We should be against any hate speech that endangers people

To The Daily Sun,

Charlie from Wolfeboro thinks I must have been the college debate coach's favorite, while I think he was probably the kid who wasn't quick enough to get on any debate team. He asked why I try to convince others. Firstly, I don't believe people like Charlie, Russ, Steve, Don, Tony, or John are reachable, ever. You folks are lost.

Charlie starts off with a complete fallacy that, "Instead of wishing to make the country great again. I need to be against making the country great again." Folks, they completely miss the point. Hello! America is great right right now and Donald Trump is playing the weakness card trying to convince his gullible sheep that we are in decline. Maybe they are in decline but we aren't.

Exit polls show 65 percent of Republicans believe the GOP has turned their back on them. Good for them for finally figuring that one out. Too bad they got suckered in the first place. Trump preys on their fears and failures like a good propagandist does.

His second point, "Instead of being for a strong military, I need to be against having a strong military, thereby putting the country at risk against dictators around the world who do not give a tinker's damn — what they are called by the "intelligentsia." This is another foolish statement. We have a very strong military right now. Trump is simply convincing the bleating sheep that it's not big enough and we should be sword-rattling pugilists in our foreign policies. This he does even though we fund it to the tune of more than the next six most powerful nations combined.

His third point, "I need to be against the man-and-woman model of family that has worked for over 5,000 years as the glue to keep societies together" is another example of a narrow mind. I am talking inclusiveness. There have always been gay and lesbian couples, just as there are in most of the bird and mammal species and it's time to recognize them as people equal under the law — marriage, Social Security benefits, testamentary rights, etc.

Only 5,000? Did you get that from the Bible? Try millions for our evolutionary clade and over 280,000 years for humans alone. We already won the LGBT rights fight, so try another dead horse. There have always been transgenders and intersexuals (those born with elements of both male and female genitalia). You just need to crawl out of your hole and get some sun.

His fourth one is another goofball point: "I need to be against English as a unifying force in the country, though India, with its 300 languages and over 1,000 dialects, has realized that such a level of diversity does not work and all matters of commerce and law are conducted in English." Who is against English as a unifying force? Another strawman argument because the movement I speak of that echoes the German fascists want English-only.

The key word is "only." Let people speak their tongue and don't throw your toys on the floor when they do. All over this country we are bilingual in roads, airports, media, and it's not hurting anyone. Most of our legal documents are in English and sometimes also in Spanish for new immigrants, etc., and nobody is asking for that central place for English to be changed.

Then Charlie wiggles this one in: "I need to be against asking our immigrants (legal and not) to assimilate into the American culture because diversity as practiced in the Balkans and the Middle East has worked so very well and we should follow it." So there it is, folks, it's the Middle East and the Balkans. All immigrants should assimilate because they will fail economically if they don't. Most do. But it's up to them, not some right-wing, glassy-eyed, flag-waving, Bible-thumping, white nationalist. No law but those pursuant to the Constitution is to be in effect. That means no laws based on any religious belief, Muslim, Christian, or Jewish, etc.

The Constitution is an enlightenment based, godless document that puts all religions on the same footing under the law. All of this does not mean newer immigrants celebrating their own home culture is wrong. It's also more difficult for the elderly to learn new languages, so ease off a bit. Just remember that most of the world outside the Orient is multicultural and full of diversity. You've lost this one, too. By 2060, whites will be in the minority and so will theistic belief.

Charlie's sixth point is like Sarah Palin or Michelle Bachmann word salad. He writes, "I need to be against hate speech, religious stereotyping, revoking civil rights in the name of patriotism and national."

Let me simplify this. We should be ethically against any hate speech that endangers people, seeks to strip civil rights from them, or to dehumanize them as so many wingnuts do. Taking a wide brush to any group is not intelligent. Most Muslims are not violent, most Christians are not twisted dominionists (Christian Sharia) like Ted Cruz (aka Teddy Taliban), and most Christians aren't narrow-minded fools like Huckabee or Santorum.

Now let me finish with the Marxist-socialist rants of right-wing nutjobs. There are not any Marxist-socialists anymore. Hardly anybody believes in that purist socialist rubbish but Charlie didn't get the memo a few decades ago. In fact, very few believe in purist unregulated capitalism, either. What most people believe in are mixed economies. Regulated capitalism with an emphasis on increasing purchasing power in the citizenry. Expanding the national commons when the market fails as it did on healthcare. Please read the memo, Charlie.

Like Stevie Earle, you're beating a dead horse about those ghastly commie-pinkos. If you don't know what Marxism is, it's when the state owns all the means of production and distribution of products for starters. Can you find one person who actually believes that Marxism is a good idea? I have not met even one.

James Veverka

Tilton