SPEAKOUT

We pay taxes too

I JUST read the Speak Out item "Stay after school" about home-schoolers using the basketball and football fields at taxpayers' expense. May I remind you people that whether they go to public school or not, we still pay the taxes the same as usual. Quit your griping.

Something is wrong

I DON'T think it's funny at all when policemen act like pigs, bringing back that 1970s term. Many policemen have worked hard to get rid of that image. I don't find it funny when two policemen are having sex with one woman. Something seems very wrong about that.

Taxes bring privileges

EXCUSE ME. About home schooling: As a taxpayer, my child has every right to participate in after-school activities if I so choose to home school my student. I am also a taxpayer. I paid for the caller's child to go to school with my taxes. What's good for one is good for all.

Too unbelievable

DAVID LIMBAUGH can likely write a lot of things in his columns which people who read them are apt to believe. Having said that, there was one sentence he recently wrote that no one, absolutely no one, will think is true. It stretched the limits of Limbaugh's credulity so far that not even the most naive, uninformed reader could possibly believe it to be truthful. The sentence simply reflects a self-described characterization of his column that 100 percent of his readership knows cannot be the case. Speaking of himself, Limbaugh's three-word sentence was, "I'm quite serious."

Do some research

SAM BLACKWELL needs to find an assignment other than reviewing concerts. In his Charlie Daniel concert review, he said the band Crazy 8 played a soaring rendition of the Ozark Mountain Daredevils' hit "Amy." That 1970s hit was by the group Pure Prairie League. Gotcha again, Sam. Let's do some research.

Great comments

ABOUT THE VIP controversy: The June 18 article was great. We finally got the comments of a couple of parents and people who are involved in this who really understand it. Sure, there have been some problems with Medicare, which they admit. But with time, it's corrected. I don't believe the administrative people at VIP are interested in anything that would be illegal. Just give them time. These comments were great.

Expect more deceit

WHAT A strange phenomenon. After all we know about this corrupt Clinton-Gore administration, Clinton's accomplice in abuse of power, Albert Gore, has the gall to think he should be elected to continue this autocratic control regime. Absolutely unbelievable. Will deceit never cease?

Ready to give

APPARENTLY AN unofficial -- dare I say renegade -- group of Cape cops is telephoning citizens and soliciting donations. I'll tell you one thing: If they call me, my response will be quick and to the point: "How much do you need?"

Pet agreement

REGARDING CAROL Poole's letter, "Our family pets deserve praise." I'm with you, Carol. I agree whole-heartedly. I couldn't have said it any better.

Bad light on patrol

I READ in the Missourian about the two state troopers who had purchased liquor for an underage woman and apparently drove their automobile while drinking, then took the 18-year-old woman to a motel and had consensual sex. These guys apparently are going to be allowed to skate with no charges. The one officer made false declarations to the police. That's a crime. If you make false declarations to the police, you'll be in trouble. They both participated in buying liquor for someone under the legal drinking age. If you do that, you'll be in trouble. It seems these guys aren't. I think it casts a bad light on the entire Missouri State Highway Patrol. I believe when you're going down the road at night and you're stopped by a state trooper, you're basically at his mercy. You have a right to believe that you're not being stopped by a criminal or a sex pervert. I hope the Missourian will take this issue up, and perhaps we can straighten this matter out. I just shudder at the idea of these kinds of people stopping my wife or my daughters.

No spin needed

TO THE Jackson School District Speak Out rebuttal callers: Why do you feel it is necessary to have such a group as yours? Why should school information go through the district spin doctors and then your committee if the administration and board have been making the best decisions possible for all the schoolchildren, teachers, parents and taxpayers? Would not putting the board meetings on the public-access channel be the best way to counter so-called disinformation, negative comments or simply the questions they ask?

Leftist takeover

HAS THERE been a left-wing takeover at the Southeast Missourian? I can't stand much more of these extremist left-wing manifestos emanating from the pages of the Southeast Missourian. The most recent example directly violated the Southeast Missourian's credo of "the government which governs least, governs best," and that laws passed for the purpose of social engineering are doomed to failure. I speak of the recently published editorial which defended the passage of a law whose sole purpose seems to be to attempt to find out if still more laws are needed. I'll swear I thought I was reading an editorial reprinted from the Communist Party's propaganda newspaper, The Daily Worker.

Suggested slogan

STATE SEN. Peter Kinder, R-Cape Girardeau, has suggested "death to the death tax" as a rallying cry for this fall's general election. That's a good one. But I think I have a better one, although it's kind of long and may not have as broad an appeal as the senator's suggested slogan. Anyway, here it is: "Death to the right-wing demagoguery daily spewing from the allegedly but wrongly characterized commonsense conservative opinion page of the Southeast Missourian." What do you think? An alternate, shorter, more universally appealing slogan might be simply "Speak Out Rules."

Private vs. public

HERE WE go again with the public schools crying for more money. I'm sorry, but Jackson will have to pull my teeth out to get me to vote for a tax increase for their schools. My parents sacrificed to send my brothers and sisters and me to a private school, and my wife and I are doing the same for our children. It's not easy to do, and I know it's a choice we made, but how is it that our school can educate a child for around $2,500 per student compared to the public school spending at least $5,000 or $6,000? Once again, the stark differences between a private organization and a government one become so obvious. Efficiency is not even part of the vocabulary of a government institution. I guess the Jackson schools are no different. Maybe the private schools should start a consulting business to teach these money-hungry, tax-loving public schools how to operate. And another thing: More money and smaller class size do not equal better education. It's been documented and proven many times. I'd venture to say that my $2,500 children are probably better educated than most of the $5,000 or $6,000 kids that come out of the public schools, and mine even get a bonus of Christian values. Imagine that. Please use your common sense and do not vote for throwing away your hard-earned money for the Jackson School District.

Time to pay up

ANYBODY WHO wants to cut the federal taxes is a selfish deadbeat. We must pay down the national debt in good times. The next time we have a recession, and we will have a recession, the burden of the present debt will make it much harder to stimulate the economy by using building projects to put the people to work. People who deride the other politicians as tax-and-spenders are complete jerks, when what they advocate is to spend and not to pay down the debt run up by some fiscal dopes who spent and did not collect enough taxes to pay for what they spent. Pay up, you deadbeats.