Tea Party candidate will only help Harry Reid
To the editor:
Just as Ross Perot gave Bill Clinton the 1992 election with less than 50 percent support by splitting the GOP vote, Jon Scott Ashjian can do the same as a Tea Party candidate for the U.S. Senate. Harry Reid, this is your lucky day.
The hypocrisy of any Tea Party group in Nevada creating its own party and selecting a candidate for Harry Reid's Senate seat is that it guarantees the defeat of the very issues it claims to stand for. If this Tea Party candidate is so hot, then he should go against the big boys and girls and get the GOP nomination.
Tea Party followers have sound principles and every right to be mad at Washington. But if you look at the GOP platform, it has all those same ingredients: smaller government, free enterprise, greater freedoms for individuals, lower taxes and less spending.
True, some GOP leaders in Washington haven't really followed their own party's philosophies and should be replaced. But that won't be accomplished by starting a third party. Joining another party is guaranteeing that the Democrats will keep winning, and we will have no hope as a nation of rebuilding America and bringing back any of the Tea Party or GOP principles that our current administration and weak, self-serving members of Congress are dispensing with at an alarming pace on the road to socialism.
Get out, Mr. Ashjian, or try to win the GOP nomination.
David N. Viger Jr.
Henderson
Stupid ones
To the editor:
I received a Census letter from the government recently telling me I would be getting another letter in a week. How many millions of people got that stupid letter?
They could have saved millions on the paper, envelopes, etc.
Maybe we're the stupid ones for not demanding more from these people we elect.
Jan Madigan
Las Vegas
Cultural center
To the editor:
Just a word about the proposed closing of the city's Reed Whipple Cultural Center:
I have no idea how much money the city can save if it closes the center but, besides all of the musicians of the Rainbow Company, there is a room that holds several classes for pottery making. This room is used by old and young people, and we pay for the classes.
I am sure that if it weren't for the new City Hall that has not been built, and the mayor's mob museum that has not been built, there would be some money that could be used to save Reed Whipple -- which is already built.
Joe Dialon
North Las Vegas
Illegal car wash
To the editor:
As we approach full congressional debate on another illegal immigrant amnesty, we shall undoubtedly see more pieces similar to John L. Smith's Sunday opus on the Belrose Street car washers ("Workers just trying to make a living speak the same language").
I admire their work ethic, but I shall continue having my car detailed by a responsible operator that has a business license in a shop he rents. In my way, I am also helping these car washers, the fellows selling fruit on nice residential street corners and the day laborers hassling customers at a garden store.
The sales tax I pay on my car wash will help to pay for the education of the children of the Belrose car washers. Maybe there will even be a little bit left over for UMC and emergency room charges for delivering their children.
Since federal money is "free," I won't mention the food stamps handed out for their children because they were born in America.
If more people go to these car washes, the owner of my detailing shop may have to lay off workers -- but he and those workers have paid their share of their unemployment costs.
I do hope the folks who bought a van with money they had saved from collecting cans had enough money left over to continue paying for liability insurance on the van. Are these hard-working detailers carrying liability insurance on their trucks?
Nevada does not need a growing underground economy. Look what it's done to Southern California.
Kenneth Record
Las Vegas
Not a right
To the editor:
I saw a picture in the Review-Journal last week that showed a sign which stated: "Education is a RIGHT." That picture was taken on the campus of the College of Southern Nevada.
It should be embarrassing for the college to have a student so ill-informed.
The student (or faculty member) who wrote that sign is mistaken. There is nothing in the Constitution that declares education to be a right.
Too many citizens confuse what is a right, an entitlement or a privilege. Those people need a good civics class.
S.G. Hayes Sr.
Las Vegas
Public option
To the editor:
Americans can't be fooled by media sensationalism and political talking points. The Tea Party can grab headlines, the Republicans can claim to be the party that really "gets it," and the Democrats can continue to pretend to be fighting for meaningful health care reform. None of that changes the fact that the people of this country overwhelmingly support a robust public option.
If we can't count on our representatives to institute a policy with such broad support, then we must let them know that they can't count on us at the polls.
Matthew Sorvillo
Las Vegas
