Spend and Tax
Dear Editor,
Is Tony Wilkins the only city councilmember fiscally responsible on behalf of the taxpayer?
The Greensboro City Council spends our hard earned money like it grew on trees and have the audacity to raise taxes to cover their perpetual spending sprees.
How local government has gotten so insulated from the local taxpayer by spending and taxing at its whim is mind-boggling.
I am of the opinion that any tax or fee increase should be voted on as a referendum during a regular election cycle, as I have no confidence this council considers the taxpayers – who fund the city government – when they spend and tax at will.
Raise city wage rates? Fine. Cut somewhere else.
Raise property taxes when this city has the highest? The arrogance.
Fund special interest projects “that are a lot of money but in the scope of our budget it isn’t,” which when added up does impact the budget?
It’s difficult for me to believe that the majority of taxpayers support this spend-and-tax representation.
Henry Williamson
Works on TV
Dear Editor,
Recently I read that the Greensboro Police Department is re-gunning its handguns from the .45 to the 9mm. This program seems to be cost effective and logical.
However, one might question why our law enforcement needs to be strutting around and bodily armored to the teeth. The dumbest, low-life criminal knows it is totally stupid to kill a cop.
Tequila cop? Is this some kind of Jimmy Buffet drink?
I’m a huge fan of modern British crime drama. One thing all these programs have in common is that their law enforcement is rarely gunned and often basically unarmed. From Shetland to the Caribbean, “Death in Paradise.” If they can do it, why not us?
If ever you see me walking about carrying heat and/or wearing camouflage, you’ll know the stuff has hit the fan.
John Taylor-Hall
Editors Note: There are over 300 million guns in the US. It seems to make sense that the police would have some of those. By comparison there are about 2 million guns in Great Britain and over half are shot guns.
Silencers are Golden
Dear Editor,
This letter is in regard to the current legislation on silencers.
Silencers (more accurately called suppressors) were invented and developed by Hiram Maxim, a mechanical genius who is also credited with machinegun development. Silencers work on the principal of slowing down the gases of a discharged firearm, thereby reducing its muzzle blast or noise level.
Since their inception, silencers have been heavily regulated by the federal government. To legally obtain a silencer, a person has had to pay a $200 tax, undergo an extensive background check (which can last up to a year), be fingerprinted and fill out tons of paperwork. All this red tape is about to change. If President Donald Trump passes the hearing protection act, buying and owning a legal silencer can be as simple as buying and registering a handgun.
Hollywood has always depicted silencers as evil, nefarious devices – all the dark shadowy figures in Humphrey Bogart movies wore black trench coats and carried German-made Walther P-38s with silencers attached while roaming moonlit back alleys. Remember the psychotic sniper in Clinton Eastwood’s Dirty Harry series? He used a scoped rifle with a silencer to take out innocent people from dozens of city blocks away. Yeah, right – pass the popcorn.
The truth is, silencers also serve a legitimate sporting purpose.
Now hunters in many states, including North Carolina, can legally use a suppressor for hunting big game without excessive noise levels scaring other animals. Target shooters can legally use a suppressor for plinking at soda cans in the back yard without waking the neighbors. And they won’t even have to wear hearing protection while doing so.
I hope that the public can see through the Hollywood hype and realize that there is a legitimate purpose for owning this unique device.
Jonathan Muffley
Eat It
Dear Editor,
Still stinging from yet another round of rate and fee increases, High Point citizens were slapped in the face this past week when their City Council announced plans to renovate the council chambers in city hall to the outrageous sum of $260,000. The hall has seen only limited use since its construction in the early 1970s and remains in like-new condition, but this didn’t stop the council from moving forward with their latest frivolous spending venture.
Earlier this year, the council gave away $400,000 of the citizens hard earned tax dollars to a bevy of third-party, non-essential nonprofit groups, most of whom are operated by very handsomely paid friends of the council.
If there is such a thing as adding insult to injury, the expensive renovation of a perfectly pleasant and functional chamber at city hall is it. The High Point City Council’s complete disregard for their town’s citizens has apparently reached a new level of aristocratic haughtiness. While the citizens continue to shoulder the state’s highest taxes, fees and utility rates, their municipal government has in effect told them to “eat cake.”
Harold Williams
Worth Fighting For
Dear Editor,
A few days after graduating from high school in 1972, I took the following oath: “I, Alan Dean Marshall, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the president of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.”
During the next 20 years, I retook that oath every time I reenlisted. While we no longer wear the uniform, many, many, many other veterans like myself, regardless of branch and length of service, believe that we are still bound by this oath, not legally but morally. We believe that just because we are no longer on active or inactive duty, we make up the framework of what is referred to in the Second Amendment as “A well regulated militia.”
Note that I said “framework,” not that we were the militia, because the militia referred to in the Second Amendment is all the able bodied people of America who believe what we have is worth fighting for and defending and are prepared to do just that “against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”
There have been references by some, myself included, that what happen in Washington, DC, was possibly the opening shots of the next American civil war, but after closer consideration I see it as being more like the start of the Second American Revolution.
Since they don’t teach real American history in the schools, let me remind everyone what was reportedly said by Capt. John Parker to his Minutemen on the Lexington Green as the British approached: “Stand your ground. Don’t fire unless fired upon, but if they mean to have a war let it begin here.”
Conservatives in this country need to do two things. First, write those words on a postcard or in an email and send it to their representatives and senators with the added note: “If you cannot or will not hold to these words, then start packing because you are worthless.” Second, memorize and repeat those words whenever they are confronted by those who want to destroy this great country.
Go Galt and save the republic.
Alan Marshall
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P.O. Box 9023, Greensboro 27429
