Obama destroying all of our values
I agree with Wayne Wallace (letter, Sept. 19) referring to Obama knows what he is doing. He didn't define what he meant, but, oh yes, he knows exactly what he is doing and so does the rest of us who care about our country! He's destroying all our values.
He is so undignified, no respect for the White House or the historical furniture. All the other presidents in history have held their positions highly and never ever stuck their feet in our faces.
He has no respect for anything that represents the United States. If you love our country and want to keep it, think twice when you vote. United we stand.
DOT ARROWOOD, Soddy-Daisy
PTA can be path to better schools
The Chicago school strike and Diane Ravitch speaking in Chattanooga bring back into focus the many public school education problems. Clearly many students are not achieving the education needed for today's world.
I believe a poor and unstable home environment hurts student education. Learning and homework can't happen well in such an environment. Lack of high society support and expectations for good student learning also hurt students. It is all society that must expect and support students to learn, not just leave the job to the school system.
I believe one way society can support students and families and show high expectations for student learning is through our school PTAs. Look at the successes of Normal Park School. Through their highly effective PTA, parents, community, businesses, and other local organizations work with and support the school and its students and staff.
Let's get families, neighbors, businesses, churches and other community resource leaders and members back into all Hamilton County schools to help students, their parents and the teachers. Each school's PTA is a vehicle to do this. Real school board support and development of PTAs will help. Let's export Normal Park success to every school.
JOHN HUBBARD
Newspaper carrier always delivers
We are "Golden Agers" and love our paper in the mornings. Come heat or high water, our carrier, Peggy O'Neal, delivers! Often "beyond the call." We appreciate "our" paper's representative.
HAROLD BORCHERT HOUSEHOLD
President has had his chance
I have taken all that I can take of those who blindly support Obama.
It is more than obvious that they know nothing of his background, his mentors or his true ideology.
Obama has done nothing but make promises for change. In 2008, some of my friends said "give him a chance." Well, he has had that chance and has done nothing in four years. Now he claims he can do it if we give him another four years. Wake up, America!
Research his past, ask who is Bill Ayers, Roberto Mangabeira Unger, Frank Marshall Davis and of course, Jeremiah Wright.
And when and if you do it and you still support him and he becomes re-elected, then goodbye America as we know it.
DENNIS TROSKY, Hayesville, N.C.
Madison, Jefferson talked 'separation'
The words "separation of church and state" are not in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights, but the concept is. James Madison (the Father of the Constitution) and Thomas Jefferson (Madison's mentor) said so.
Madison called the First Amendment "... the total separation of the church and state."
In his letter to the Danbury Baptists, Jefferson described the First Amendment as "... that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between church and state."
The Danbury Baptists and Jefferson's letter to them are mentioned in four paragraphs of Robin Smith's column of Sept. 17. The column is titled "The wall of separation," but it never mentions the passage above, because to do so would refute Smith's claim that separation of church and state are not in the Constitution.
JAMES WALLACE THOMTE, Ringgold, Ga.
State fracking rules lacking
The Tennessee Oil and Gas Board recently developed rules on hydrofracking, the controversial horizontal drilling technique for natural gas.
These rules don't meet the minimum standards of the American Petroleum Industry (API), and don't require pre-drilling, or baseline water testing. Without this, it will be impossible to prove that well water degradation has occurred should the fracking process contaminate an aquifer, as has happened in Pennsylvania where water wells have been proven to be contaminated with methane.
Under the proposed rules, the public will be notified of a fracking operation in the area only when the well requires 200,000 gallons (or more) of water. To date, wells in Tennessee don't contain half that amount of water. In effect, public notification of fracking isn't required.
The state asked the public about the proposed rules, and many of us sent comments expressing a strong interest in preserving Tennessee's water quality. These comments were disregarded; the rules fall far short of requiring common sense, let alone industry-approved precautions for fracking.
Further consideration of these rules will be considered at the Oil and Gas Board meeting, Friday, at 10:30 Central Time in the 17th floor conference room of the L&C Building, Nashville, Tenn. Attendance is open to the public.
MEGAN SPOONER
UTC loses sight of nation's history
As an alum of UTC, I'm ashamed of the university's decision to replace pregame prayers with a "moment of silence." Instead of taking UTK's stance, which held that non-sectarian prayer is permissible, the leadership at UTC meekly caved to the legal threats of an out-of-state vocal minority that's determined to remove any reference to God and religion from public life.
Our Founding Fathers didn't form a country free from God and religion. On the contrary, they established a country where each individual could worship as he or she pleased according to their beliefs. Their desire was to have freedom of religion, not freedom from religion. Separation of church and state meant a prohibition on the establishment of a "state" church, like the Church of England or the Roman Catholic Church, not the elimination of God and religion from the public realm of life.
Regrettably, as this decision by UTC shows, the leadership at "Chattanooga's university" has lost sight of the fact this country was founded as a Christian nation, and while we should strive to tolerate the beliefs of non-Christian religions, agnostics and even atheists, we should never do so at the expense of the beliefs of the majority of citizens in the area.
ROBERT P. RAYBURN SR.
Obama destroying U.S. from within
The Obama administration is like an infection destroying us from within while it weakens our nation, making it vulnerable to a treacherous disease called tyranny.
I refuse to promote aborting children who could have some day developed a cure for cancer. I refuse to support the twisted mindsets that demand everyone must embrace their rainbow.
It's my opinion that America reserves the right to protect her borders just as China or Russia are allowed to with their lines of sovereignty.
I'm convinced public schools are government-funded hatcheries, introducing liberal ideas intended to re-invent government through student collaboration. I think these future citizens will be nothing more than bees or ants working in collective effort to expand government intrusion upon all or lives.
I fully believe in Israel's right to exist and that those screaming death to her and America should not extort one throat lozenge of foreign aid from us.
Yes, I refuse to commit treason against my own country and disavow God's mercy upon her by voting to endorse the globalized social agendas being teleprompted to the president.
CHARLIE WALL III, Chickamauga, Ga.