Are we living in the Christian States of America?
Dear Editor;
In response to Ian McMullen’s editorial (“Why do left-wingers try to ‘shock’ Americans?”) in the March 24 edition firstly, you are not truly sincere, and you are definitely not humble. That said, let me ask you, as they say in the commercial, to please check your resources. We “old men” are not dead from the neck up, nor are we, as yet, consigned to a six by six by three hole in the ground as you apparently seem to think we are. So an apology on that point would be appreciated.
Among many other things, I am a present student at GCSU, a republican, (I campaigned for Thomas E. Dewey for president, against Truman), and shortly will be a septigenarian, (an archaic word I admit). I have been a Libertarian for many years, and as such I believe that everyone should be able to do whatever they choose, as long as it hurts no one else.
Back to your discourse on things you haven’t, as yet, learned.
While I hold the left in no regard what so ever, I feel you may pay some attention to the right wing’s purveyors of shock radio, Boortz, Limbaugh, etc. If you are referring to the religious right as your interpretation of normal Americans, I feel you are far off the mark.
In your third paragraph you speak disparagingly of old men as necessarily: leftists, dodering old fools that know nothing of what is going on in this country, barbershop talkers living a fantasy of the way they remember it was. Boy are you in for a surprise, if you ever decide to sit and listen to one or more of your elders. Try to think of all those old idiots that: framed the constitution, fought the wars, built this country over the past centuries, paid for and gave you your education since your fourth birthday. all this so young men like yourself could sit in judgement of us old farts.We not only deserve an apology, we have decided not to order, as we have lost our appetite.
Neo-McCarthyan? I watched McCarthy, through his rise, listened to his vitriol, sat through his madness. I know you didn’t, did your theological brothers, did your teachers? Hitler as a leftist? I don’t think so.
(Bye the bye, the largest Klan Klaverns were in New Jersey, and the mid-western states, not Georgia or the South.
Why do you, in all your missives, relegate Christianity as the bulwark of our political system. This country was set up as a Christian society not a Christian government. There are a a hell of a lot more non-Christians in this world then there are of Christians. Why are Christian zealots good, and zealots of any other religion madmen? (By the way, are Catholics Christians? The southern states for years didn’t think so).
As to your judgement of the realities of the war in Iraq, a little history is needed. At the beginning of the war in ‘Nam, I was a hawk., my country right or wrong. As the war progressed and I spoke with returning veterans I learned the truth: not the government’s truth, or the media’s truth, but the truth as known by those men who had been ‘in country’: the grunts, the pilots, the enlisted men in supply. They radically changed my views. I am not saying this war is right, or just, or a bunch of political crap, I just don’t know yet.
Politically active young people juvenile? Hell no, but they sure need more information than will be gotten from Rush, or from a small cadre of theologically minded undedgrads at a local bar buying brews with Daddy’s money, or in a barbershop.
Oh well we shall all rest better at night when we are living in the Christian States of America.
Sincerely,
Jim Lenahan
Creative Writing & Art
Posted by Colonnade Archives
on Apr 7 2006. Filed under Opinion.
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