Send e-mail to letters@gainesvilletimes.com (no attached files, please, which can contain viruses); fax to 770-532-0457; or mail to The Times, P.O. Box 838, Gainesville, GA 30503. Include full name, hometown and phone number for confirmation. They should be limited to one topic on issues of public interest and may be edited for content and length (limit of 500 words). Letters forwarded from other sources or those involving personal, business or legal disputes, poetry, expressions of faith or memorial tributes may be rejected. You may be limited to one letter per month, two on a single topic. Submitted items may be published in print, electronic or other forms. Letters, columns and cartoons express the opinions of the authors and not of The Times editorial board.
I love my country, but I'm not happy with the things I see happening today and the direction I see us going. We have a large group of leaders in power who are not godly people and it is obvious to me at least that our best interests are not being addressed maybe because those in Washington simply don't care.
I guess one of the things most on my mind, right now, is this health care system that President Barack Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi are trying to impose on the American people, senior citizens in particular, as quickly as possible.
This system is in force in Canada, Europe and other nations. It is and always has been a dismal failure. Wake up, folks. This is a one-way street and irreversible. Our president was asked if he and his family, along with our leaders in Washington, would be on this plan. As expected, the question was ignored and never received an answer. We know the answer, don't we?
The things we see happening around us today are dim reminders of Nazi German, Soviet Russia and others: By one means or another, target those who, in their opinion, are no longer useful or needed by the state.
If this plan is adopted, my understanding is that the present administration will have the authority to pick and choose those who they deem worthy to receive health care and treatment in a crisis situation which, of course, will be their call, also.
Maybe we deserve the kind of shoddy leadership we're getting from Washington. For a long time, we as a nation have "thumbed our noses" at God and all the old values that have worked for so long.
Mr. President, you or any others in Washington, do not have the right to determine who is worthy of life and who is not. That privilege belongs to our creator. I pray that the American people wake up before it's too late. It may already be.
Mickey Montgomery
Dahlonega
Democratic leaders take nation deeper into the abyss
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi calls insurance companies immoral villains, and those who protest against President Barack Obama's health care debacle "astroturf" and "un-American." Barney Frank said the insurance companies should be eliminated and there should be a one-payer health care system. It is evident they want to take over mine and your health insurance since they know more than we do.
When Obama was campaigning, he said he wanted a one-payer system; now he is saying that we don't want to take over your health insurance coverage. Yeah, just like he didn't take over the banks and General Motors.
Obama also said that the people who are protesting his health care program don't know what they are doing. He wants us to shut up and let him and his cronies take this country into socialism. He pretty much confirmed that when he appointed tax cheats, shoplifters, embezzlers, incompetent thugs and the like to his cabinet.
Hasn't he done a marvelous job in the last seven months in setting this country back some 75 years? You folks who put him in my White House should feel proud.
After spending some time on the campaign trail demonizing lobbyists, Obama, in the first two weeks alone, made 17 exceptions by putting at least eight of them in as "czar" appointments. Now, tell me where did he get the "czar" word from? He has appointed 33 "czars" who answer to no one.
When the politicians return to Washington to finish their dastardly health care deed, do you suppose they will come up with such a wonderful health scare bill for Obama to sign that they will want to join the rest of us taxpayers, whom they deem too dumb to read, comprehend, and change their health care program to the wonderful program they have come up with for us? Dream on!
Through Blue Cross, politicians have a health program that takes care of their families' health needs with little out-of-pocket expenses. Their insurance costs $1,030 per month, with the taxpayer paying $700 of that. Twenty dollars for them to see a doctor, $10 for prescriptions, and nothing for immunizations. Taxpayers pay most of their insurance for them. Now ain't that nice of us?
Wake up, all you incompetent voters, and smell the stench coming out of Washington and the White House. Democrats don't give a hoot in hell about your health; all they want is more control over you. And millions of you voters gave that control to them in the last election without a second thought.
Without a big turnaround in the next election more of you will be without a job and this country will slip further into the abyss. In the next election and the next, vote every incumbent out of office unless you like the direction this country is headed or you want to be on the jobless rolls.
Paul S. Barnes
Flowery Branch