Once-indifferent student is going to college

To the editor:

We tend to see only negative news stories, opinions or letters in print. Therefore, I write to thank a school counselor for her endless patience and persistence as it pertains to helping students.

My son is a high school senior who had long adamantly refused to entertain the idea of going to college. As teenagers often do, he realized at the last moment that this was a mistake. After meeting with his school counselor, he had a class added to his schedule, registered for his ACT, and learned that he qualified for the Millennium Scholarship.

This school counselor could have easily turned him away, as she is surely busy with all her other duties.

So when we think about budget cutbacks with those employed by the Clark County School District, perhaps we should think of employees who work so hard as advocates for students.

Hoai My

LAS VEGAS

Social regulations

To the editor:

The new attorney general seems to have made clear his desire to influence the social interactions of all Americans.

Eric Holder, the nation's first African-American attorney general, addressed Justice Department employees Wednesday on the occasion of Black History Month.

"Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial we have always been and I believe continue to be, in too many ways, essentially a nation of cowards," he said.

"Saturdays and Sundays, America in the year 2009 does not in some ways differ significantly from the country that existed almost 50 years ago. This is truly sad."

I can see the compulsory government questionnaire arriving in the mail:

1) With how many people of a race other than your own have you socialized for a minimum of one continuous hour in the past month (minimum four people)?

1a) Name them -- they may be called to testify in your defense.

2) In 50 words or less, list the admirable qualities of a race other than your own. Note: Listing negative, derogatory or disrespectful attributes is subject to a fine of $1 million or five years in prison, or (preferably) both.

3) On which date will you host a family of a race other than your own for dinner? Note 1: You must provide them with government form RD1234 and a stamped, addressed envelope to enable them to confirm this multiracial social interaction. Note 2: Food appropriate to your visitor's ethnic/cultural experience (whether actual or perceived) must be served. Note 3: The minimum time provision as stated in Question 1 above applies.

Of course it couldn't happen. Could it?

Graham H. Tye

NORTH LAS VEGAS

This is openness?

To the editor:

How funny -- the government is spending $8 billion on "other" as part of the stimulus bill, according to the recovery.gov Web site. But the site fails to specify what is included under that embarrassingly broad label, although President Obama promised it would.

Christina Bazan

LAS VEGAS

An abomination

To the editor:

President Obama's $787 billion stimulus package is being regarded as a gift unto the American people in the wake of the United States' current economic situation.

With each day that passes, more and more Americans are losing their jobs, and the peril which has befallen both the people and the free market has certainly not gone unnoticed. In fact, our current economic pitfall has actually led a good majority of the country to revert to a state of almost childlike naivety.

President Obama's so-called stimulus package is nothing more than a self-righteous, left-wing porkfest completely unworthy of the generation-spanning debt which it will undoubtedly accumulate. The overzealous faith being poured into this abomination by the American public is alarming.

Erica Arnold

LAS VEGAS

As promised, socialism

To the editor:

President Obama ran on a platform of redistributing people's wealth, and thereby choosing the infinite wisdom of a bureaucracy to force economic efficiency by decree, rather than that of a free market. Thus, calling for a condition wherein the preservative of liberty, being the distance between the state and the individual, is removed altogether.

In a word: socialism. Socialism being dictated by the state, giving false promise of unearned benefit and wealth to the "many," through confiscation of the wealth earned by a few.

Socialism promises legalized plunder through legislation, and thus an opportunity to avoid the personal risk of robbing one's more prosperous neighbor at gunpoint. Here, the state wears the mask and carries the gun.

Socialism is even more insidious than communism because of the willing participation and support of the people, a temporary tyranny of the majority, in its progress toward a tyrannized majority at the hands of the few. A true Ponzi scheme from the top down, where the "many" receive less than a pittance of that promised, while simultaneously accruing personal debt for much, much more, while those once plundered, cease to produce altogether -- or to generate jobs. Historically peddled to each new generation of idealist fools as a common pool where each will contribute according to his ability, and each will take according to his needs.

Socialism is indeed a common pool -- but one of incompetence, greed, corruption and criminality, from which its ruling oligarchy forces upon the defenseless many an equally disgusting portion. With that, most soon find that they would much prefer to take only that of their own making -- and depart.

But by then, it is too late. They are no longer allowed to do so. Ultimately, socialism always adopts the Soviet model: All necessities, from food to medicine, are limited and rationed; luxuries are reserved to the top of the pyramid; the state pretends to pay; labor pretends to work -- and those who complain go to the gulag.

K.D. Adams

LAS VEGAS

At what price savings?

To the editor:

The Democrats chirp happily that the "stimulus" bill will put money in taxpayers' wallets. From what I've seen, economists have estimated the "increase" will amount to about $13 per week in reduced withholding for the average family. "This is good," chortle the Democrats.

Yet economists also point out that Wal-Mart, through efficiencies of scale, purchasing and astute management, saves the average family that regularly shops at one of its outlets $20 per week. That, according to the Democrats, is bad.

So beholden to their union benefactors are the Democrats that they actually believe the unions are their constituents, not the families who reside and vote in their districts. Sadly, election results clearly show many of those family members don't seem to realize it.

Jerry Fink

LAS VEGAS

Rewarding the reckless

To the editor:

I am writing this comment today with an anguished heart and broken spirit. I am 63 and a military veteran. I have worked continuously for 40 years, and my lovely wife is still employed. We both have had modest incomes throughout our lives. We have, with restraint and integrity, always lived within our means. We both have credit scores above 850, which took a lifetime of being responsible and paying our bills on time to acquire.

Over the past year, our retirement savings have dwindled approximately 50 percent -- thanks to Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., and the financial services committee's inability to recognize what was occurring in our nation's banking system.

On Wednesday, the president announced a housing bailout to reward all those who elected not to live within their means. These deadbeats will be receiving my household tax dollars for living recklessly. What incentive will future generations have to pay their bills on time and live within their income level if mother government is always there to right their wrongs?

I am sure that as time goes on, my wife and I will become wards of the state -- I see Medicare and Social Security going by the wayside. This new socialized government does not seem to be very promising for my family. Give me a free republic anytime.

Daniel Stanevich

LAS VEGAS