LETTERS: Roundabouts work, if drivers slow down

To the editor:

In reading John L. Smith’s column on the roundabout placed on the road to Mount Charleston (“Comin’ round the circle, if they come,” Dec. 6 Review-Journal), I was concerned about the negative connotations of roundabouts, because they have worked for me in every one of my designs. They actually are safer than a four-way stop, especially if the roadways are not 90 degrees to each other.

So I went out to see the roundabout on Kyle Canyon Road. The design is proper, but drivers don’t respect the posted speed limit. If they did, there would not be any problems, although a couple of solar street lights might help with the visibility of the roundabout. Roundabouts always slow down traffic, which is one of their benefits. Any problem may lead to a fender-bender, but not a serious accident.

Roundabouts work in many situations of traffic control, but drivers need to slow down, as the speed-limit sign says.

JIM VELTMAN

LAS VEGAS

Liberal nonsense

To the editor:

What has become of the United States? We saw a Democrat-controlled Senate committee release a report detailing U.S. torture practices, despite the fact that multiple agencies — and Democrats themselves — agreed that to do so would put U.S. lives in danger overseas (“U.S. preps for security risks from torture report,” Dec. 9 Review-Journal). This release is supposed to inform the public of the wrongdoings of the United States and create a public outcry to stop these procedures.

We elect people to Congress to fix these supposed problems without jeopardizing American lives, so why do they need to publicize what the CIA was doing? Furthermore, the people being waterboarded are the same people who air videos of Americans having their heads cut off. But this is just the incomprehensible way in which the far, far left views this country. We Americans are all evil and should be penitent and drop down on our knees and ask for worldwide forgiveness.

Hillary Clinton, the presumptive 2016 presidential nominee for the Democratic Party, just told us that we should “empathize” with the positions of our enemies (ISIS? Really?) and try to understand where they are coming from. But this is the basis of liberal thought. We see a thug in Missouri rob a store after smoking marijuana, attack a cop in his police car, grab at his gun and get shot charging the officer. The hero in this liberal play? The attacker, of course. The villain? The cop.

We see in New York a person with 31 previous arrests tell the cops that he won’t follow their directions. The end result is the tackling of this 350-pound person and his unfortunate death. Who is the hero? The guy with 31 arrests who refused to follow the cops’ orders. The villain? The cops, of course. When did the cops become the enemies and the lawless the heroes? But this is liberal thought.

The liberal left, they claim, will save our very souls. Racism is everywhere. The terrorists are not really to blame — we just need to “understand” why they are butchering us. Blacks don’t kill blacks because they allow drug dealers and gang members to flourish in their neighborhoods; rather, their plight is due to a white cop killing a black man once in a while.

Welcome to the world of liberal thought — and utter nonsense.

JOSEPH SCHILLMOELLER

LAS VEGAS

Freedom is just ducky

To the editor:

The letter from Dave Hawley makes abundantly clear one of the many differences between liberals and conservatives (“Ruffled feathers,” Dec. 8 Review-Journal). Mr. Hawley finds Mallard Fillmore, a right-leaning political comic strip, to be offensive, and as such wants it banned from the comics page. A conservative would simply say, “Don’t read it.” A liberal wants to ban it for all. Which point of view conveys the most freedom?

MARK R. CRAVEN

LAS VEGAS