James Veverka: Weighing in on some recent topics of interest

Chuck McGee's letter about President Biden's executive actions was unhinged. Biden is like Hitler? Regularly, writers from the far-right fringes peddle in absurdities worthy of late-night mockery. The communists are coming!!! Well, which is it, stable geniuses? Nazis or commies? Do they even know the difference? Some use the term "Marxists" for Democrats. Clearly, they have no idea what Marxist means. The socialists are coming! For the right-wing, everything to the left of Mussolini is socialism. Keep it up! The 2022 election cycle has already begun.

 

Seeing President Biden begin the annihilation of Trump's despicable legacy is what all decent Americans expected because Trump poisoned everything he touched, including the minds of those who bought into his sadistic carnival-barking act. His attacks on healthcare; poof! His attacks on the environment; poof! His attacks on science; poof! His attacks on our long-standing alliances; poof! His attacks on America, poof!

 

Did you see the letter that claimed "Christian Nationalists" is a word made up by the left?  I got a chuckle out of that letter and a couple more. The vast majority of Christians are decent and fair-minded people that do not have crackpot Christian Nationalist beliefs. Christian nationalism is an extremist political ideology. It detests and attacks our multicultural democracy of different races, religions, cultures, and evolving mores. For decades, intelligence reports have found that right-wing extremist groups are the most serious terrorist threat in America. Did you see all the Christian imagery and rhetoric at the Capitol riots as the traitors attacked? Did you hear the sickening claims of "their patriotism" as the Trump traitors killed and seriously injured those defending our Capitol, our Temple of Liberty, while looking for lawmakers to execute? Did you see the bundles of Zip-Cuffs? How about those pipe bombs? Did you see the traitors take down the American Flag at the Capitol and hoist a Trump flag in its place? That wasn't Iwo Jima, folks. That was treason.

 

The right is always playing the victim, too. Ordinary Christians are not going to be persecuted because of the actions of extremist Christian groups. Maybe right-wingers are afraid people will act like them, Christian nationalists, callously and violently persecuting ordinary Muslims because of the actions of Muslim extremists. And then there are the childish claims of censorship. Free Speech is not a right in the private sector. Social Media companies are publishers. They can determine what they allow to be published. They have finally clamped down on the pathological lying, the disinformation, the conspiracy theories, and the hate-speech. Good on them.

 

Lastly, the yearly flu epidemic never came this year because of the COVID-19 mitigations. The CDC reported that, as of January 30, there have been just 1,316 positive flu cases in its clinical surveillance network since September. Around this time last year, it had logged 129,997 cases. Mask up. Wash. Distance. Play outdoors. 

 

James Veverka
Tilton