Good reason to worry about California
To the editor:
In response to the July 20 letter from Joseph Hutchinson, who appears frustrated with the attention the Review-Journal gives to “some California regulation or proposal”:
My answer to many people, living not only in our state but in other great states, is simple and, sadly, true: What happens in California doesn’t necessarily stay in California.
Stacy Morris
LAS VEGAS
Drug war
To the editor:
I read in Friday’s Review-Journal that the government may pass a law requiring that Excedrin PM be put behind the counter. This is allegedly because Excedrin PM, mixed with black tar heroin, causes a better and cheaper “high.”
This is similar to taking Sudafed off the shelves becaue of that other drug problem.
A better idea would be to go after the heroin dealers and users.
Why do we always make it more difficult for the honest person? The majority of people suffer for the acts of the relatively few who abuse the system.
Gordon Soeder
LAS VEGAS
Against kids
To the editor:
In response to your Thursday editorial opposing the expansion of a federal health insurance program:
The only thing the editors of the Review-Journal seem to be for is less government. Well, the Constitution starts with, “We the people.” And Abraham Lincoln concluded his Gettysburg Address with “this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth.”
Thus the founders and the savior of the United States of America defined “government” as us — the people.
So the Review-Journal stand against “government” is essentially a stand against us. Yes, maybe there are some of us that the Review-Journal should be against, but to be against sick children? Have you no shame? Have your plush chairs, big desks and air-conditioned offices made you numb to the needs of working families that face the stress of, let’s say, a child who must undergo open-heart surgery?
Do your “against us principles” not bother you — even a little — when a family might have to face the real compounded possibility of seeing a child in pain and be simultaneously worried about losing insurance coverage if Congress and the president don’t ensure the continuation of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program? Do the R-J editors even think of these things at all, or do they just leave the office at the end of the day happy with the words they wrote against “government”?
Dr. William N. Evans, M.D.
LAS VEGAS
Glorified violence
To the editor:
Can you or your sports people tell me the difference between the audience that relishes dog fights and the audience that relishes boxing?
Both can end in death. Both are a display of egregious violence.
Both satiate the dark human satisfaction of watching pain being inflicted.
Neither is a sport.
Michael Vick needed a whole lot of sadistic voyeurs to support his violence. If he is guilty of watching suffering, they are equally as guilty.
John Dombek
SANTA CLARA, UTAH
Don’t blame religion
To the editor:
In his Wednesday commentary, Christopher Hitchens makes some interesting comments about doctors following Hippocratic principles.
While he was writing about terrorist doctors who attempted to murder several hundred innocent people, what came to my mind was abortionists who are doctors who have murdered millions of the innocent and defenseless.
Mr. Hitchens further discusses folklore about killing to provide cadavers, and Nazis who conducted ghastly experiments even on women and children. At present, late-term abortions are providing marketable body parts for the same purposes.
Include in that the embryos being used for research without regard to the successes in adult stem-cell research. Can you guess the bottom line?
Mr. Hitchens’ premise is that these Islamic terrorist doctors are killers because of religion. My premise is that abortionists are killers because of a lack of religion; and they have hit a new low by killing the most innocent and defenseless of all.
Before we blame religion for these atrocities, we need to look at two resources:
— First, the Quran states that suicide is prohibited. It also says that if you have taken an innocent life, it is as if you have killed all humanity.
Second, the Bible says, “You shall not murder.”
The basic problem is definitely not religion.
Marie Jones
LAS VEGAS
