ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, September 6, 1996 TAG: 9609060013
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-10 EDITION: METRO
TYPE: LETTERS
I WAS distressed to read G. David Nixon's Aug. 26 letter, ``United Way picked the wrong partner.'' In it he suggested that people should not contribute to the needs of the Roanoke Valley through the United Way.
He wants to pressure the United Way to end the funding of Planned Parenthood's teen-pregnancy prevention programs.
His suggestions are antithetical to the spirit of both the United Way and the Roanoke Valley. Instead of dividing our community over controversial issues, the United Way brings everyone together for the greater welfare of the Roanoke Valley.
Whether one is pro-choice or pro-life, we should be united in our support of programs that reduce pregnancy among unwed teen-agers, including programs administered by Planned Parenthood.
We should also trust that the United Way will make thoughtful and deliberate decisions regarding how best to meet the needs of the valley.
I hope and pray that in the spirit of unity we can set aside our differences to support the United Way. To do otherwise is to place the welfare of every needy family in the Roanoke Valley at risk.
THE REV. KENNETH P. LANE JR.
ROANOKE
Clinton's version of paradise
IMAGINE WHAT our country will be like if President Clinton is re-elected in November. Poverty will be eliminated. Children need not wander our streets and starve to death, nor fear for their lives. All our kids will be college-educated. All our dropouts will miraculously become scholars overnight.
We will all enjoy family leave - with pay - for up to six months a year. Unions will run our large companies, and will have total control over production. There will be time off and salary increases every month. All workers will be rich and enjoy a life of luxury, with minimal stress and labor.
No citizen will need to smoke or drink. Instead of booze and smokes, tea will be served at 4 p.m. every day. Drugs will be OK, but no inhaling allowed.
The Garden of Eden will make a comeback. There will be no more wars, only peace and happiness. This will happen because we will all feel the pain of our enemies.
Clinton will be our father. He will watch over us, as well as our children. He will direct and guide our lives, and it will be a privilege to pay more taxes. And more and more taxes.
Only one problem: The United States of America will be required to have a new name and symbol. It will be called ``The New Social Order of America.'' Our symbol will not be an eagle, but rather a star on a red flag. Our Constitution will be the ``Socialist Manifesto of America.''
Puck said it: ``What fools these mortals be.''
NICK BORSELLA AND ALPHONSE MEEP
ROANOKE
Tax cut will help the rich and poor
I'D LIKE to reply to a Sept. 1 letter to the editor (by Jim Miller) entitled ``Better taxes than infernal debt forever.''
Think about that for a minute. First, we currently work about a third of the year to pay our taxes. Second, the country is trillions of dollars in debt. Yes, we are broke! Government officials keep us satisfied with figures they concoct using smoke and mirrors, but in reality we are broke.
I feel like this: ``It's my money, stupid! Let me keep it''
Please. For the past 30 years, the Democrat-controlled Congress has raised our taxes (with the help of Republicans) to the sky-high rates they are today. Congress has designed a program to fix everything, from welfare to the Environmental Protection Agency, and guess what? No government program works effectively.
Spending is completely out of control. And federal legislators are having a very difficult time making adjustments in programs people have literally become dependent upon.
Ask yourself this: What in my life does the government do for me, and what does it do it well? Then, look at your next paycheck. Look at the gross, and look at your take-home pay.
``Better taxes than debt forever''? Sorry. We're being gouged enough. I'll take the tax cut!
And I don't want to hear that ``Waa, waa, tax break for the rich'' deal. The rich stimulate the economy. You're not going to get a job from a poor man. Plus, a 15 percent tax cut would do more for the poor working man than a few cents increase in the minimum wage.
If you feel that the economy is good now - wrong! Look at the facts: The median income was much higher in the 1980s. Yes, the Reagan years.
I vote for a tax cut, and an enormous cut in government programs. Stop wasting my money!
DAN EITNER
HARDY
Lincoln, not Lee, was the catalyst
REGARDING the remarks made by filmmaker Ken Burns (Associated Press article in your Aug. 25 edition, ``Civil War buffs attack filmmaker'') to the effect that Robert E. Lee was responsible for more American deaths than Hitler or Tojo:
It seems to this Southerner that the words were taken out of context. Surely Burns, a man whose very name is linked with the history of our American epoch, would never stoop so low as to equate the magnificent Lee with those two butchers.
Although his much acclaimed docu-drama is littered with errors, it's unimaginable that he or anyone else professing to know much about the war would attempt such a baseless comparison.
I must chide Burns for attempting to lay the deaths of 600,000-plus Americans at Lee's doorstep to start with. It's well worth remembering that, as the Southern states began seceding, there were many in the North who said over and over again, ``let them go in peace.''
It was Abraham Lincoln who sent his friend Ward Lamon to South Carolina to counsel that state's governor, telling him that Fort Sumter would soon be evacuated. It was Lincoln who placated the Southern emissaries, who had come to Washington in an attempt to avert war, with unofficial assurances that ``our differences can be worked out.''
And it was Lincoln who advised South Carolina's governor that federal ships were en route to Charleston harbor to resupply and reinforce Fort Sumter.
Gideon Welles, Lincoln's secretary of the Navy, wrote just before the start of hostilities: ``It is very important that the Rebels strike the first blow in the conflict.''
Capt. G.V. Fox, who commanded the naval expedition to Charleston's harbor early in April, wrote: ``I simply propose three tugs convoyed by light draft men-of-war ... the first tug to lead in empty, to open their fire.''
By treachery, Lincoln had backed the South into a corner, and soon the cannon roared. Perhaps Burns should place the guilt where it really belongs - at the bloody doorstep of the Lincoln White House.
BARRY A. PRICE
FANCY GAP
Helpless children must come first
SOME 20 years ago, there was a knock on our door.
Being foster parents in Roanoke County, it was no surprise to find two Social Service workers holding a tiny baby in a pretty blue blanket.
They had called earlier in the day to tell me about this boy, well under his birth weight, very dirty and extremely dehydrated.
It was Dec. 23, 1967. Being two days before Christmas, there was plenty to do. Now added to that were the baby bottles, clothes and a baby bed that had to come down from of the attic. So I busied myself until late that evening.
Then reality struck. As I took the baby, I began to look inside the nice clean blanket. It was awful. I never could have prepared myself for what I saw.
We didn't know whether to feed the baby, bathe him or take him to the doctor. He was a sack of bones with skin stretched over them. To this day when I think of the way he looked, I shiver all over.
My point is that if this could have happened to the baby who is now my child, it could easily happen to others. With drugs taking over our world, it seems now that our children will suffer the most.
Children should come first in our lives. Parents need to bond together and take a stand, lest we fail.
MAGGIE STEVENS
ROANOKE
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