ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, August 9, 1996 TAG: 9608090007
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-12 EDITION: METRO
TYPE: LETTERS
PLEASE LET me offer a possible explanation why Rep. Bob Goodlatte "wants to tinker with the Constitution" (July 30 editorial, "Still messing with school prayer").
I'm old enough to remember when the First Amendment had a much different meaning - the meaning it had for the 175 years of the nation's existence.
I remember the prayer the school principal gave at an assembly on the Monday after Pearl Harbor. He prayed for the nation's safety, and I don't recall that anyone objected. In the third- or fourth-grade, our class memorized the 23rd Psalm. It was legal then, and I can still recite it and am still enriched by it. At Christmas, we sang Christmas carols. When I graduated from high school, we went to a school-sponsored baccalaureate service.
Today, if you go to Explore Park near Roanoke and look at one of the McGuffey readers used in schools throughout the 19th century, you'll find it filled with Scripture.
None of this is possible now because the Supreme Court, in a judicial coup d'etat, overthrew the practice of 175 years. Now it's unconstitutional for the Ten Commandments to hang on the classroom wall since the students might be led to read them, meditate upon them, respect them or obey them. It's illegal for a city to show a cross in its emblem, and our children are taught that Thanksgiving is a time when the Pilgrims gave thanks to the Indians.
So will The Roanoke Times please spare us the sanctimonious defense of the First Amendment? If you think all kinds of religious practice should be removed from public life, then just say so and tell us why. If you think the type of secular thinking that has been destroying the nation's life for the past 50 years should continue to be taught in schools, then explain why you think so, and ask us to approve it on the basis of your arguments. But please don't blame Goodlatte for trying to restore what he perceives as a yearning for the original meaning of the First Amendment.
KENNETH ROBERTSON
BLACKSBURG
Pat Robertson has Dole on a leash
AFTER reading the Aug. 6 Associated Press article, ``Dole drops `tolerance plank','' I darn near blew my spleen out laughing. The headline should have read, ``Pat Robertson does not allow tolerance plank.''
If ``true'' Republicans really wish to exhibit moral and fiscal responsibility, they should cancel their national convention in San Diego, where liberalism resides, and move it to Virginia Beach where Robertson's neighborhood is.
That would save Robertson and his band of extremists a lot of money buying string. Every time ol' Bob Dole takes a turn toward moderation - such as recognizing that his party may have quite a few members who believe that a woman and her God have the final say about a possible abortion that takes place in her body, not Dole's, not Robertson's, not Ralph Reed's, not Jerry Falwell's, but hers - yank. The line is pulled taut, and Dole becomes ``his own'' person again.
Voters rejected Robertson in his earlier run for president when he was on the ballot. Now he tries the back door, lower level, out of sight.
Having puppets jerked in line by the likes of the Christian Coalition is a sad commentary on the condition of the Republican Party. Republicans have sold their very souls to the out-of-touch extremists within their midst. What a high price to pay for such a poor product.
BUTCH JOHNSON
SALEM
Getting the historic dates straight
I READ with disbelief Colon J. Brown's July 29 letter, ``Constitution didn't cover school issue.'' He said July 28, 1843, was the date the 14th Amendment was adopted. If this were so, it would have changed the history of the United States. It would have been 17 years before the Civil War!
My history shows the 12th Amendment was ratified June 15, 1804, and the next amendment, the 13th (abolition of slavery), was ratified seven months after the end of the Civil War, Dec. 6, 1865. The 14th Amendment was ratified July 9, 1868.
ARNEY DALTON
ROANOKE
A recovery plan for distressed D.C.
ELEANOR HOLMES Norton, a liberal Democrat who is the District of Columbia's delegate in the House of Representatives, has proposed a tax-cut-based D.C. Economic Recovery Act that's designed to correct some of the problems Washington, D.C., now faces.
The population is decreasing; most people who can afford to move to the suburbs are doing just that. The quality of city-government services has gone down while the cost of providing these services has gone up. The tax base is imploding.
Crime has increased. Police seem to focus on parking tickets as a way to control crime and to increase revenue. Public schools, which cost $9,400 per pupil per year, are producing students with poor academic skills. Pure drinking water is questionable. Potholes in the roads aren't being fixed. And throwing more money at the problems of this economic basket case hasn't worked.
Norton has proposed a progressive flat-tax plan that would replace federal income-tax schedules for D.C. residents. It would offer incentives for people at the bottom, middle and upper ends of the economic scale to remain in D.C., and for others to move in. Another incentive in her plan would eliminate capital-gains taxes for investments within the district by its residents. This would spur entrepreneurial activity, resulting in more jobs and more tax revenues received from the increases in jobs and property values.
Norton has the support of House Republicans, but is having problems with President Clinton and White House Chief of Staff Leon Panetta. Panetta has said Clinton would veto this plan.
The economic theories of Clinton and Panetta haven't worked for D.C. residents. If Clinton really feels the pain of the residents, he should let Norton's plan have a life, and either succeed or fail in the economic marketplace. Clinton shouldn't abort it with his veto. If her plan works for Washington, D.C., then a similar version of it could be applied to the rest of the country.
EARL ABBOTT
ROANOKE
A commentator's $23 million omission
IN HER July 24 commentary (``Don't compare VMI to women's colleges''), Joanne Creighton, president of Mount Holyoke College, used a condescending and arrogant approach - typical of liberal feminists - to make her point. Once again, the reader's ``ignorance'' was at the root of our disagreement with her opinion.
The ``growing body of literature'' she quotes, regarding single-sex education as only benefiting women, is a careless misrepresentation of the facts. One can be sure that without the distractions of the coeducational environment, the benefactor clearly would be the student who chose that option - female or male! To state that only women can flourish and are entitled to such an experience isn't only sexist, but it flies in the face of those who argued against Virginia Military Institute.
The argument of public vs. private seems to be the bastion of liberal arguments. If one understands that every institution receives federal and state funds in some manner, the matter of distribution carries little weight.
On Page 75 of Mount Holyoke's 1993-1994 admissions catalog, it says that ``approximately 70 percent of the students receive some sort of assistance totaling $23,785,000. Assistance of this magnitude is possible only because Mount Holyoke resources are supplemented by gifts from alumnae clubs, corporations, foundations, federal and state funds, and individual donors.''
It seems curious that Creighton neglected to mention these figures in her commentary. The reader is left to assume that the weight of martyrdom is large and the added burden of fact would have proved too great. One can only hope that someday we will get a firm understanding of the difference between these monies benefiting a public or private institution. Sadly, Creighton missed the mark in her attempt at an explanation.
DONALD R. CRAIGHEAD
Class of 1984, Virginia Military Institute
ROANOKE
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