This is Viewpoints for Tuesday, June 20, 2017

Proper punishment?

Woman kills husband gets six years in prison. Man caught selling illegal drugs and gets 10 years. Men kill friend and get nine years each. These are just a few of thousands of examples of what I call an invitation to do criminal acts.

With tens of thousands in prison for drug dealings, it time for a huge change. Those incarcerations cost taxpayers billions of dollars annually. Repeat offenders should be placed in outside barbed wired electrified compounds with zero amenities. They should be fed beans and rice with water. They should wear chains 24 hours a day. Keep in mind they sold to minors and caused billions of dollars in rehabilitation costs.

Killers must be dealt with according to the evidence. These multi-year waits to be dealt with is totally unfair to those families who lost love ones.

Laws must change about murders. Quick and terminal acts to the guilty. As an example, Muslims kill homosexuals and use barbarism on women.

Think about the poor farmers who live in old homes with tin roofs and have no air conditioning in Mississippi. They were born into rough circumstances with zero amenities and toil six days a week.

Impediment to development

The argument that alcohol consumption on the property named for Rosa Parks is disingenuous. The Rosa Parks Library and Museum located on the very spot where Rosa Parks was arrested in Montgomery, Alabama, holds philanthropic fund-raising events where alcohol is served. The National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel where Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, allows event space rentals where alcohol may be served, as well as the Center for Civil and Human Rights in Atlanta. Our very own Tubman African-American Museum has events where alcohol is served.

The mature, legal choice to provide properly permitted alcohol at a community event does not denigrate the memory or legacy of our national heroes. We also need not forget the U.S. Armed Forces service members, veterans and fallen war heroes who are memorialized at Rosa Parks Square.

I cannot imagine those who came before and sacrificed so much for our freedom, would take offense if some of us might choose to share a beer, or glass of wine with friends and enjoy the fellowship of a community event in this green space between the Municipal Court and City Auditorium in beautiful downtown Macon.

Rather than promote the Macon community, this unfounded ordinance proposal will discourage community development and impede the continued growth and development of Macon’s economy.

Revisit Flannery

In light of the events last week, that began in Putnam County and ended in Tennessee, one might wish to read or revisit Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard To Find.” This fictional masterpiece deals with a similar situation of “evil in this world,” which has always existed and will continue to exist. We pray for the families of the officers that died in the line of duty.

Held at gunpoint

Virginia’s governor used the shooting of a congressman to plug gun control and then said that it’s not the time to raise the issue. I wonder how he, the press and other Second Amendment opponents will handle the latest news. Two prisoners murdered two guards with the guards’ weapons. Over two days later, according to the news, the escapees who were trying to steal a car were captured by two apparently law-abiding citizens in Tennessee who held them at gunpoint, apparently with privately owned weapons, until the cops arrived, with no further killing. Isn’t it great that those two citizens had weapons. How much will that be stressed by the left and the press? Not very much, I expect.

The rest of the story

Not to take anything away from the situation, Patrick Hale, the private citizen who captured the two escaped killers told the Tennessean that although his weapon was on him, he did not have to draw it.

Rising tides

The June 3 column by Vera Bergengruen titled, “Pentagon sees climate change as national security threat” needs a logical response. Extreme weather patterns and rising sea levels are aggravating social tensions and feeding the rise of extremist groups. I say it’s not the climate change, but the people not getting their way.

The Pentagon claims its naval base in Ventura County, California has lost 400 feet of beach. It’s logical that the beach has been eroded by waves since 1940. California coast was basically formed by earthquakes off shore pushed dirt and sand up on land. This is one reason they have big mud slides on the coast. The Pentagon claims sea levels at Naval Station, Norfolk, Virginia has risen 14.5 inches since World War I. They have no claim that sea level has risen 14.5 inches up and down the rest of the Atlantic coast. A reasonable thought is the naval base has sunk. I have never seen water rise on one end of the tub while the rest stayed in place. Mankind cannot destroy earth, they may change it, but God is the only one that can destroy it.

Novel idea

What a great city-county we live in. The proponents of consolidation hope enough time has past that we don’t remember. Not only do “they” want to raise our property taxes, but the Board of Tax Assesors has the audacity to tell me my house is worth $4,000 more than it was worth last year. The only change has been that it is a year older. Somebody please tell me what they use for logic? On top of all that, they want us to approve another round of SPLOST.

Instead of wasting millions of taxpayer dollars on chasing a baseball team. It has been proven over and over that this area will not support a baseball team. A novel idea: use that money to reduce our property taxes. Election year will come around again.

The next SPLOST that will be implemented in 2018 has already been approved by voters.

This story was originally published June 19, 2017 at 9:00 PM with the headline "This is Viewpoints for Tuesday, June 20, 2017."