Results are telling on propositions

Re “Voters Reject Preschool Tax Measure,” June 7

With Proposition 82 defeated, I have hope that voters are starting to realize that the bill of goods about investment in the future, as it relates to your children and education, is just that -- a bill of goods. And a bill of goods, based on past results, that was a sham. Until parents have the time to be with their children, the harm done to a child can never be made up in day care. So stopping this spending, and reining in other spending, might be good for all of us.

This may be a first step toward sanity being restored. Maybe in the next election we will start to remove those who can’t balance budgets, understand fiscal responsibility or obey the laws of the land.

BARRY LEVY

Redondo Beach

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The sound defeat of the universal preschool and the library renovation initiatives in Tuesday’s election reveals a traditional, though politically correct, tacit disdain for education and literacy in America.

Historically, we Americans celebrate cerebral mediocrity and “common sense” (Andrew Jackson, Ronald Reagan, George Bush) and are openly suspicious of intellectuals (Adlai Stevenson, “the eastern elite”).

Is there any mystery to the dismal condition of education in America? We either don’t care about it, don’t want to pay for it or are afraid of it. In any case, our growing ignorance, arrogance and apathy will prove to be more dangerous to our democracy than any terrorist.

GARY E. MURPHY

Simi Valley