LETTERS: Government bullying, not representing

To the editor:

As always, Sen. Harry Reid doesn’t get it. The real Cliven Bundy issue is government and bureaucratic bullying, which most people won’t tolerate any more. Sen. Reid should be grateful that Mr. Bundy’s position is flawed and the individual is not a charismatic leader who could really rally the troops.

I think the folks who supported Mr. Bundy did so because it gave them a cause to display their anger and disgust with a government that bullies them rather than represents them. Our government obeys only laws it feels are politically correct, while creating new laws, rules and regulations that workers and taxpayers would not support.

The federal government has been caught spying on us, and through the IRS and other agencies can intimidate and threaten legal steps that individuals can’t fight without risking their entire life’s savings. If this bullying continues, we might see more militia-type responses.

RON SWANSON

HENDERSON

Selective enforcement

To the editor:

Sen. Harry Reid condemns armed militias and claims that all of us real Americans who unite and protest big government are “domestic terrorists.” Sen. Reid claims that we are a country of laws and that the issue of a few hundred trespass cattle is an issue that we cannot let go.

I wish that all the effort and expense the federal government put into apprehending trespass cattle (American cattle, I might add) could be channeled into rounding up and prosecuting all the real trespassers — 20 million or so people illegally in this country illegally. These trespassers are the real threat to this country, endangering the American way of life as we know it.

Forget about saving the desert tortoise from trespass cattle and enforce the rule of law on illegal immigration. It is time for America to wake up and put term limits on Sen. Reid and all career politicians, who are selling us out while lining their pockets.

MICHAEL MERTEN

LAS VEGAS

Civil disobedience

To the editor:

It’s one thing to observe that Cliven Bundy has disobeyed federal laws or federal regulations. It is quite another thing to say that he is therefore completely in the wrong. Isn’t it reasonable to see Mr. Bundy’s actions as deliberate civil disobedience?

Quoting a single sentence from the Declaration of Independence, which speaks to actions such as Mr. Bundy’s: “But when a long train of usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.”

I recommend that all citizens, on at least an annual basis, read both the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution. They’re both shorter and much easier to understand than the so-called Affordable Care Act.

OWEN NELSON

LAS VEGAS

Seniors and entitlements

To the editor:

Catherine Rampell presents an interesting viewpoint in her commentary (“Retirees receiving more than they gave,” April 20 Review-Journal). She mentions the respected Urban Institute and reports that “people who had the foresight to be born in 1920 got a much sweeter deal than those of us imprudently birthed in the 1980s.”

I can’t quarrel with the Urban Institute’s statistics, but I strongly question Ms. Rampell’s value system. She completely ignores the work of technicians, inventors, tradespeople, builders, health workers, educators and others who, by hard work, built the knowledge base, medical care, safe structures and electronic media we enjoy today. Worse, she is oblivious to the sacrifices of American veterans in the service of our nation. These retirees built, preserved and improved the conditions of our lives. How dare she even hint that they are receiving more than they gave.

And even on a monetary basis, when one could buy a quart of milk or a loaf of bread or a pack of cigarettes for 10 cents in the 1930s, how does Ms. Rampell compare today’s prices — driven by inflation and payment for several wars — with those when the workers earned much less in wages or salaries?

If retirees and the elderly are receiving more dollars than they contributed, it is because the dollars they invested were worth much more than those of today. Ms. Rampell’s simplistic conclusions fail on her own terms: money. They take no heed of the value Ms. Rampell and the nation received from the workers who created the comforts she enjoys.

JOEL BERG

HENDERSON