LETTERS

Not for fame

To the Editor:

At the end of this month, Georgia will celebrate Confederate Memorial Day. In 1874, Georgia officially designated a day to formally honor the lives of Confederate soldiers and the sacrifices they made. The date set for this purpose was April 26th, in recognition of the date in 1865 when General Joseph E. Johnston(who was in command of the Confederate troops from Georgia) surrendered, marking the end of the War for Georgia. Most Southern states celebrate Confederate Memorial Day, but not all of them on the same date. Florida joined Georgia in celebrating on April 26th, but other Southern states have chosen other dates for other reasons; e.g., North and South Carolina celebrate it on May 10th, the anniversary of Jefferson Davis' capture; Louisiana and Tennessee celebrate on June 3rd,Jefferson Davis' birthday; and Texas celebrates it on January 19th, General Robert E. Lee's birthday. Why do any of them celebrate a Confederate Memorial Day? Here are the words of Confederate Chaplain Randolph McKim, as inscribed on the Confederate Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery: "Not for fame, not for place or rank, not lured by ambition nor goaded by necessity, but in simple obedience to duty as they understood it, these men suffered all, sacrificed all, dared all, and died." Those men were doing their duty as described by General Robert E. Lee when he wrote: "Do your duty in all things. You cannot do more, you should never wish to do less."

Chuck Esposito

Suches, Ga.

Vote for what you want To the Editor:

Cordially,

Last week a few friends and I were discussing America's huge trade deficit (which will probably reach nearly $900B by the end of the year), and the one thing we agreed on is that America is certainly buying a lot more stuff from foreign countries, than foreign countries are buying from America. What we could not agree on is, if this is good or bad. That doesn't bother me because the "experts" can't agree either. Last time I looked there were at least a couple of dozen schools of economic thought operating in the USA, everything from the followers of John Maynard Keynes, who view huge trade deficits with alarm, to followers of Ludwig von Mises, who are not alarmed, and who believe that growing levels of trade and foreign investment boost US growth, job creation, real wages, and keep interest rates and inflation low. Next, my friends and I talked about America's huge budget deficit (last year the federal government spent about $3B more than it took in), and the fact that when the deficit from last year is added to the accumulated debt from previous years, the total national debt comes to about $8.7T (that's $8.7 Trillion); and we all agreed, as do virtually all respected economists, that this IS a problem. Just as individual citizens cannot continually spend more than they take in, neither can the federal government. Eventually, something gives, and there are only three options: increase receipts (that means more taxes), reduce outlays (Social Security, Medicare, & Medicaid represent over half of the expenses), or go bankrupt. Nobody wants the USA to go bankrupt (one of my friends describes that as becoming a banana republic, without the bananas!); and understandably, few citizens want the burden of increased personal taxes, or the inconvenience of reduced federal government largess. But we have to do something about the problem, and soon. Our elected federal officials know that we are on an unsustainable fiscal path, and are just postponing the inevitable by failing to make the hard decisions now, to either increase taxes or reduce handouts.

On June 19th Georgians in the 10th US Congressional District will have an opportunity to go to the polls to vote in a special non-partisan election to pick a successor to recently deceased US Representative Charlie Norwood. Whoever gets elected will have to face hard decisions concerning the budget deficit when he (all the candidates are males) arrives in Washington, and I predict the following: If he is a Democrat, he will probably vote to increase taxes; if he is a Republican he will probably vote to cut programs; if he is a Libertarian he will probably vote to reduce BOTH programs and taxes. Be careful how you vote. You may get what you ask for.

Cordially,

Chuck Esposito, Suches, GA

To the editor:

For anyone out there who has not voted in the last two general elections, this letter is of great importance. Under Georgia law, voters who did not vote in the 2004 and the 2006 November general elections may no longer be eligible to vote. In compliance with the law, the Secretary of State's office has removed 227,944 inactive Georgia voters. To check to see if your name has been purged from the list of voters, contact our local Registrar's Office (706-439-6016) or the Georgia Secretary of State's Office (404- 656-2871). Please take a minute to make sure that you have not lost your right to vote.

Michelle Maloney