Speak Out

Re “No right to smoke” (Speak Out, Feb. 26):

Contrary to letter writer Stephanie Stamps' assertion, I did not forget about the employees working in environments where people are allowed to smoke.

The many people who work in the restaurant business knew that people smoked there before they applied for the job. People are forced to work out of necessity, but they are not forced to work at any given place against their will.

If employees decide they do not want to work in a potentially dangerous environment, they are free to work elsewhere. If Stamps is concerned with preventing people from knowingly entering into dangerous work environments, I suggest she start with the military.

The business owner, as the property owner, has the right to allow or prevent smoking on his premises, and people have the right to choose not to work or eat in such an environment. It is unjust for them to enforce their preference upon the business owner.

If a business owner loses his business because no one will eat or work in a restaurant that allows smoking, then it is his choice to do so, though it would be a foolish one.

Micah Cobb
Auburn

Educating our children

Re “Sessions to request $1 billion for literacy” (News article, Feb. 22):

Sen. Jeff Sessions has hatched a plan to take another billion dollars from our pockets. The federal government will use this money to teach our children how to read. What has happened to the $2 trillion that the federal government has already taken from us for education? A recent study showed that 60 percent of high school seniors cannot read beyond the “Dick & Jane” level, and 75 percent of them cannot complete a math problem that requires more than 10 fingers.

In 1860, American citizens could read better than our citizens can today. This was when fathers could use their money to educate their children, a concept they learned from the teachings of Jesus. This concept is called liberty, an ideal that our founding fathers fought to secure and our Confederate fathers fought to preserve. This was the cause for which 250,000 Southern men died.

Today we have a choice. Either get the hands of men like Sessions out of our wallets and off our children, or continue to build larger prisons and more rehab centers in which to warehouse our children. You decide.

LeeRoy Alan Cobb
Oxford