Speak Out A 11/05/02

Contest advantage

EVEN THOUGH you may be signed up on the Missouri Do Not Call List, when you enter a contest or sweepstakes, the company sponsoring the contest can call you, even though you're on the list. Companies don't have contests just to give away a prize. They're looking for qualified leads for their telemarketers to call and sell you something or to set an appointment so their salespersons can get their foot in your door. The contest entry form is their way of targeting Do Not Call List customers and getting around the law. Shame on those companies.

Incomplete counting

ONCE AGAIN, George Will perpetuates the adage "If you repeat a lie often enough, folks will begin to believe it." He criticizes the Democrats for politicizing vote counts. But the world well knows that Republicans took the presidency without benefit of an election. The Florida vote was never completely counted by election officials. Let's hope some time soon we can return this country to the democratic principle of counting all the ballots cast.

Diverting attention

CLEARLY, "pre-emptive strike" is a Vietnam-style misnomer for "unprovoked aggression." Clearly also, the illegal Bush plan to invade Iraq will cause thousands of potential terrorists to flood to the camps of al-Qaida. Will these politicians stop at nothing to promote U.S. industry profits and divert attention from their domestic failures?

Reliable information

A SPEAK Out contributor wondered if war-protesting college professors are privy to some special briefing on the Iraq situation. Probably not. But they can read and listen to reliable news media like anyone else. Your contributor must live by the protesters' poster that read, "Go to war -- it's easier than thinking."

Taxpayers would pay

THE ISSUE of allowing any government employee to belong to a union is a real crime. Any time you can force the person paying the wages (the taxpayer) to pay higher wages at the point of a gun while kicking you out of your house for higher taxes, it is a real crime. If it's a private industry -- like the bustling shoe industry once was in the United States -- then you can organize and unionize and run every industry overseas because of high wage demands, but government jobs can't pay much because we are overtaxed anyway.

Being manipulated

I FIND it most ironic that the same people who used to say we can't afford to be the policeman of the world are now lined up to spend billions of dollars and thousands of lives to do just that. Does it ever occur to people that they are being manipulated by whatever the elite interests need at any given time?

A special event

WHATEVER THE political leanings of a family, it makes not one bit of sense to prevent children from participating in a historic and political event. There wasn't time for brainwashing. I applaud any school or teacher who would take on a class of students and provide exposure to a truly once-in-a-lifetime happening. Cape Girardeau is not the whistle-stopping, political mecca of the United States, and most children, let alone adults, will ever have the chance to see and hear in person the vice president of the United States. I would have felt privileged if I had been able to attend.

Fleeing from an idea

AS YOUR reprinted Wall Street Journal editorial aptly pointed out, many Republicans are running away from the idea of privatizing Social Security. Even Rush Limbaugh noted the other day that Democrat Senate nominee Walter Mondale once recommended privatizing Social Security, strongly hinting that this should be a reason why Minnesotans should vote not for, but against him.

Get election observers

GIVEN THE Florida fiasco of the last election, maybe the United States should invite international observers to watch the election and report whether democracy has actually returned to this country.

Traditional roots

THERE'S NOT much difference between today's mainline conservatives and liberals. The real battle is taking place within the conservative movement where the likes of Pat Buchanan are attempting to wrest control of the conservative movement from so-called neoconservatives like the brothers Limbaugh and restore conservatism to its traditional roots.

Rebels aren't terrorists

HOW CAN you ask us to be sympathetic for the Russians after the incident at the Moscow theater? It was taken over by Chechen rebels, not terrorists, who only wanted their homeland to be free from Russian military presence. What would you do if Cape Girardeau was put under the military control of another nation? Sit back and watch? And we're supposed to feel sorry for Russia, who ended up killing their own people.

Questionable facts

WHERE ARE you getting your numbers? Eight thousand teens a day are getting a sexually transmitted disease? Forty-six percent after a first encounter? How do we know you're not just making this up? And who are "liberal advocates"? I'm a liberal advocate, and I've never taught anyone that freedom lies in sexual promiscuity.

LET ME get this straight, if I may. I walked away from Andrea Essner's recent guest column regarding her visit to El Salvador completely confused. Maybe she could take another shot at explaining to me how the ability and willingness of El Salvadoran workers to produce American goods at $100 a month somehow benefits the American economy. I fail to see how that pans out in any way whatsoever. It seems to me that now I have two reasons to be upset at Americans and American goods going to El Salvador. First, El Salvador is flooding the American market with its cheap goods and putting American workers out of business. Second, it appears to be producing more hard-core American liberals.

Making a choice

IN RESPONSE to the "Pro-life, anti-war" comment: I am an American serviceman currently in the Marine Corps Reserve. I support whatever decision my commander in chief makes concerning the war with Iraq. You see, I alone have made the decision to put my life on the line for that purpose. On the other hand, an unborn child has no say in the decision to end its life. That decision is being made by someone else.

Buy American

I SEE where a store has a sign in its window that it wouldn't have some advertised merchandise due to the West Coast strike where imported items couldn't be unloaded and couldn't get here on time. If the store bought American, the merchandise would be here now.

Wearing clothes

THE REASON Cape Girar-deau was portrayed in a positive, progressive light is because our local emperors realize that residents still believe them to be wearing clothes.

Gloomy days

I'M LOOKING for sunshine after all the gloomy days we've been having.

Not in the street

In spite of all the reminders I've seen about not raking leaves into the street, I still see an awful lot of leaf piles in the street. A lot of people are using their leaf blowers to blow them into the street. That's not good.