Thursday, June 05, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Mercury

Letters

`Right to starve' state slights workers

July weather came early, with temperatures over 110 degrees in various parts of the valley. Fortunately for them, hundreds of thousands of valley residents live in a cocoon of comfort, in luxurious, air-conditioned homes, and travel in equally luxurious air-conditioned vehicles, with every material need and whim satisfied.

How did they get into that position? Those who started out as dealers in casinos, or in other low-paying jobs, built their fortunes on the backs of people working for low or minimum wages and ended up multimillionaires or more. Of course there are also the many who obtained their financial security illegally. That is the attraction that brings companies to this "right to starve" state, where employees have no rights, and can be terminated for any reason, or no reason at all.

The 9/11 murderous assault on our country affected these people the most, since many live from paycheck to paycheck, and for many there suddenly was no income at all. If they had insurance before, they have none now, which only exacerbates this disastrous situation. An illness or an inability to meet the rent or house payment, taxes or other bills creates new homeless constantly. The same people who served our meals in restaurants, kept our vehicles in repair and did multiple other services for us now have been reduced to sub-human. They are now only part of the thousands of homeless for which we, as a society, show unveiled contempt or utter indifference. Those who have children to support are in an even greater nightmare, trying to keep their family alive and together while bureaucrats decide on all the reasons they don't qualify for help, and all the benefits no longer available. Thanks, Bush!

Oscar Goodman and his lackey, Lawrence Weekly, with the help of planning commissioner Byron Goynes (the son of a well-known retired educator and North Las Vegas council member), managed to stomp out the excellent God in Me Ministry, which used no government funds in its rehabilitation program for homeless men, many of whom were veterans. (We only love them when we send them to war. If they come back broken, all bets are off!) Oscar, who brags that he always helps the underdog, should contribute all that unnecessary campaign money to the homeless. He thought he wouldn't win?

--Evie Kinney

Mr. Goebbels, we presume

In these times of high alert and terrorism, we here at Sin City Radio.com feel that stronger measures need to be taken to ensure our safety here in Nevada. Since 90 percent of all terrorism directed at the American people is domestic terrorism caused by a nonconforming, psychopathic element of our society, we need to re-evaluate our civil law and make the following changes.

Below are five examples of how we can change our civil law and keep this type of evil at bay:

1. Anyone who is stopped on the street for questioning should be required to provide proof of employment, proof of support or a legitimate income and submit to a mandatory drug test. If the drug test results are positive, or the aforementioned cannot be substantiated, the individual should be ordered to leave the state of Nevada and never return.

2. Anyone who lives in or works in the state should be required to obtain a "State of Nevada Authorization Card" (a new type of sheriff's card) and submit to a 10-year security background check and random drug test. This card would become the state's new form of identification card, and would include a current picture, Social Security number, a holographic fingerprint and DNA code.

3. The "Right to the Protection of Privacy Law" should be amended to include an individual's "Right to the Protection of Privacy Within Their Own Personal Space." This law would guarantee an individual's right to privacy while he or she is in public and ban strangers, such as panhandlers, drug dealers and religious or pornographic literature distributors (or anyone else), from making any type of contact with them while they're in public. This would be beneficial to those of us law-abiding citizens who hate being bothered by the low-life street riffraff that so often roam the streets, especially in Las Vegas.

4. The police should be required to maintain a substation in every high-crime residential area in the state (such as 21st Street and Sunrise Avenue). This could be cost-effective if the police were to rent one of the low-income dwellings themselves and turn it into a substation; thousands of dollars could be saved annually in fuel cost, vehicle maintenance and wasted man-hours in travel time. Plus, it would lower crime in the vicinity, and guarantee safety and protection around the clock, 24/7.

5. Anyone who is deemed a habitual lawbreaker and nonconformist by the Nevada judiciary system should be ordered to leave the state, and never return (not to exclude minors)!

These suggestions may seem harsh to some (the nonconformists) but to others (we law-abiding citizens), a change in the civil law like this would be a liberating breath of fresh air!

--Dr. Brujo