ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, September 8, 1996 TAG: 9609100024
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
TYPE: LETTERS
YES, YES and yes. Decriminalize the Clinton administration's drugs of choice (pot, cocaine, etc.) as per former Surgeon General Jocelyn Elders' recommendations, and let's go after that real danger to society - cigarettes.
Anyone wanting to buy a whole carton of cigarettes at a time should have to:
Pass a background check.
Have a five-day cooling off period to make sure they have a lawful reason for wanting that carton. Of course, we can only allow the purchase of one carton per month to stem the flow of cigarettes to the inner cities of New York, etc., where they will be used in various crimes. (``Give me your wallet or I'll smoke this Camel.'') All nonfiltered cigarettes should be banned, but filtered ones will be serial-numbered and registered to owners.
Let people buy cigarettes to give them the illusion that they still have a constitutional right to do so, but tax lighters and matches 1,000 percent so they won't have the ammunition to light up with.
Until these next logical steps are taken, please warn cigarette owners to keep their loaded cigarettes, lighters and matches separated and locked up. And to never, ever point a cigarette at anyone, except in self-defense. Remember, there is no such thing as an accidental smoking, and most victims are smoked out by family members or by someone they know.
While I feel much safer knowing the Democrats are protecting me, I do have one question: Will the Justice Department grant the FBI and the ATF unlimited nose-tapping authority to sniff out unlawful smokers, or will they light up their own, like at Waco? JEROME C. WATKINS SALEM
The decade of our discontent
THE GAY '90s helped describe the way people felt in the last decade of the 19th century. But I doubt the latest '90s will qualify for so cheerful a sobriquet.
The contrast between then and now is stark. Then, America was growing, and the years were filled with great expectations. Now, we live in the age of downsizing, and wonder how everyone can make a living selling hamburgers.
They thought they could make a difference in government. We're convinced that politics is a Hobson's choice at best. They believed the poor had a chance to get richer. We know that unless you're in top management, your buying power shrinks every year. They lived in an atmosphere of social harmony. If our dog steps on our neighbor's lawn, the neighbor will sue us.
If the sine qua non of their time was gaiety, ours must be melancholia.
J. RICHARD BROWN
ROANOKE
Thanks are due Goodlatte, Warner
TWO YEARS ago, our small business became aware of a federal regulation that had been passed in 1990, but was being imposed in 1994 - incorrectly on those of us who worked around house foundations.
There was no way that anyone could really comply with this regulation, but there was a mandatory $25,000 fine per involved employee if a business got caught breaking it. There was no equipment available that would allow a business to comply, and we could not find a professional engineer who could design such equipment because of the many variables involved.
After months of trying to get the federal agency to understand why the regulation was unworkable, we turned to Congressman Bob Goodlatte and Sen. John Warner. Immediately, each assigned a staff person to assist us in establishing a line of communications with the agency involved.
Both Goodlatte and Warner proceeded to work for a reasonable resolution of the onerous regulation. It took 10 months and a request for hearings in the House and Senate before the federal agency finally suspended the regulation for house-foundation work. In the explanation for suspension, the agency admitted that house-foundation work had not even been considered when the regulation was written in 1990.
Although Goodlatte and Warner originally went to bat for our small family business, the result was the suspension of a misapplied federal regulation for the whole nation.
Both of these hard-working members of Congress are up for re-election this fall. Those of us who work for a small business owe each man a debt of gratitude because both have gone to bat for small business when important legislation in the House and Senate was being considered.
W. A. CORBITT JR.
ROANOKE
The moral Carter was rejected
I WOULD have to agree with Bo Chagnon and his remarks concerning the Rev. Jerry Falwell and his cohorts (Aug. 23 letter to the editor, ``Scriptural advice easily ignored''). Think about those the Falwell crowd has supported.
They say they are in support of morals, but did they support Jimmy Carter or Ronald Reagan? (I agree, before all the diehards write, that Carter's years in office weren't the best, but neither were Reagan's.)
I am talking about the morals of the two men. Carter, a confessed born-again Christian who wouldn't let alcohol be served at big parties at the White House, was probably the most moral president we have had. Reagan, a product of Hollywood (which Falwell, if he is what he claims to be, should be against), is divorced (again, Falwell should be against it) and an actor. His wife Nancy's picture was on People's magazine, and she said that they would put liquor and elegance back in the White House.
Another of their heroes is Oliver North, who but for a technicality would be in prison.
Somehow I just don't feel that God is for Republicans or Democrats, but Falwell and his bunch always are for the Republicans and imply that it's God's will.
PAUL V. PRICE
ABINGDON
LENGTH: Long : 109 linesby CNB