Letters to the Editor 12/18

Sports, sheriff's log make good reading

One thing I really like about the newspaper is the sports section. I like the way everything is written down and organized by sport. If I miss one of the NFL games, the next day I can just get a newspaper and find out how my favorite team did. It explains everything that happened in the game and all the highlights on each individual player.

Without the sports section, the newspaper would not be as fun. The other interesting section of the newspaper is the sheriff's log. It keeps us in touch with all the bad things that really go on around Carson City.

Juan Carlos Ramirez

Carson City

Don't be fooled by pot proponents

I was dismayed to see there will be another attempt to legalize marijuana in 2012 in Nevada. California has three initiative petitions as well as a legislative bill to tax and regulate cannabis. Should even one of these bills pass, the inability of gangs and cartels to compete against licensed retailers in a free market would be revealed.

The fiercely independent gang organizations will be forced to relocate so as to escape excessive regulation, and Nevada will have to serve as sturdy shelter from the legalization madness. We must preserve Nevada as a safe haven to where these enterprises may flee, a place where they may operate without the pressure of legitimate competition and government regulation.

Cartels - a deeply-ingrained American tradition since the days of Al Capone - depend upon the inflated prices of the black market to operate. Prohibition is necessary for cartels to fund bribes, pay its members and purchase weapons. Without a black market to inflate prices, cartels would soon go the way of Mafia hooch: Another historic Nevada outfit killed by government regulation. What a bleak prospect.

Advantages brought by these organizations include after-school programs for our disadvantaged youth, tax-free earnings, hands-on training and alternative career paths for the sociopath in all of us. While California may be quick to disregard these benefits, Nevada, like Capone's Chicago, must insist on reaping the plentiful bounty of prohibition.

Do not be fooled by the legal marijuana proponents. Protect our gangs and drug cartels by continuing cannabis prohibition.

Robert Gonzalez

Carson City

A political flip-flop

Have you ever noticed people who preach tolerance, many times practice none of it or that those who demand civility are very uncivil in their discourse?

During the last administration, we were told that dissent was the highest form of patriotism. Remember Hillary's "I'm sick and tired" speech?

Now, if we are against government takeover of health care or are against cap and trade legislation, we are called Nazis, mean monsters, morons or pro-slavery, etc.

Is it any wonder that Congress has such low approval ratings, or that local opinion writers are considered buffoons?

Margery L. Scott

Carson City