Friday, December 05, 2008
U.S. shouldn't quit trading with China
Letters to the Editor
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- Pick of the day: Home-schoolers reject public schools
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From the RoundTable blog
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U.S. shouldn't quit trading with China
Re: "Trade with China is hurting the U.S.," Nov. 29 letter by Ralph L. Fuller:
First things first. Fuller says, "China has between 4 million and 5 million people in prison camps who work for food and clothing." These "prison" camps are a matter of opinion. Not many people in China call them prison camps. Using the word "prison" uses a connotation that is exaggerated for these factories.
Workers still get paid. Yes, they are working for food and clothing; isn't that what most Americans do? Well, perhaps some only buy beer and don't own any clothes, but I guess that is up to them. Even though the conditions are bad, to say the least, workers are not being held against their will.
As for removing free trade from China, is Fuller kidding me? We are in a time of recession and he wants to cut down trading with our largest trade partner in the world? How far in the hole does he want us to go?
Nikita Khrushchev once said that communism will take over the United States without ever firing a shot. Well, a president once said there were WMDs in Iraq.
List of '101 things' left out a precious gift
Thanks for the "101 things to be thankful for" (Extra section) in the Nov. 26 Roanoke Times.
That array of blessings and cravings likely evokes imaginations, yearnings and nostalgia in all of us. The void in the list is in failing to recognize the unspeakable gift. The perspective that gift provides is the essence of life and eternity.
Eternity, of course, stretches out forever and at the closing of our days the gift's presence in a life far surpasses the proposition " ... eye has not seen nor ear heard ... " even the "101 things to be thankful for."
Greater things at work in Obama's victory?
I am amazed at the weird assemblage of dates and events that make Barack Obama look like some predestined savior of our democracy.
He announced his candidacy for president on the same Illinois steps where Abraham Lincoln stood a century and a half ago to do the same thing. Forty years after Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech, Obama accepts his role as president-elect in front of a huge, festive crowd in the same Grant Park where 40 years earlier there had been terrible civil rights riots.
No sooner does Obama's opponent say that the fundamentals of the economy are "sound" than the economy appears to collapse. No sooner is Obama criticized for having little familiarity with foreign affairs than 200,000 people gather to hear him speak in Berlin.
If Obama hits a three-pointer in a high school gym, some woman in a supermarket aisle is sure to spill a shelf of canned fruit at his opponent's feet.
For all Obama's calculations and organization skills, it appears something else is at work here. "The government of the earth is in the hands of the Lord, and over it he will raise up the right man for the time" (Ecclesiasticus 10:4).
Great Virginians separated religion
In reference to Tom Taylor's commentary, "The state should pray in Christ's name" (Nov. 30), perhaps he should read a bit of American history himself, along with Del. Morgan Griffith and Del. Bill Carrico.
"And I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in showing that religion and Government will both exist in greater purity the less they are mixed together." -- James Madison.
"I contemplate with solemn reverence that act of the American people which declared that their legislature should make no law respecting the establishment of religion or the prohibiting the exercise therefor, thus building a wall of separation between church and state." -- Thomas Jefferson.
With all due respect to Griffith, Carrico and all of our current legislators, they pale in comparison to Jefferson and Madison, Virginia legislators from a few years ago.
Students should vote at home precincts
It was interesting to read "Create campus voting precincts" (editorial) and Kathleen Parker's "Too stupid to vote?" (commentary) in the Dec. 1 Roanoke Times.
Parker points out that civic literacy, even among college graduates, is at a pathetically sad 45 percent passing rate. Your editorial, on the other hand, wants to make it easier for collegians to vote by establishing campus precincts.
Aside from the general civic ignorance, that is a bad idea that shouldn't happen.
First, the students are only temporary residents who contribute no real or personal property taxes to the local community. Their home is elsewhere. They have no interest in the long-term future of the area surrounding their college. Their academic activities should keep them too busy to stay informed about local problems and candidates and they wouldn't be knowledgeable voters and would be subject to heavy partisan political pressures.
The whole idea is bad business and should be left alone. If they have an urge to participate in their constitutional voting right, then let students request an absentee ballot from their home registrar just like military service personnel have to do when they are deployed or at sea.
America should never become a theocracy
I certainly hope I wasn't the only person to be as disturbed as I was by Tom Taylor's blatant advocacy of a complete demolition of the wall separating church from state ("The state should pray in Christ's name," Nov. 30 commentary).
To hear Taylor tell it, the countries of Europe were far better off as Christian theocracies. It would behoove him to bone up on history and find out what kind of things the Europeans did in Christ's name; namely, the Crusades (and the subsequent massacres of European Jews that this inspired), the Inquisition, the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre and the Thirty Years War.
Our Founding Fathers had these events well in mind when they set out to create this country, and were very wise to refrain from establishing Christianity as an official state religion.
With that, I say a hearty "no, thanks" to Taylor's theocratic fantasy.
Votes for Obama weren't pro-abortion
Once again, The Roanoke Times has taken a position that is pro-culture of death and anti-gospel of life ("Planned Parenthood a worthy investment," Nov. 26 editorial). Any and all abortions mean the end of human life through killing.
This past presidential election was not a referendum on abortion. Rather, it was about the economy. Does the management of The Times truly believe that everyone who voted for Sen. Barack Obama agrees 100 percent with him on every issue?
For Christians, the Nativity of our Lord is fast approaching. It must be remembered that Mary (the mother of our Lord) was not yet married to Joseph when she announced that she was pregnant.
Joseph had several options opened to him. He could have had Mary stoned for adultery, thereby killing her and the baby. He could have sent her away. Or he could have ordered her to have an abortion. Abortion was against Jewish custom, but not unheard of when a woman was pregnant and unmarried.
Joseph opted for life.
