'Here are reasons to replace Obama' and more Letters to the Editors

Here are reasons to replace Obama

Someone recently wrote a letter titled "State the reasons for replacing Obama." For starters:

1. Nothing to offer on spending constraints.

2. No budget. How would our companies feel about operating without a budget?

3. Mushrooming national debt under President Obama's administration with no plans for reduction.

4. Created how many czars? Overpaid and overstaffed government workers. Look at the GSA. Currently ramping up for new government programs.

5. Destroys incentive -- government will take care of you.

6. Blame Game. "Someone else did it."

7.Promotes divisiveness, "us vs. them," "rich vs. poor," "male vs. female."

1. Actually there are three branches of government, Mr. President, including the Supreme Court and Congress.

2. Is there a foreign policy? Managed to get the whole world laughing at us. Works in secrecy (or tries to, thank goodness for open microphones). Please support our one ally in the Middle East.

3. Lack of energy policy. Claims "all the above" yet places all the emphasis on "green energy" and tries to please the environmentalist by stopping the pipeline. All this while gas prices are soaring.

Oops, no more space.

JOE WEST

Curfew would aid Strut on M.L. King

Thank goodness -- the people have spoken, and it seems the Strut may remain on M.L. King after all. I did not attend for the past couple of years due to health and heat, but good friends who attend regularly have never feared or experienced any violence. My suggestion would be to establish a curfew of all businesses around 9:30 or 10 p.m. Then police could round up stragglers who were not leaving. Most of the fun, enjoying the music and food, and meeting friends happens during daylight hours anyway.

Has the city been sued for injuries or deaths occurring during normal attendance hours? I always assumed the violence occurred later at night, which I think has also happened at Riverbend at late shows. It seems reasonable that the merchants on M.L. King would agree to close earlier, rather than lose the whole revenue from that night.

To cancel completely would be to take away another free entertainment enjoyed by everyone.

MARIANNE W. DOUGLAS

Parents can't leave it all to teachers

It appears to be a sad situation. The legislators, the media and the parents of our younger generation have lost track of a very important fact. The first and continual primary educator, for our youth, are the parents. A child is supposed to learn "at his/her mother's knee" many important things.

One is that certain things are dangerous and will hurt the child.

Two is that certain acts will not be considered acceptable by the neighbors and other members of the community.

Three is that a person must earn the respect of his/her contemporaries -- it's not something you can demand and receive without effort, on your part.

Four is the necessity to earn your own way in the society we call "civilization." You should not be a leech on the "body politic."

Far too many learn, instead, how to impose still more on the wage-earning taxpayers. The "welfare mentality" has to be overcome to let the children earn the benefits of a mind like Einstein, Sir Francis Bacon or, perhaps, the musical abilities of Mozart or Beethoven.

The teacher can't do it all.

WILLIAM P. CORBIN

Crossville, Tenn.

TVA tree-cutting plan is extreme

Having just read the article in your paper about TVA's new tree-cutting policy, I am shocked and horrified as, I am sure, is everyone else.

What a backward, callous, ignorant, autocratic solution to a problem that's most likely not as severe as is supposed.

At least in my yard, and my neighbor's and most other yards in my development, to say the landscaping is a threat to the overhead power lines is laughable, at best.

Tell me how a peach tree or a large rhododendron is going to cause a power outage by fouling the lines that are at least 80 feet above them?

The TVA in my book is now synonymous with Sherman, as they both seem to have taken the same approach to controlling the surrounding countryside! Surely there must be a better way than a "scorched earth" policy.

What about an individual evaluation of properties to determine where vegetation actually poses a threat?

That would still provide jobs but I bet it would be a whole lot less expensive than just flush-cutting the entire state, which it seems they propose to do.

The best part is that since TVA is a federal agency, it's our own money that's funding the destruction of our property.

SHERI A. WAHAB

Harrison

Fleischmann right for seeking funds

Your April 8 edition of this paper contained a "Rant" that should be challenged. It hinted at the hypocrisy of Congressman Chuck Fleischmann for lobbying the federal government on funding the Chickamauga Dam renovation project while being outspoken against big government.

The Tennessee River and the Chickamauga Dam do not belong to the city of Chattanooga, the state of Tennessee, or any one individual or corporation. The responsible owners are the people of the United States, since the river is considered waters of the U.S. As such it falls under the care and controls our federal government.

The river and the dam are critical elements in our nation's complex river transportation system that supports business, industry, flood control, tourism, recreation, etc. Responsible care, operation and maintenance are critical to this important element of our nation's infrastructure.

At a time when our federal government is imbedding itself inappropriately and absent any constitutional authority in far too many aspects of our life, such as education and "No Child Left Behind," it is good to see we have a congressman who recognizes a legitimate responsibility our federal government does have and is lobbying them to stand accountable.

DAN C. JOHNSON

Equality issue mars Anderson

In the spoonsful of ink spilled to celebrate the life and retirement of Lee Anderson, not a single word mentioned his major failing -- the fact that he was consistently on the wrong side of the issue of justice and equality for African Americans, an issue that occasionally tore apart his own community and was the most defining moral issue of his lifetime.

And this failure occurred despite the fact that he proclaimed the base of his conservatism came from loving history and being "brought up in Sunday school and church." Even a glance at history would tell him that inequality was a denial of the principles of the Declaration of Independence.

And what about the central Christian commandment that one should "do unto others as you would have them do unto you"? One wonders how that was applied in his Sunday school class at First Presbyterian Church.

LARRY INGLE