Should we jail a man for selling an orange?

On Sunday, Thomas Burns’ letter blasted roadside vendors, claiming they are hurting the economy by selling oranges, strawberries and roses. His solution is to use the full police power of the state to crush them.

This struck me as particularly harsh. After all, these folks are selling legal products to willing purchasers. Is there something inherently evil about this?

Maybe these activities are giving us clues about the burdens that government places on more regulated brick-and-mortar businesses. Like without oppressive taxation and regulation, prices come down.

A bloated government apparatus isn’t needed to oversee, inspect, tax and regulate every single transaction between people.

Instead of arresting the fruit vendor and confiscating his goods, maybe the solution is to cut taxes, regulations and laws on businesses and let them compete with the roadside vendors. Doing so would reduce prices, and fewer motorists would stop roadside for their purchases.

Mr. Burns should direct his criticism toward eliminating the crushing effects of taxation and regulation. Do you really want to jail a man for selling an orange?

dave liebrader

Las Vegas

Road work

To the editor:

I would like to know when Las Vegas police are going to start enforcing the law pertaining to the operation of motor scooters. I see people operating them in violation of helmet, registration and licence laws. They are a danger on the valley roads. They do not obey the laws of the road. They are motorcycles and are not being operated as such.

The police should be enforcing this, and they are not. This is getting out of hand and should be dealt with.

Ron Anctil

Las Vegas

No fluke

To the editor:

Webster defines “fluke” as “an accidental stroke of good luck” — perhaps a huge misnomer in Sandra Fluke’s case.

Rush Limbaugh had it right again, and apologetic President Obama had it wrong again.

Mr. Limbaugh eruditely stated, “What is she, 30 years old? Thirty years old, a student at Georgetown who admits to having so much sex that she can’t afford to pay for it anymore.” So now, “We’re told that people who want to have sex without consequence, sex with no responsibility, and we have to pay for it.”

Are Ms. Fluke’s parents proud of her? Let’s be punished in the Obama tradition for not paying our fair share! It’s much cheaper for Ms. Fluke than to go buy her own protection and get off mommy’s and the government’s apron strings.

Don’t you think Mr. Obama could spend his time on so many other pressing issues — such as jobs, the economy and gas prices?

TOM LUSCHER

HENDERSON

Proud town

To the editor:

For a newspaper whose sole editorial policy seems to be pounding President Barack Obama, Sen. Harry Reid, Democrats and progressives in general, it was surprising to see your all-encompassing gaze shift to my hometown of Henderson (Sunday editorial).

It is too bad that Henderson is never given any kind of positive press in your newspaper — the politics and business of Las Vegas and the Strip dominate everything. The only time the city is ever mentioned is after a fatal car accident or a crime. People are probably shocked that there is any other city in Clark County.

I am a proud native and resident of Henderson and am excited to see the position it is taking in regional and state affairs. And I am also sure that any problems will be properly addressed.

Mark Bradshaw

Henderson

Money pit

To the editor:

Ruben Murillo, president of the Clark County Education Association, makes his plea for more funding for schools here in Clark County. He asks us all whether we want a “top quality school system,” and he believes billions of dollars from us property owners will do the trick.

He says that without this funding increase, we will not be able to properly educate our children, and people and businesses will not want to relocate to Clark County. Mr. Murillo quotes Albert Einstein: the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

That statement caught my attention.

He is correct when he quotes Mr. Einstein — and that is exactly why we should not extract $5.3 billion more from property tax owners to throw down the same money pit of our current education system.

Clark County has failed over the years to improve the test scores of our children even though each year we increase funding for our public education system. There is enough money currently in our budget, but it is not wisely used. We need to think of new ways to teach our schoolchildren, and increased amounts of money is not the answer.

Why not increase the number of charter schools and experiment more with letting private schools have a bigger say in educating our children? How about experimenting with teacher pay based on performance instead of paying for longevity?

How about addressing the difficulty of firing poor-performing teachers? Let’s audit the school system and see if there are too many administrators compared to teachers on the front line.

I always hear the teachers scream that the teacher- student ratio is too high. Maybe we should trim the administrators. That would pay for more teachers in the classroom.

Mr. Murillo, I agree with your Einstein analysis — I just reach a different conclusion.

Michael O. Kreps

Las Vegas