OPINION | LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: Made a laughingstock | None of their business | Free and fair election

Made a laughingstock

This Legislature is making a laughingstock of our state. I read that we are the first state (a dubious honor indeed) to pass a bill inserting its governmental nose into the medical-care decisions of transgender youth. Now we are trying to bring back the ability to teach creationism, a religious belief, into the classroom.

Please, please, I implore you; keep the government out of our medical and educational affairs. There are others far more qualified than our state legislators to oversee these areas of our lives. Kudos to Gov. Asa Hutchinson for his veto, and thank God for civil-rights groups who challenge these intrusive and absurd bills.

DIANE PLUNKETT

Little Rock

None of their business

I do not currently have a child of the age that would be affected by the recent bill the Arkansas Legislature passed which seeks to butt into private matters which should only be decided by the families affected. Why do these uneducated nosy hicks think it is their duty to decide what happens to the body or sexual identification of an adolescent who is not their own beloved child? Did their own mothers and fathers neglect to inform them during their formative years to mind their own business?

This is just the latest of many such stupid events which have occurred in our Arkansas state Capitol building this session. How embarrassing for us, the voters and citizens of Arkansas! If I were younger and had children who might be affected by these new idiotic laws, I would uproot and move to a more progressive and well-educated part of the country.

We will never be better than this if smarter candidates do not run for these Arkansas Senate and House positions.

CHARLOTTE JEFFERS

Arkadelphia

Free and fair election

There seems to be an awful lot of activity around election-law changes in Arkansas as well as elsewhere. If I'm understanding correctly, there's a push to "secure" the ballot.

The first question I would like to have answered: Why weren't these issues addressed in prior legislative sessions if there is such overwhelming concern? I would like to hazard a guess and say it has everything to do with the perception that a certain unnamed party controlled the Legislature, congressional seats and the White House. Worry about any of that changing was a moot point.

The general election of 2020 changed some of that landscape. Suddenly the unnamed party finds itself in some sort of perceived struggle for control. Granted, elections have consequences, but disenfranchising or discouraging voting by certain individuals or groups is not the answer.

Free and fair elections are the goal. Anything else is nothing more than an attempt to steal the election.

RICHARD BELL

Little Rock

Not hard to show ID

The last time I flew on a commercial airplane, I was required to show a government-issued ID with a current photo. The last time I applied for a driver's license, another check of the government-issued ID, the last time I renewed my library card, you got it, ID.

Why are so many citizens objecting to showing an ID to receive local, county, state or federal identification? Activists who most strenuously object to IDs make the argument one of disenfranchisement, racists, and definitely "Jim Crow." Really? My best friend in school in Oklahoma was a young man of full-blood Osage Indian descent. He would invite me to go with him on the first Saturday of every month to the Cleveland County Food Commodities store. The first time I went with Joe was really to help him and his sister carry the month-long commodities allotment for his entire family. Before we were allowed to enter the commodities store, Joe and his sister would be required to produce their County Food Allotment ID card.

This was in 1960. No one there ever considered this act, the act of showing a government-issued ID card, as racist. Back then we didn't even know what racist meant. Today, to some groups, everything is racist. Stop! Enough with the "racist." Get an ID and show it when necessary. Think.

LOUIS BURNETT

Little Rock

We have had enough

It is past time for the Arkansas Legislature to adjourn sine die.

BYRDIE McSWAIN

Bryant

The humane solution

The United States established Days of Remembrance to commemorate the Holocaust. This year it fell on April 8. It is very important we remember the Holocaust so we do not make the same mistakes Hitler's Germany made. From 1933 to 1945, at least seven million Jews languished and died at the hands of Hitler and his Germans. This was Hitler's final solution to the "Jewish question."

Unfortunately, holocaust continues around the world in places like Syria, Yemen, and regions of Africa. In Central America, Honduras has become the murder capital of the world. South of the U.S. border, conditions have become so grave there are scores of immigrants trying to enter the United States just to stay alive. The question is whether Americans are willing to keep these people alive. Probably not.

In order to handle the border crisis humanely, we must see immigrants as humans like us. These days the word "immigrant" refers to something that is threatening and intrusive. In 2018 Attorney General Jeff Sessions essentially instituted concentration camps for Latino children. This was President Trump's solution to the Latino problem.

Now that we have a new president, the humane solution is to provide refugee services to anyone who needs them. We are the richest nation in the history of the world. We can do this.

GENE MASON

Jacksonville

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