I add a hearty amen to everything Frank Wilson said in Tuesday's letter to The Times. I spend a considerable amount of time on the highways of Georgia these days and it almost seems as if the motoring public has gone completely mad.

I know it is impossible to stop and ticket every driver who is speeding or driving irresponsibly. But if we drivers knew there was a good chance that, if we got stopped, we would face a stiff fine or loss of license, I believe we would see a dramatic decline in the number of deaths and injuries, along with a tremendous savings from that $7.8 billion Mr. Wilson talked about.

I can count at least 10 fatalities between my home and Murrayville, which is less than five miles away, in the last 10 years. I'm tired of hearing about drivers, teenagers especially, dying in car wrecks or being crippled for life. I am afraid I may be the next fatality.

Most state highways in Georgia can safely handle speeds of 60 to 65 mph. Most drivers already drive that fast anyway. Why not set the limit at a reasonable number rather than the current 55 mph on state highways and adjust the interstate limits accordingly and get serious about saving lives and money in Georgia?

Somebody needs to have enough gumption to repeal that Lester Maddox era law about 10 mph over the speed limit and instruct the Georgia State Patrol as well as county and city law enforcement to get busy saving lives and money and as a bonus we might see reduced insurance rates. I don't want to be one of the five people who will die or one of the 365 people injured before tomorrow morning.

Ironically, I left this note on the screen and went out for dinner, tuned in the news only to find that a University of Georgia student athlete died as the result of an automobile accident. I wonder how many died without making my local news.

Austin Meadows
Dahlonega

Cronic earns praise for enforcing 287(g) law
I applaud Sheriff Cronic for his courage and attention to duty in implementing the 287(g) section of the 1996 amendments to the Immigration and Nationality Act in having some of his deputies trained to expand their existing authority to enforce American immigration law. So should the legal residents of Hall County.

Here's wishing that in addition to applying the law to illegal aliens, he could also deport some of the illegal employers who have a better chance of being struck by lightning than being punished for violating some of the same laws.

From years of studying the results in many other jurisdictions that have done what Sheriff Cronic has, and seeing first hand the very quick change in Cobb County where our sheriff began the program in July, here are some predictions:

ID theft crimes will decrease. Illegal aliens will begin to migrate out of Hall County. Employers will whine that must pay a higher wage and improve working conditions to get legal workers. Parasitic ethnic hustlers who encourage and feed on continued illegal immigration will begin to howl that any enforcement of the law that affects the illegals who are their golden goose is profiling and, sooner or later, racist.

For his using 287(g), we had a rally on the courthouse steps here to thank our sheriff, Neil Warren, and flooded his office with phone calls of appreciation. I hope that something similar happens in Hall County. Bravo Sheriff Cronic!

D.A. King
Marietta

Only a man is good enough in GOP's eyes
I couldn't help but laugh at Paul Stanley's column. In Stanley's words, the president he is looking for can only be a man. Nine times Stanley refers to the perfect president as a "he."

Why doesn't Stanley, as chairman of the Hall County GOP, just go ahead and say, "Women have no place in the White House?" I could have tolerated a bold statement that only a white male, evangelical, reformed alcoholic frat boy could be president. After all, we've had one of those for seven years.

But Stanley is only looking for a male president. And, as Stanley says, "He will understand the power of incentives and disincentives."

In the GOP world, not only are woman consigned to the kitchen and the bedroom, women can't understand reward and punishment. That must be why women make so little money and can't hold executive jobs, work as judges or as teachers.

Gender aside, the local GOP leader is also looking for that male president who will not use taxes "to punish." A male president would know that, "taxes are not meant to punish."

When our economic enemies illegally "dump" products into our economy, how will Stanley's male president stop our enemies? Would Stanley's man invade another Third World country? Or would our country be better off using punitive tariffs?

When oil companies gouge the consumer at the pump, our country should punish Big Oil with windfall taxes? Or during war, if a company steals from the war effort, why not punish the Halliburtons with an excess profit tax? But like Stanley seems to be saying, taxes are not meant to punish and governments aren't supposed to nurture good citizenship.

I hope Stanley never finds that male president who use "free market mechanisms" to do the things only men should do. My country can't afford another GOP style "real man" running the country.

Michael Parker
Flowery Branch