We must do more to help the homeless
To the editor:
In response to the recent sweep of the homeless:
What has happened in the "corridor of hope"? Where is compassion and charity in regard to our 14,000 homeless people and a realization that the population is growing? Concerned citizens are not given the consideration they deserve when they serve as advocates, yet elected officials and bureaucrats claim they want citizen involvement.
The recent sweep was relatively silent compared to the one of 2003, but the basic results are the same. Most of the tent dwellers have been dispersed into the valley because we have not built the services they need to regain their health. We need in-patient mental health services, economical housing and addiction therapy programs to address alcoholism, legal and illegal drug addiction and gambling.
Veterans and our troops need in-patient services that also address post traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury.
Another problem is other states dumping their homeless on us. This is irresponsible and should not be tolerated. Our congressional delegation must address it.
Finally, all of our elected officials in the Las Vegas Valley must be more honest and transparent.
Clark County must fund the social service budget in full. Do you know 53,000 people were denied services?
While our people suffer in the worst economic conditions, the nondiscretionary portion of the federal government continues to spend billions on internationalism.
Can't there be at least a 5 percent reduction of the nondiscretionary budget to service our debt?
FRANK PERNA
LAS VEGAS
History lesson
To the editor:
Regarding the threats by Democratic members of Congress to citizens who oppose the current government and its policies:
In 43 B.C., the Roman orator Cicero challenged the political leader, Mark Antony, now in control of Rome after the assassination of Julius Caesar. Antony declared Cicero an outlaw. He was captured and killed by his gang of bounty hunters. On Antony's orders, Cicero's head and hands were removed and brought back to Rome and displayed on the rostrum of the Forum. A grisly fate for the man who had dared to think, speak and write in opposition to Antony.
How can courageous citizens protect themselves today? Voters must remove from office those who refuse to listen to the exercise of free speech. The ballot box is a U.S. citizen's only recourse.
MARGIE McAVOY
HENDERSON
Total freedom
To the editor:
When this nation was founded, consistent with its Constitution, all industry was private. The government was very limited in its power over its citizens and their commercial institutions. But the Founding Fathers trusted the courts to preserve our unique model of a limited republic form of government, and this has proved a failure.
Political idealists were placed onto the Supreme Court, including militant "progressives" who wanted a much stronger central government. These "jurists" changed our Constitution.
As a result, we have an all-powerful federal government controlling our institutions and, indeed, our formerly free citizens. This powerful Washington group remains insatiable, now seeking more extensive control of health care. With recent efforts to institute a de facto takeover of our health care meeting unexpected resistance, primarily because of the inclusion of a socialized "public option," these progressive activists now just want citizen "co-ops."
"Co-ops" or health cooperation associations are a type of socialism-light. A regional public association would be managed by a board of people's representatives, which would exercise the same control over our health care that was envisioned under the "public option."
We are now expected to happily accept the rationing and denial of health care when dictated by a regional "co-op" rather than a federal czar. But why can't a "free" people simply have free choice of all aspects of their health care? Demand total freedom over our health and our lives.
JOHN TOBIN
LAS VEGAS
Little debate
To the editor:
In response to John Brummett's Sunday column, "Obama has evolved on health care":
Regardless of who manages health care, just as with K-12 education, all Americans should have access to affordable health care. In Third World societies where a large segment of the population does not have health care, plagues run rampant, children are malnourished and enormous human potential is lost as entire generations have been wiped out fighting these scourges of humanity.
Health care for all is an issue that is vital to the health, welfare and safety of all of our population.
Pertaining to claims that we can't afford a national health care system, our nation is bleeding young American lives and billions of dollars weekly in such faraway and irrelevant places as Iraq and Afghanistan. It's time to bring the troops home and help rebuild our struggling economy and divert some of the trillions of dollars squandered on a military that has clearly lost its way due to horrible leadership.
In the "debate" surrounding national health care, it seems that both parties are guilty of distracting the American public from the truly relevant issues about which there really is little debate.
Michael Pravica
HENDERSON
