunately, the self-serving, zealous egos of the ACLU and NOW wouldn't have gotten any satisfaction that way. They might have lost. We should all be ashamed for bending to the will of these people.
|PATRICIA P. SCHAAFF |ROANOKE
Using war injuries|
as political currency|
IT IS almost sacrilegious to criticize Purple Heart veterans. They're a special fraternity, and have our undying gratitude. We reward them with benefits, pensions, medical care, etc., and don't begrudge any of it. Of course, there's not enough money in the world to compensate the horribly injured person who will never again lead a normal life. So I hardly know how to say this without sounding churlish and ungrateful.
I knew men who landed in North Africa in 1942, and for the next several years fought their way to Berlin without getting a scratch. I knew others who were shot up in the invasion boats and never made it ashore. It's all in the cards, and the great joker, the fickle finger of fate or whatever one chooses to call it, is the dealer.
Bob Dole was what we in the military called a ``90-day wonder.'' He went to officers candidate school for three months, got his commission and was immediately shipped overseas. He had the misfortune to get hit almost as soon as his feet touched the ground, and spent the rest of his military career flat on his back in military hospitals. Not a good place to become a military expert. Was this the joker at work? Whatever it was, you can't blame him for parlaying it into a political career. He wasn't the first nor will he be the last to use the military as a launching pad.
But Dole does lay it on a bit thick at times. I'm sure you've seen him on television, tearfully relating how the good people of Russell, Kan., held bake sales and took up collections to pay his medical bills. Hogwash! Wounded soldiers don't have to rely on charity for medical care. The full force of military and veterans' hospitals are at their disposal, free of charge. As a matter of fact, I just spent a pleasant week at the local VA having a hip replaced. Now if they would do that for me, I'm sure they would take care of a hero such as Dole.
Shakespeare wrote that some are born great, some achieve greatness, while others have greatness thrust upon them. Dole has his war wound; Oliver North, his Iran/Contra; Sen. John McCain of Arizona, his POW experience. And so it goes.
|JOHN W. SLAYTON |ROANOKE
Freedom is lost in|
big government|
CELEBRATION ON the Fourth of July, with all its blast and hoopla, is a nice vacation when we try to forget that we've lost the meaning of Independence Day as we roll the roller coaster of bigger but worse government.
The freedom for which our forefathers fought lies and dies in the shackles of ``politicians'' instead of statesmen.
According to the Council for Government Reform and other reliable sources, our government has already spent $501 billion of our Social Security trust fund for day-to-day expenses of government - while politicians threaten us with more cuts in benefits and tell us that Social Security will go broke in a few years. Can anyone run a business by such juggling and bungling?
|GERTRUDE SIGMON |FERRUM
Smart cars make|
`smart road' useless|
THE ``smart-road'' concept is becoming a political pork-barrel project. The need for a smart road is being replaced by the development of a smart car. Communities are competing for the location of a now-obsolete concept for the sole purpose of securing public funds.
Smart cars are operating now on our roads and city streets. They're equipped to:
* Prevent rear-end collisions by automatically stopping a following vehicle before contact.
* Warn a driver of an impending head-on collision.
* Orally furnish the driver his location in reference to the road or street he's on.
* Orally instruct the driver on how to reach his destination by road or street name.
Within five years, there will be a cellular phone that will allow a 911 operator to locate the phone caller, even if the caller fails to respond or hangs up the phone, and then to direct emergency vehicles to the site.
All of the above systems are self-contained. The driver doesn't have to take his eyes off the road to read internal or external signs or instructions. These oral and automatic instructions and the cellular phone are already superior to the smart road. Research in this area is a continuing project of highway, military and private laboratories worldwide. To continue the smart-road concept is a waste of public funds and trust.
|JAMES P. WEBB |ROANOKE
LENGTH: Long : 154 linesby CNB