Support Scouts' fight against homosexuality
Please, let's all stand up and support the Boy Scouts of America as they continue their fight against homosexuality. Scouting is one of the greatest organizations this nation has ever had to train our young boys on how to grow up and become honorable and trustworthy men.
The Scout oath is something that we would all do well to follow! Just read what it says: "On my honor I will do my best to do my duty to God and country and to obey the Scout law, to help other people at all times, to keep myself physically strong, mentally awake and morally straight."
Our nation has become so apathetic that we stand by and watch the removal of Bibles and prayer from our schools and the killing of millions of babies through abortion and the weakening of our military, due to the acceptance of homosexuals into its ranks. Let us not let this happen to Boy Scouts. Allowing homosexuals to join the Scouts would be a complete departure from the founding principles of the Boy Scouts!!
GENE O. WAGNER SR., Rossville
Circumlocution office is at city hall
What? You don't know what the circumlocution office is? Why, it is the famous office first created by Charles Dickens in his novel "Little Dorrit" in which nothing ever happens except for mountains of papers being shuffled about by people who are incapable of doing anything productive.
Oh? You didn't know we had one? Well we do; it is commonly called the city government. To quote Mr. Dickens:
"No public business of any kind could possibly be done at any time without the acquiescence of the Circumlocution Office. Its finger was in the largest public pie, and in the smallest public tart. It was equally impossible to do the plainest right and to undo the plainest wrong without the express authority of the Circumlocution Office."
Case in point: Having a California company collect the sewer tax. I am sure that this can be remedied in time by spending untold amounts of money collected from the hapless taxpayers. The Circumlocution Office's thus-executed plan will surely be worthy of the name and will certainly be even more complicated, impossible and expensive.
I commend Chapter 10 of "Little Dorrit" to you. After you have read it, you will understand everything that can be understood about all of this.
WILLIAM H. BARGER
Cut the funding to other countries
Instead of sequestration cuts to our own citizens, one of the first cuts should be the 16 state-of-the-art F16 jet planes and 200 Abrams tanks scheduled to be delivered later this year to the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood-backed Morsi government.
DALE E. YODER
Respect other cultures, religions
The motto of Chattanooga Times Free Press is: "To give the news impartially, without fear or favor."
Dr. Benjamin Carson spoke fearlessly at the National Prayer Breakfast. He said, "An uninformed populace can easily be manipulated and the policy of political correctness has silenced the truth. The truth must be presented in a naked state rather than clothed in lie."
Respect for other cultures and religions for values other than our own is a hallmark of a civilized attitude. But if these other values are destructive of our own cherished values, are we not justified in fighting them by intellectual means that is by reason, argument, criticism and legal means by making sure the laws and constitution of the country are respected by all? It becomes a duty to defend these values that we would live by.
While religions and cultures are tolerated, religious and cultural practices may not be accorded the same freedom if they conflict with the law or constitution. A Muslim has absolute freedom of worship, but he cannot demand Sharia Jihad treatment of women, et cetera, et cetera.
AMOS TAJ, Ooltewah
Reporter, newspaper deserves praise
I want to commend and thank the Times Free Press staff writer Joy Lukachick for her outstanding reporting of the horrific events at Hays State Prison in Trion, Ga. I also want to thank this paper for it's unmatched coverage of the on-going inmate deaths and how the Georgia Department of Corrections is continuing to cover up the problems that exist.
The Tennessee Department of Correction is headed by ex-Georgia corrections assistant commissioner Derrick Schofield. Mr. Schofield sits next in line to head the G.D.C.; why after many years of service in the G.D.C., would he leave and go to another state? I've been a Georgia prisoner for almost 15 years and a jailhouse lawyer since 2007. I've been housed at Hays four times so I know firsthand and that no accountability will surface for the recent deaths.
Replacing the Hays warden Clayton Tatom was long overdue, but simply is a political ploy for the public at large, most of which have no knowledge of exactly what the problem is or how to fix it, but neither does Brian Owens, the corrections commissioner.
ALONZO MOREFIELD JR.